PASSAGES

Veteran CBS News correspondent Robert Schakne is taking early retirement and probably will leave CBS at the end of July, ending a 33-year career there that includes coverage of the Viet Cong Tet Offensive of 1968 during the Vietnam War. Schakne, 62, has been based in Washington for 12 years. He said Wednesday that CBS News president Howard Stringer asked him to stay, but after considering the network’s early-retirement plan, “I finally bit the bullet” and told Stringer he was retiring.