AP - The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere.

AP - John McCain was in his favorite campaign setting, a town hall meeting, when he spotted a promising target. "I'd love to recognize you first, sir," the Republican presidential candidate said to a man in a Vietnam War veteran's hat.

AP - The request befuddled Leah Daughtry. The experienced political hand in charge of planning next month's Democratic National Convention — a self-described "black chick from Brooklyn" and ordained Pentecostal minister who keeps a Bible in her purse — didn't know what to tell the atheists.

AP - Faced with a spending cap for his fall campaign, Republican presidential candidate John McCain is aggressively spending more money than he is raising during summer months and methodically reducing his cash reserves.

AP - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama met Saturday with officials of a region of Afghanistan that has been a hotbed of Taliban and al-Qaida activity, offering his support for reconstruction and security there and throughout the country, an official said.

AFP - Republican White House hopeful John McCain said Friday that his Democratic rival Barack Obama is further to the left than the only Socialist US senator.

AP - Republican presidential candidate John McCain raised more than $21 million in June and spent nearly $26 million, the campaign reported Friday night.

AP - Just as Republican John McCain was unloading on his Democratic presidential rival Friday, he was offering warm, effusive words for once bitter foe Mitt Romney. And Romney, the mega-millionaire former Republican governor of Massachusetts, was pledging to help McCain's presidential campaign financially — and in any other way.

AP - Former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm resigned Friday from his role as GOP presidential candidate John McCain's campaign co-chairman, hoping to quiet the uproar that followed his comments that the United States had become a "nation of whiners" whose constant complaints about the U.S. economy show they are in a "mental recession."

AP - John McCain was in his favorite campaign setting, a town hall meeting, when he spotted a promising target. "I'd love to recognize you first, sir," the Republican presidential candidate said to a man in a Vietnam War veteran's hat.