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• And this summer, there haven't been any.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's challenge in the art of connecting with an audience has always been to meet the high expectations. For challenger Mitt Romney it has been to exceed the low ones.
• Their party conventions now over, both men are entering the high-speed flat track ahead of them with new vigor. The two have their own distinctive alchemy with their crowds -- Obama with his lectern-grabbing riffs and his "love-you-backs" and Romney with his jeans-clad informality in a ramrod frame.
• They're not comparable. But each man, in his own way, heads into the final weeks of the campaign newly energized.
• A look at their recent days on the trail.
• ____
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The watchdog for U.S. spending in Afghanistan says lax accountability in a $1.1 billion program supplying fuel to the Afghan National Army needs "immediate attention" before control of the program is turned over to the Kabul government in less than four months.
• There's no proof the fuel is actually being used by Afghan security forces for their missions, meaning it's not known how much some fuel has been lost, stolen or diverted to the insurgency, according to a report released Monday by Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction John F. Sopko.
• The report is the latest bad news surrounding a key element of the U.S. exit strategy for Afghanistan. Washington has spent billions of dollars on the international coalition's effort to train and equip Afghan forces it hopes eventually will be able to fight the Taliban on their own. The new report comes on top of growing questions in recent weeks about how recruits are vetted for the Afghan forces -- questions prompted by a spike in insider attacks in which Afghan soldiers, police or impersonators have killed 45 international service members this year, mostly Americans.

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