by Glen Johnson

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP)—President Barack Obama had a simple task for his first morning on vacation: shoot over to a Martha’s Vineyard bookstore to fill out his daughters’ summer reading list and grab himself a novel.

Easier said than done.

BOOK SHOPPING—President Barack Obama, with daughters Malia and Sasha, leave the Bunch of Grapes book store in Vineyard Haven, Mass., Aug. 20, where the first family is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard.

His SUV, part of a 20-vehicle motorcade, passed through a cordon of Massachusetts State Police motorcycle officers, in a protective cocoon of Secret Service agents. Tagging along for the quick trip Friday were White House communications trucks, an ambulance and two vans full of reporters and photographers.

by Gregory Dale

WASHINGTON (NNPA) —Following the repeated use of the N-word on a recent episode of her radio talk show, Dr. Laura Schlessinger has announced that she will end her radio career at the end of the year.

CALLING IT QUITS—This Feb. 17, 1998 file photo shows Dr. Laura Schlessinger posing during her morning talk show in her Los Angeles studio. Aug. 10.

Schlessinger has said in broadcasted interviews that her decision was made in the face of tremendous criticism she has received since the show aired Aug. 10. The incident occurred when an African-American caller phoned in to seek Schlessinger’s advice about whether she should take offense to a neighbor’s racial taunting.

NEW YORK (AP)—Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent Harold Dow, who helped shape the documentary program “48 Hours” and covered the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst and the Sept. 11 attacks, has died. He was 62.

Dow died suddenly Saturday morning in New Jersey, network spokeswoman Louise Bashi said. He lived in Upper Saddle River, N.J., but it wasn’t immediately clear if he’d been at home.

HAROLD DOW

Dow had been a correspondent for “48 Hours” since 1990. His nearly 40 years with the network also included reporting for “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather” and “CBS News Sunday Morning.”

August 26

1943—In a primarily token gesture Black Chicago Congressman William L. Dawson is recommended to be the Democratic Party’s vice presidential candidate. For several years, Dawson was the only African-American in the United States Congress. He would later be joined by New York’s Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Dawson served in Congress for 27 years from January 1943 to the time he died in November 1970.

MICHAEL JACKSON