Obama leaving campaign trail to visit grandmother

Barack Obama’s campaign schedule has been rearranged so that he can travel to Hawaii to spend time with his gravely ill grandmother.
   
A campaign spokesman says Madelyn Payne Dunham was released from the hospital late last week and her health has deteriorated “to the point where her situation is very serious.“ Dunham, who is 85, helped raise Obama.
   
Campaign stops planned for Madison, Wisconsin and Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday will be replaced with one in Indianapolis before he takes off for Hawaii.
   
Obama’s wife, Michelle, will sub for him at Friday rallies in Akron and Columbus in Ohio. Obama’s expected to resume campaigning on Saturday, at an undecided location in the West.
   
Obama last visited Hawaii in August, when he spent a week on vacation after he had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination.