In a rare move, President Barack Obama planned a break in the middle of his Martha's Vineyard vacation to return to Washington on Sunday night for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden and other advisers on the United States military campaign in Iraq and tensions between police and protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, according to The Associated Press.
The White House has been cagey about why the president needs to be back in Washington for those discussions, though he's received multiple briefings on both issues while on vacation, the AP reported.
The White House had also already announced Obama's plans to return to Washington before the U.S. airstrikes in Iraq began and before the shooting of a teen in Ferguson that sparked protests, according to the AP.
Part of the decision to head back to Washington appears aimed at countering criticism that Obama is spending two weeks on a resort island in the midst of so many foreign and domestic crises, although his 2013 vacation was also cut short after only eight days, the AP reported.
So far, Obama has made on-camera statements Iraq and the clashes in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, according to the AP. He also called foreign leaders to discuss the tensions between Ukraine and Russia, as well as between Israel and Hamas.
Obama is scheduled to return to Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday and stay through next weekend, the AP reported.
Obama's vacation has also been infused with a dose of politics and he has headlined a fundraiser on the island for Democratic Senate candidates and attended a birthday party for Democratic adviser Vernon Jordan's wife, where he spent time with former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to the AP.
Just as Obama was arriving on Martha's Vineyard, an interview with the former secretary of state was published in which she levied some of her sharpest criticism of Obama's foreign policy, the AP reported.
Clinton later promised she and Obama would "hug it out" when they saw each other at Jordan's party, according to the AP.
