AP - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took a day off the campaign trail Sunday in Chicago, attending a neighborhood barbecue with his family.

AP - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain attended church Sunday and later visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in his hometown.

Politico - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico.

AP - John Kerry says Republican John McCain doesn't have the judgment to be president.

AP - There's a great unknown about Sen. John McCain's health plan: How many employers would drop insurance coverage for their workers because of his tax policies?

AP - President Bush and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stood united Monday on issues like Iran and North Korea. But for all their handshakes and smiles, it is clear that thorny issues like missile defense are in a holding pattern until a new U.S. president takes office.

AFP - US President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had "fierce" arguments at last year's Group of Eight summit, Japan's then premier Shinzo Abe said Sunday.

AP - Democrats bent on showing they can govern and Republicans anxious about a sour re-election climate are pushing a pared-down summer agenda in Congress. Lawmakers want to try to save homeowners from foreclosure, avert Medicare cuts and give the government power to spy on suspected terrorists.

AP - Home foreclosures will keep rising next year no matter who is elected president in November.

Politico - An independent-expenditure arm of the Republican National Committee has begun a 10-day, $3 million ad campaign in swing states attacking Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as “just the party line.”

AP - John McCain calls himself an underdog. That may be an understatement. The GOP presidential candidate trails Democrat Barack Obama in polls, organization and money while trying to succeed a deeply unpopular fellow Republican in a year that favors Democrats.

AP - Barack Obama celebrated "active faith" as an obligation of religious Americans and a chief agent of societal change while speaking Saturday to a nearly all-black roomful of churchgoers, but hoping to reach far beyond them.

AP - TITLE: "Balance."

AP - There's a great unknown about Sen. John McCain's health plan: How many employers would drop insurance coverage for their workers because of his tax policies?