Republicans are slamming President Obama for going on a 10-day vacation amid tough economic times. Obama said he'll propose a jobs program upon returning to Washington. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry is changing the dynamics of the GOP presidential race. Guest host Tony Cox talks politics with US News & World Report's Mary Kate Cary and The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart.

There's word from Voice of America this hour that members of the Georgetown University men's basketball team and players from China's professional Bayi Rockets club have "cleared up some of their differences ... a day after they fought on a basketball court in Beijing."

According to VOA:

All indications are that Mitt Romney has a real primary fight on his hands. Long suspected as being a Republican in Name Only by many of his party's hard-core conservatives, he's faced with two rivals for the GOP presidential nomination — Rep. Michele Bachmann and Texas Gov. Rick Perry — with strong appeal to that key segment of the party.

But Romney has some critical advantages. Not the least of them is he's been a presidential candidate before, running against a politician — Sen. John McCain — who was an experienced national campaigner himself.

As the U.S. economy takes hit after hit, President Obama is taking heat for his 10-day fun-in-the-sun vacation at Martha's Vineyard that began Thursday.

From the left: Colbert I. King, op-ed writer for The Washington Post, observed: "Mr. President, Martha's Vineyard is the last place in the world you should visit. ... You simply don't have time to take time off from America."

From the right: Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist, told the Daily Beast that Obama is "acting like the rich guys he wants to raise taxes on."

Brain-eating amoebas have killed three people so far this summer. The victims include a 9-year-old Virginia boy and a 16-year-old Florida girl; both apparently became infected while swimming in warm, stagnant water. That makes the typical summer health warnings about swimmer's ear and sunburn seem mundane by comparison.

This morning in Jonesboro, Ark., Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, known as the "West Memphis Three," will reportedly appear at a surprise hearing where many outlets are reporting that they — or at least Echols and Baldwin, with some reports saying all three — will be released after spending 18 years in prison for the 1993 murders of three young boys. Echols had been sentenced to death.

A letter sent by email and snail mail urges the followers of polygamist leader and convicted pedophile Warren Jeffs to "come clean ... or you are going down with the wicked and the damned."

In the first 15 minutes or so of trading on Wall Street, the stock market — as expected — headed south. But the decline was not precipitous. After initially falling about 100 points (around 1 percent), the Dow Jones industrial average recovered some and was off only around 50 points.

The area around Phoenix was hit by its third "haboob" of the summer last evening, as strong winds sent a huge cloud of sand and dust rolling over the area.

The Arizona Republic says that "blowing dust blanketed much of the Valley ... reducing visibility to less than a quarter-mile."

Stoners and scientists alike may be stoked to learn that a startup biotech company has completed the DNA sequence of Cannabis sativa, or marijuana. But here's something that could ruin a high: The company hopes the data will help scientists breed pot plants without much THC, the mind-altering chemical in the plant. The goal is instead to maximize other compounds that may have therapeutic benefits.