West Palm Beach | August 20

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will leave the campaign trail to go to Hawaii this week to visit the ailing grandmother who helped raise him, an aide said on Monday. "Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious," said Obama aide Robert Gibbs.

Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who will be 86 on Sunday, helped raise him along with his mother, Ann Dunham, and his grandfather, Stanley Dunham. Gibbs would not discuss the nature of her illness.

The candidate is canceling events in Madison, Wisconsin, and Des Moines, Iowa, that had been scheduled for Thursday. He instead will go to an event in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Thursday, then fly to Hawaii to see his grandmother. He will return to the campaign trail on Saturday, Gibbs said.