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• SEATTLE (AP) -- In a rare face-off on foreign policy, President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney are swapping sharp criticism but exposing few clear policy differences on key national security matters.
• For Romney, who seeks to boost his foreign policy credentials as he begins a high-stakes trip abroad, a lack of specific proposals has exposed him to a flurry of criticism from Obama and his surrogates. Just over three months from Election Day, the president's team has dug in on its efforts to cast the Republican as a national security lightweight while trying to capitalize on Obama's strength on such issues.
• Following Romney's speech Tuesday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars conven

tion, Vice President Joe Biden said Romney "reflexively criticizes the president's policies without offering any alternatives."
• "When he does venture a position," Biden said, "it's a safe bet that he previously took exactly the opposite position and will probably change his mind again and land in the wrong place -- far out of the mainstream."
• Romney's campaign has swatted away that criticism, but it's also shown few signs that the presumptive GOP nominee will offer more specific areas of contrast with Obama when he meets with world leaders overseas. Instead, Romney has continued with broad jabs casting Obama as a timid leader.
• ___

• DENVER (AP) -- Firearms sales are surging in the wake of the Colorado movie theater massacre as buyers express fears that anti-gun politicians may use the shootings to seek new restrictions on owning weapons.
• In Colorado, the site of Friday's shooting that killed 12 and injured dozens of others, gun sales jumped in the three days that followed. The state approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm -- 25 percent more than the average Friday to Sunday period in 2012 and 43 percent more than the same interval the week prior.

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