By MICHAEL COLLINS, Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON -- It's not God, guns or gays that Dave Christensen hears about when he talks to his friends and neighbors about this year's presidential campaign.

WASHINGTON -- When it comes to energy and the environment, there's a lot for activists on both sides of the debate to like and to loathe about the proposals offered by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

WASHINGTON -- All major railroads would be required under new legislation in Congress to install a collision-prevention system that experts have said could have averted last week's deadly train crash in California.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- While most Americans will be paying attention to what happens on the stage, Mike Miller will be closely watching what happens behind the scenes at the Republican National Convention.Miller is responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly at the four-day gathering in which Republicans will nominate John McCain as their candidate for president.

AURORA, Colo. -- Boyd Richie is one Texan who'll be delighted when a certain Texan from Crawford is no longer living in the White House.He also wants to set the record straight about George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON -- As you zip down the highway at 70 mph, remember that your lead foot will cost you at the pump in these days of $4-a-gallon gas.Some lawmakers in Congress have certainly considered the consequences of your driving habits. And they want you to slow down.

WASHINGTON -- Fish farms could be allowed to operate for the first time in federal ocean waters under a Bush administration proposal that critics say is a blatant attempt to bypass Congress and set up a marine program that lawmakers have been reluctant to approve.

WASHINGTON -- Patrick James was hours away from burying his 10-year-old daughter when he started to learn some disturbing things about her death.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. has heard cell phones go off at funerals, in movie theaters and in restaurants."There's a place for cell phones and there's a place not for cell phones," said Duncan, R-Tenn.One place where cell phone use should not be allowed, he said, is on board airplanes that are in flight.

For all of the respect and adulation he commands, Pope Benedict XVI remains a mysterious figure to many Americans.So when the pontiff sets foot on U.S. soil next week for the first time since he became leader of the Roman Catholic Church, he will be something of a papal paradox.