MANSFIELD, Ohio (AP) — President Barack Obama squeaked out a fundraising victory over Mitt Romney in August as the candidates gear up for the final stretch of their closely contested campaign. Obama raised more than $114 million, while Romney topped $111 million, according to numbers the rival campaigns released Monday. It's the first time in four months that the Democrats have raised more than Republicans. It's also a sharp increase for the president, who raised $75 million in July.

BOSTON (AP) — Health care grabbed the spotlight Sunday with less than two months until Election Day in the deadlocked race. Mitt Romney said he would retain some popular parts of the new health care law he has pledged to repeal, while President Barack Obama focused attention in all-important Florida on the Republican ticket's stand on Medicare, an issue that's been more favorable to Democrats.

MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama says Mitt Romney and running mate Paul Ryan get a failing grade on explaining how they'd pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts. The two Republicans were asked separately on different Sunday morning talk shows what loopholes they'd close to pay for their tax proposal but neither was willing to give specifics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who promised early in his campaign to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, says he would keep several important parts of the overhaul. "Of course there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place," he said in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage."

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama is drawing fresh attention to Medicare in all-important Florida, seizing on an election-year issue that's been more favorable to Democrats. Campaigning for a second day in a state where older voters and workers approaching retirement hold sway, Obama was expected to highlight a study by a Democratic leaning group that concluded that on average a man or woman retiring at age 65 in 2023 would have to pay $59,500 more for health care over the length of their retirement under Mitt Romney's plan.

SEMINOLE, Fla. (AP) — Eager to change the subject after a dismal jobs report, President Barack Obama tried to rekindle some of the enthusiasm of his 2008 campaign Saturday with a bus tour through a must-win swath of Florida, urging supporters not to "buy into the cynicism that somehow the change we fought for isn't possible." Republican Mitt Romney wasn't about to stop hammering Obama over the weak economy, though, as the two sides jostled over who can best salve the anxieties of the middle class. Obama, speaking to a crowd of 11,000 at the Seminole campus of St. Petersburg College, gave Floridians a populist plea not to "turn away now."

SEMINOLE, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday pronounced Republicans "dead wrong" for calling America a country in decline, offering a rebuttal to the "naysayers" who drew attention to the nation's staggering debt and anemic job growth. Republican rival Mitt Romney said there's nothing wrong that a new president can't fix. Both clawed for advantage in a post-convention push through some of the most closely contested states, Obama on a Florida bus tour, Romney rallying in Virginia, opening the homestretch to the election in less than two months.

SEMINOLE, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday pronounced Republicans "dead wrong" in calling America a country in decline, offering a rebuttal to the "naysayers" who drew attention to the nation's staggering debt and anemic job growth. Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney clawed for advantage in a post-convention push through some of the most closely contested states that marked the opening of the homestretch of the tight race.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Finally, the fall season offers the matchup sure to attract the biggest audience of the campaign: President Barack Obama goes one-on-one with Republican rival Mitt Romney in three prime-time debates. Typically the top political draw in the final sprint to Election Day, the debates assume outsized importance this year with the race a dead heat. The two polished candidates will have their sound bites and rhetoric down cold so any slip or inadvertent move — like President George H.W. Bush's exasperated glance at his watch or Democrat Al Gore's repeated sighing — could roil the campaign for days and linger in voters' mind until Nov. 6.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Americans debate whether they are better off now than they were four years ago, there is another question with a somewhat easier answer: Are you safer now than you were when President Barack Obama took office? By most measures, the answer is yes.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney, their contest defined anew by joblessness, are seeking to frame the campaign on their own terms. Romney was concentrating on the economy while Obama sought to play to his strengths, with top aides all but daring their challenger to engage in a debate over Medicare. Obama was kicking off a two-day bus tour in Florida on Saturday, campaigning in a state with the highest elderly population and an unemployment rate of 8.8 percent, higher than the national average. Romney was on his way to high-stakes Virginia, where low unemployment and a Republican governor serve to make his case for change.

DENVER (AP) — Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says the federal government shouldn't interfere with states that have legalized medical marijuana. The Wisconsin congressman tells KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs that he personally doesn't approve of medical marijuana laws. But he says that states should have the right to choose whether to legalize the drug for medical purposes.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A dismal new snapshot of jobs in America shadowed the presidential campaign on Friday, testing the voter patience that will save or sink President Barack Obama's re-election bid. Seizing on the timing, Republican Mitt Romney said Obama's convention party had given way to quite a "hangover." Employers added just 96,000 jobs in August, not nearly enough to seriously dent unemployment, let alone inspire confidence that the economy is getting better. Even the good news — the unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent to 8.1 percent — resulted from many job-hunters just giving up.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Clint Eastwood said the idea to use an empty seat as a prop at the Republican National Convention was a spur-of-the-moment decision when someone backstage asked if he wanted to sit down. In his first interview since his Aug. 30 appearance at the convention to pledge support for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Eastwood told the Carmel Pine Cone that his speech was not only unscripted, it was pretty much spontaneous.