by Julie Pace

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Weighing his words carefully on a fiery political issue, President Barack Obama said Aug. 14 that Muslims have the right to build a mosque near New York’s Ground Zero, but he did not say whether he believes it is a good idea to do so.

HOSTS IFTAR DINNER—President Barack Obama hosts an iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast for Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, Aug. 13.

Obama commented during a trip to Florida, where he expanded on a Friday night White House speech asserting that Muslims have the same right to freedom of religion as everyone else in America.

The president’s statements thrust him squarely into a debate he had skirted for weeks and could put Democrats on the spot three months before midterm elections where they already were nervous about holding control of the House and maybe even the Senate. Until Friday, the White House had asserted that it did not want to get involved in local decision-making.

1791—Benjamin Banneker wrote a letter to Secretary of State (later president) Thomas Jefferson denouncing slavery. In his letter, Banneker declared, “I freely and cheerfully acknowledge that I am of the African race” and then preceded to label America’s recently achieved freedom from England a “hypocrisy” as long as Blacks continued to suffer under “groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” Banneker was a Black activist against slavery even though he is generally recognized for his mathematical achievements, designing one of the first clocks made in America and laying out the nation’s capital after Pierre L’Enfant abandoned the job.

EDITH SPURLOCK SAMPSON

Schlessinger said on her website Aug. 11 that she was wrong in using the word for what she called an attempt to make a philosophical point.

I WAS WRONG—Dr. Laura Schlessinger poses during her morning talk show in her Los Angeles studio.

PASADENA, Calif. (AP)—School has long since started for the day when Jose Ramirez pulls up to a small bungalow and yells out to a tardy student. Anthony Gonzalez limps to the door, shirtless with a head of bed-tousled hair.

“It’s after nine, man, you got to be in school,” Ramirez tells the 19-year-old, who dropped out of school after a gang shooting four years ago left him paralyzed on one side. Ramirez helps pull a T-shirt over Gonzale’s frozen arm and playfully scolds him.

TOUGH LOVE—Anthony Morris, 27, top, a chaser and security guard at the Learning Works! Charter School, and Edgar Rodriguez, 17-year-old high school dropout, joke around during their lunch break in Pasadena, Calif., July 21.