President to focus on health care specifics, Biden says

Vice President Joe Biden promised Thursday that President Obama will delve into specifics when he tackles health-care reform in a highly anticipated speech to a joint session of Congress next week. The president will be “laying out in understandable, clear terms” what the administration wants for health care when he addresses Congress on September 9, Biden told an audience at the Brookings Institution.

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Muslim Women Demand an End to Oppressive Family Laws

While Western governments have been worrying about bearded men with bombs in caves, a new jihad has quietly gained strength in the Muslim world: Islamic feminism. Earlier this week, 350 women and men gathered in Malaysia to launch Musawah — “Equality” in Arabic — a movement for justice in the Muslim family. Organized by the Malaysian Muslim feminist group Sisters in Islam, the conference, two years in the planning, is a kick-off to a campaign to enshrine Muslim women’s rights within an Islamic framework.

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Despite Jewish Concerns, Obama Keeps Up Pressure on Israel

President Barack Obama has concluded that Israel and the Palestinians are unlikely to achieve peace unless they’re under external pressure to make the requisite compromises. Believing that a two-state solution is in the best interests of both parties and that time is running out for such a solution, the President is stepping up the pressure on both sides. That was Obama’s message at a White House meeting on July 13 with representatives of leading Jewish-American organizations, some of whom have lately complained that the President is unfairly pressuring Israel to make concessions on West Bank settlements, while going easy on the Palestinians.

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Will a new iPhone be announced Monday?

As Apple kicks off a much-anticipated developers’ conference Monday in San Francisco, California, much of the buzz is about the possibility of a new iPhone release. The tech company says it will discuss a new version of software for the revolutionary smartphone, which will let users copy and paste messages, search their iPhones, and write e-mails and text messages from a wide-screen view.

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