Let no one doubt New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie again. He went offscript last weekend, predicting that the narrative of the race would change Thursday morning. And lo and behold, he was right. At least for a little while, the chattering class will put a pause on all the talk about how Mitt Romney is falling behind in the polls to talk about how he managed to beat President Obama at the podium. Romney went on the offensive, forcing the president, who looked none too happy to even be there, to defend his policies. And perhaps most perplexing of all, Obama failed to mention the infamous 47-percent remark and Bain Capital, two issues that his campaign has been hammering home for months. Let’s take a look at some commentary.

Obama, like other presidents before him, “fell victim … to high expectations, a short fuse, and a hungry challenger,” writes the National Journal’s Ron Fournier. “Romney smiled and cracked jokes … Obama smirked.” It seems commentators didn’t need to watch until the end to come to that conclusion. Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith called the debate for Romney some 40 minutes in, saying the Republican’s “core success was that he won by not losing.” In Time’s Mark Halperin’s report card, it wasn’t even close. Romney got an A-, while Obama received a B-.

Although Romney may have not offered details about his plans that political junkies wanted, “someone tuning in for the first time, would surely have come away feeling that Romney was the candidate with a firm grasp of what he wanted to do and Obama the guy slightly out of his depth,” points out Bloomberg Businessweek’s Joshua Green. Indeed, writes the New York Daily News’ Joshua Greenman, Romney was “more incisive, more fluid and good-natured through it all,” and managed to be tough “without being vicious or disrespectful.”

Part of the problem was that Obama got on the wrong side of what the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza calls the “fine line between sober/serious and grim/uninterested.” He seemed to be taking on the same persona that worked for him in 2008 when he was an untested leader and was eager to prove he was ready for the job. “But now that he has been in the job for four years, Obama’s demeanor came across far less well.” The Chicago Tribune throws Obama what might be the ultimate insult, describing him as “that guy at the meeting who’s surreptitiously checking his email.”

Even Democrats were not too impressed with Obama’s debate performance. “Energy and focus all in Romney’s hands on this,” writes Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall, pointing out that even though Romney repeatedly “left himself open to wounding hits from the president,” Obama chose to “not go there.”

John Hinderaker at Power Line, a conservative blog, is veritably giddy: “It wasn’t a TKO, it was a knockout.” Romney “was the alpha male, while Barack Obama was weak, hesitant, stuttering, often apologetic.”

There were “no haymaker punches thrown and not much in the way of one-line zingers,” write Steve Holland and John Witesides at Reuters. “Romney, however, may have done himself some favors with crisper answers than Obama, who sounded professorial and a bit long-winded.” What’s undoubtedly frustrating for Democrats is that this was exactly the thing many had warned the president about before the debate.

And what seems to be, so far at least, the pretty unanimous view that Obama lost the debate may hurt him more than how he actually did at the podium. “Much worse for Obamas than the debate is the media's harsh verdict on his debate performance,” writes the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein on Twitter.

The foreclosed house for sale on the up-and-coming street pined for fresh paint and other fixes, but the Hankins family saw its potential.

Plus, at $36,000, the price was perfect for a young family trying to make ends meet in small-town Klamath Falls, Ore.

"We said, 'It needs a little bit of love, but it's got good bones,'" Jonathan Hankins recalled. "We just had no idea that those bones were poisonous."

Within days of moving in this past summer, Beth Hankins, an ER nurse, started experiencing breathing problems. Then Jonathan got migraine-like headaches and nosebleeds. By the third week, their 2-year-old son, Ezra, developed mouth sores.

"He couldn't even drink water without being in pain," said Jonathan, 32.

They were about to schedule doctor visits when a neighbor shared the bad news: 2427 Radcliffe was a former meth house.

The family ordered a $50 testing kit and had the lab expedite the results, which revealed a contamination level nearly 80 times above Oregon Heath Authority limits.

"Our walls were poisoning us," said Jonathan, who quickly moved his family to a rental home.

Buying a foreclosed house from government-sponsored Freddie Mac meant the family was informed about being responsible for detecting hazards like lead paint and asbestos, but there was no warning from real estate agents or Freddie Mac about drug activity.

Because it was being sold "as is," the couple decided to save their money and skip a traditional inspection, which would have noted superficial repairs but not the chemicals used to cook the highly addictive drug. "In the case of methamphetamine, it's an invisible toxin," Jonathan said.

Twenty-three states, including Oregon, have laws requiring sellers to disclose if a property was ever used as a clandestine drug lab. In the Hankins' case, Freddie Mac says it never knew the two-bedroom, one-bath home had a checkered past.

"We certainly empathize with the situation, but we had no prior information about the way the home had been used," Freddie Mac spokesman Brad German told Yahoo News. "If we had, of course, we would have disclosed it."

It's a Catch-22 that Joe Mazzuca of Meth Lab Cleanup, a national remediation and training company, predicts others could find themselves in. Based on national and state data, Mazzuca conservatively estimates there are 2.5 million meth-contaminated homes in the U.S. "The signs and indicators aren't always there," he said. "You don't always see the meth residue. It's extremely dangerous stuff."

His concern was echoed at a congressional hearing in August on the efforts to curb domestic methamphetamine production.

Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, head of the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy, testified that "U.S. meth lab seizure has more than doubled between 2007 and 2010, and these labs pose a major threat to public safety and the environment."

It was no secret that Mohandas Gandhi had an unusual sex life. He spoke constantly of sex and gave detailed, often provocative, instructions to his followers as to how to they might best observe chastity. And his views were not always popular; "abnormal and unnatural" was how the first Prime Minister of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, described Gandhi's advice to newlyweds to stay celibate for the sake of their souls.

But was there something more complex than a pious plea for chastity at play in Gandhi's beliefs, preachings and even his unusual personal practices (which included, alongside his famed chastity, sleeping naked next to nubile, naked women to test his restraint)? In the course of researching my new book on Gandhi, going through a hundred volumes of his complete works and many tomes of eye-witness material, details became apparent which add up to a more bizarre sexual history.

Much of this material was known during his lifetime, but was distorted or suppressed after his death during the process of elevating Gandhi into the "Father of the Nation" Was the Mahatma, in fact, as the pre-independence prime minister of the Indian state of Travancore called him, "a most dangerous, semi-repressed sex maniac"?

Gandhi was born in the Indian state of Gujarat and married at 13 in 1883; his wife Kasturba was 14, not early by the standards of Gujarat at that time. The young couple had a normal sex life, sharing a bed in a separate room in his family home, and Kasturba was soon pregnant.

Two years later, as his father lay dying, Gandhi left his bedside to have sex with Kasturba. Meanwhile, his father drew his last breath. The young man compounded his grief with guilt that he had not been present, and represented his subsequent revulsion towards "lustful love" as being related to his father's death.

However, Gandhi and Kasturba's last child wasn't born until fifteen years later, in 1900.

In fact, Gandhi did not develop his censorious attitude to sex (and certainly not to marital sex) until he was in his 30s, while a volunteer in the ambulance corps, assisting the British Empire in its wars in Southern Africa. On long marches in sparsely populated land in the Boer War and the Zulu uprisings, Gandhi considered how he could best "give service" to humanity and decided it must be by embracing poverty and chastity.

At the age of 38, in 1906, he took a vow of brahmacharya, which meant living a spiritual life but is normally referred to as chastity, without which such a life is deemed impossible by Hindus.

Gandhi found it easy to embrace poverty. It was chastity that eluded him. So he worked out a series of complex rules which meant he could say he was chaste while still engaging in the most explicit sexual conversation, letters and behaviour.

With the zeal of the convert, within a year of his vow, he told readers of his newspaper Indian Opinion: "It is the duty of every thoughtful Indian not to marry. In case he is helpless in regard to marriage, he should abstain from sexual intercourse with his wife."

Meanwhile, Gandhi was challenging that abstinence in his own way. He set up ashrams in which he began his first "experiments" with sex; boys and girls were to bathe and sleep together, chastely, but were punished for any sexual talk. Men and women were segregated, and Gandhi's advice was that husbands should not be alone with their wives, and, when they felt passion, should take a cold bath.

The rules did not, however, apply to him. Sushila Nayar, the attractive sister of Gandhi's secretary, also his personal physician, attended Gandhi from girlhood. She used to sleep and bathe with Gandhi. When challenged, he explained how he ensured decency was not offended. "While she is bathing I keep my eyes tightly shut," he said, "I do not know ... whether she bathes naked or with her underwear on. I can tell from the sound that she uses soap." The provision of such personal services to Gandhi was a much sought-after sign of his favour and aroused jealousy among the ashram inmates.

अमेरिका के वैज्ञानिकों ने नए शोध में दावा किया है कि इस बात का कोई पुख्ता सबूत नहीं है कि गर्भपात के बाद महिलाओं को मानसिक अवसाद होता ही है। वैज्ञानिकों के मुताबिक इस विषय पर आज तक कोई स्तरीय अध्ययन नहीं किया गया है। शोध के मुताबिक इस बात को साबित करने के प्रयास ज्यादातर राजनीति से प्रेरित रहे हैं।
बाल्टीमोर स्थित जोंस हापकिंस यूनिवर्सिटी के वैज्ञानिकों ने इस विषय पर पहले हो चुके 21 अध्ययनों की समीक्षा की। इन अध्ययनों में डेढ़ लाख से ज्यादा महिलाओं को शामिल किया गया था। उच्च स्तरीय इन अध्ययनों से साबित होता है कि सामान्य महिलाओं की तुलना में उन महिलाओं के मानसिक स्वास्थ्य पर कोई विशेष फर्क नहीं पड़ा जिन्होंने गर्भपात कराया था। प्रमुख शोधकर्ता डा। राबर्ट ब्लूम के मुताबिक सबसे अच्छे शोध इस बात का समर्थन नहीं करते कि गर्भपात के बाद डिप्रेशन के लक्षण उभर आते हैं। कम से कम उस तरह जैसे घाव के बाद तनाव संबंधी विकार पैदा हो जाता है। शोध टीम में शामिल विग्नेट्टा चा‌र्ल्स ने बताया कि अभी तक मिले साक्ष्यों के आधार पर कहा जा सकता है कि भावात्मक नुकसान को गर्भपात नीति बनाने के दौरान मुद्दा नहीं बनाया जा सकता। यूस सेंटर फार डिजीज कंट्रोल एंड प्रिवेंशन के एक अनुमान के मुताबिक सिर्फ अमेरिका में हर साल 12 लाख 29 हजार महिलाएं गर्भपात कराती हैं। दुनिया भर में यह संख्या लगभग 2।5 करोड़ है।
शोध में कहा गया है कि गर्भपात एक संवेदनशील
राजनीतिक मुद्दा है जिस पर प्राय: सभी देशों में कानून के आधार पर प्रतिबंध लगाने की मांग की जाती है। जिसे सही नहीं कहा जा सकता। jagran

मुम्बई.अब वो जमाना लद गया जहां हीरोइन को हीरो से उम्र में छोटा होने पर ज्यादा जोर दिया जाता था। अब तो जो बिकता है उसे हर कीमत पर बेचा जाता है। अब बिपाशा को ही चले लीजिए। मैडम का करियर इन दिनों सफलता के बुलंदियों पर है।

बिपाशा ने रणबीर कपूर और नील नीतिन मुकेश के साथ पिक्चर साइन की है। दोनों ही बिपाशा के छोटे हैं। रणबीर कपूर के साथ बिपाशा सिद्धार्थ आनंद की 'बचना ए हसीनों 'में नजर आने वाली है वही नील नीतिन मुकेश के साथ उन्होने फ्रीजी नीमक फिल्म साइन की है। इस फिल्म के डाटरेक्टर जहांगीर श्रुति हैं।

फिल्म के बारे में तो बिपाशा ने कुछ नहीं बताया। बिपाशा ने कहा कि अभी मैंने सिर्फ स्क्रिप्ट पढ़ी है। इस फिल्म के हीरो नील मुझसे 3 साल छोटे है ।

जब नील से इस बारे में पूछा गया तो वे झेप गए। नील मे कहा कि कोई भी इस बात पर ध्यान नहीं देता कि कौन बड़ा है और कौन छोटा,अगर फिल्म अच्छी हुई तो हर कोई फिल्म देखना चाहेगा।
Bhaskar

उपभोक्तावादी संस्कृति द्वारा पूरी दुनिया को अपनी चपेट में लिए जाने के बाद आज रिश्तों की परिभाषा ही बदल गई है। संबंधों से गर्माहट के साथ ही एक और मीठी सी चीज जो गायब होती जा रही है वह है, प्यार।
शायद प्यार के इसी सूखते सोते में फिर से हरा करने के लिए ही दुनिया भर में 19 जनवरी का दिन प्रेम दिवस के रूप में मनाया जा रहा है। हालांकि ऐसा नहीं है कि आप केवल 19 जनवरी को ही आई लव यू कह सकते हैं। साल के 365 दिन ऐसे होते हैं जब रिश्तों को प्यार की चुस्की की जरूरत होती है।
समाजशास्त्रियों की राय में आधुनिक दौड़भाग की जिंदगी में हर रिश्ते में से प्यार मुट्ठी से फिसलती रेत की तरह होता जा रहा है। आज न तो पति-पत्नी के पास और न ही मां बाप और बच्चों के पास इतना समय है कि वे एक दूसरे को गले लगाकर कह सकें मैं आपको प्यार करता हूं। जब कहने की ही फुर्सत नहीं है तो प्यार करने के लम्हे चुराने की कौन कहे।
पूरी दुनिया में 19 जनवरी को यह दिवस मनाया जाता है, लेकिन इसकी शुरुआत कब, कहां और कैसे हुई, इसके बारे में कोई अधिकृत जानकारी उपलब्ध नहीं है। इतना जरूर है कि लोग इस दिन अपने प्रियजनों को ग्रीटिंग का‌र्ड्स जरूर भेजते हैं।
शेल कहती हैं कि परिवार में सभी एक दूसरे को प्यार करते हैं लेकिन कभी कभार प्यार की यह भावना लफ्जों का भी आलिंगन चाहती है। ऐसे में आई लव यू के तीन शब्द रिश्तों की पौध में पानी का सा काम करते हैं और संबंधों में नई जान आ जाती है।
कुछ लोग शर्मीले स्वभाव के होते हैं तो वे शब्दों का सहारा नहंी ले पाते लेकिन ऐसे लोगों के लिए ही शायद आदम और हौवा ने भावों की भाषा गढ़ी होगी। सबसे बढि़या तरीका है कि फूलों का गुलदस्ता भेजिए और उसमें एक नोट लगा दीजिए आई लव यू का।
एक प्रतिष्ठित विज्ञापन कंपनी में आर्ट डायरेक्टर रिहालिका कहती हैं कि आप जिसे प्यार करते हैं उसके लिए थोड़ा समय निकालिए। जब वह सोए हुए हों तो अल सुबह ओस की बूंदों से भीगी गुलाब की पंखुडि़यां उनके ऊपर बिखेर दीजिए और एक शानदार नाश्ते से स्वागत कीजिए।
ऐसा नहीं है कि पति और पत्नी को ही प्यार की जरूरत है, बच्चे भी मां बाप से ऐसी ही उम्मीद लगाते हैं। रिहालिका कहती हैं कि एक क्षण के लिए अपने बच्चे की नाक से अपनी नाक रगड़ कर उसके बालों में हाथ फिरा दीजिए या उसे बांहों में लेकर घूम जाइए। इतना भर करने से उसकी किलकारियों से घर का हर कोना गूंज उठेगा और आप खुद को अपने लाड़ले या लाड़ली के अधिक करीब पाएंगे।
बच्चों की ही तरह बुजुर्ग भी प्यार के लिए तरसते रहते हैं। उन्हें इन जादुई तीन शब्दों के बजाय उनके अहसास की अधिक जरूरत होती है। इसलिए किसी गुलाबी सी शाम को अपने दादा दादी या नाना नानी का हाथ हल्के से पकडि़ए और फूलों भरे पार्क की बेंच पर बैठकर उनकी गोद में सिर रख दीजिए तो उनके लिए यही आपका आई लव यू है।
तो ज्यादा सोचिए मत। आज दुनिया को प्यार और अपनेपन की बहुत जरूरत है। इसलिए अभी तक जो नहीं किया या कहा है उसे कर डालिए और धीरे से अपने प्रिय के कान में कहिए आई लव यू। jagran

Anna Camp is having a big few weeks. The 30-year-old actress, probably best known for her extended guest-starring roles on "True Blood" and "The Good Wife," is being thrust right into the spotlight. She stars as Mindy Kaling's best friend in television show "The Mindy Project" which premiered on September 25th and as a type-A a capella captain in "Pitch Perfect," which opens on October 5th. Camp's character, Aubrey, rules her all-female singing group, The Bellas, with an iron fist and an Ace of Base tune in a quest for a national championship. She spends much of the film attempting to force newcomers Becca (Anna Kendrick) and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) to tow the party line. Camp spoke with The Huffington Post about the major release her character gets, working with Mindy Kaling and why it's so exciting to be a woman in the entertainment industry right now.

Obviously, “Pitch Perfect” is all about the a capella. Did you ever do a capella before this movie?
You know, I never did. It’s a lot harder than it looks! It takes a lot of practice.

Your character in "Pitch Perfect," Aubrey, is very buttoned-up and uptight on the surface, but sort of boiling underneath, and I’d say the same thing about your role as Sarah Newlin on "True Blood." Is that a type of part that you're drawn to?
Well, I’m from the South originally. I grew up in South Carolina definitely learning about manners and being proper and having to go to cotillions. I think once I graduated school, I was desperate to break out of that. But I think there’s that [instinct] inside of me, and that’s how I can have access to these types of women. And I just like playing [these type of characters]. I feel like they have so much going on underneath the surface that they don’t show, and as an actor it’s such a great challenge to suppress things and to play with that inner battle.

And I feel like for women particularly, there’s always kind of a pressure to push things down.
Yeah it’s that [sense of] wanting to be crazy and wild but having society’s expectations over your head. [It’s] that fight, that inner struggle that’s been going on for years with women. And I think that really well-written characters [like that] are especially interesting to watch and fun to play.

Aubrey is such an extreme character. Do you feel like she’s someone that women will relate to?
I do. I know she’s extreme and that she desperately wants to be perfect. But I think there’s a bit of that in everyone, even men. Aubrey’s identity is her success in this a capella world. [She] takes it to the next level, of course, because she’s consumed by it, but I think people can relate to wanting to be successful and being afraid of not being perfect at all times. I know I can relate to that.

So, there's a scene toward the end of the film (and one toward the beginning) where your character projectile vomits. When you saw that scene in the script what was your initial reaction?
When I read the first throw-up scene I was like, “This is awesome, I have to do this. I don’t want anyone else to do that.” And then I got to the final throw-up scene and I thought, “This is crazy. How are they gonna do this? Am I really gonna throw up? Are we gonna CGI this whole thing? Like, how is this going down?” But I just love that [Aubrey] gets that release -- literally and emotionally. Getting to just go crazy after being held so tightly the whole film was awesome.

You're also in "The Mindy Project." How has it been working with Mindy Kaling, your co-star and the brains behind the show?
It’s been great. This is her passion project. She’s so invested in [the show] and the cast and in making it a really collaborative process.

A New York label is suing Kanye West, claiming the Grammy-winning rapper illegally used portions of a 1969 song by New Orleans legend Eddie Bo on his No. 1 2010 album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

In its complaint, TufAmerica says two tracks on "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" -- "Who Will Survive in America?" and "Lost in the World" -- include a bit of "Hook and Sling, Part 1" by Eddie Bo, which TufAmerica says it bought the rights to more than 15 years ago.

TufAmerica claims West's label Roc-A-Fella paid a license fee of $62,500, but "failed and refused to enter into written license agreements that accounted for their multiple other uses of ['Hook and Sling']." The label is seeking undisclosed damages for copyright infringement.

In 2010, Kanye West was sued by musician Vincent Peters over a copyright dispute regarding similarities between West's "Stronger" and a song Peters had sent West's business associate in 2006. West's legal counsel referenced the works of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose maxim "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" is quoted in the song, and the court ruled in the rappers' favor.

TufAmerica is the same label that filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the Beastie Boys earlier this year, the day before band member Adam Yauch died of cancer. That lawsuit claimed the Beasties' 1980s albums "License to Ill" and "Paul's Boutiquet" illicitly sampled from two Trouble Funk songs TufAmerica administers.