On Thursday afternoon, Barack Obama will sit down at a picnic table outside the Oval Office and attempt to lower tensions between Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department .

The goal of the gathering on the White House South Lawn, says presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs, is “to continue to take the temperature down a bit” in the discussion of race relations in the US triggered by Crowley’s arrest of Gates after an investigation into a suspected burglary at the professor’s home.

Next week, the President and the First Lady will host White House events celebrating the arts, innovation and creativity while at the same time encouraging outreach to students and the community. Country Music greats participating in an evening performance at the White House will also lead an afternoon educational workshop for more than 100 music students from across the country. National design award recipients of the prestigious Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt honor will attend the White House's annual luncheon hosted by the First Lady and they will also fan out across Washington, D.C.'s museums to provide free workshops for the general public.

Malia Obama on her 11th Fourth of July birthday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Obamas returned from Camp David to host a big holiday barbecue and fireworks show on Saturday evening. The event included about 1,200 military families.

A lot of people go to a bar to get away from it all. But at one new hotel bar, that’s not going to be so easy: After all, the Secret Service may be watching you.

Welcome to the newest hotel in town: the W Washington, D.C., formerly known as the Hotel Washington, which sits across the street from the Treasury Department and the White House. The W is putting the final touches on an 18-month, $100 million renovation project all in the hopes of making the hotel Washington’s premier spot to do everything from spend a night and get a facial to grab a drink and enjoy a meal. The hotel opens in July.

White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, second from left, talks with from left, actress Dana Delany, actor and Creative Coaltion co-president Tim Daly, and executive director Robin Bronk, at their annual membership meeting in New York Thursday June 18, 2009. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

NEW YORK (AP) — Stepping out in New York City to talk about culture, Desiree Rogers made one thing clear: This White House social secretary doesn't intend to stay closeted in her East Wing office for four years.

"One of the things the president and the first lady want to do is celebrate America," Rogers told The Associated Press as she arrived for an arts event Thursday evening. "So when it comes to arts and culture, we need to be out there. We need to see what people are doing."

The first family of the United States is scheduled to welcome the first family of jazz to the White House on Monday, along with 150 youngsters who'll come to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. not for a tour, but for a blue-ribbon music lesson.

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Longtime friend Sugar Rautbord, a prominent Chicago philanthropist and writer, said Rogers was a fixture on the social and business scene in Chicago and has what “certain politicians have: part glamour, part intelligence, part aloofness, part approachability.It’s a perfect combination.”

But her out-front approach to what is normally an understated staff job has raised eyebrows in certain circles — a certain tsk-tsking privately among some in the society set that she might be ever-so-slightly too out in front. Rogers’ talk in the Journal of nurturing a “Brand Obama” from the secretary’s post induced a few cringes among some who said the president should be pure Main Street, not Madison Avenue.

“My impression is that there is more public eye attached to this social secretary than ever before. White House staff tend to do their jobs quietly and then they recede,” said William Seale, author of “The President’s House.” “There is a time, within my memory, that being in the public eye would have been looked down upon as inappropriate, but times change.” more

I want to see a photo of Michelle and Desiree standing next to each other. It must have been a gloriously blinding sight! A

Most of the Cabinet spots have been filled, but there’s still one high-profile vacancy in Barack Obama’s Washington: the unpaid but hardly unsung job of D.C. power hostess.

“The first 100 days, the economy wasn’t solved and the new hostess hasn’t been identified,”says journalist Margaret Carlson, who has a knack for bringing people together herself, whether it’s with the recent The Week awards dinner that boasted White House strategist David Axelrod or just a quiet dinner for 20 at her Georgetown home in honor of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. more