Republican candidate John McCain faces the daunting task of trying to square his long history of advocating corporate and financial deregulation - the sort of loose controls many blame for the turmoil on Wall Street. Senator McCain now says more controls are needed to prevent a repeat of the turmoil that sent the stock market plunging, as he tries to recover from a damaging series of gaffes regarding the unfolding crisis.

My first date with a prostitute would be at a bowling alley in west Broward. We could talk about whatever she wanted. Do whatever she felt like doing. As long as it didn’t involve anything even close to sex.

While Senator McCain has not called for a full privatization of Social Security, he has supported the concept of allowing individuals to invest part of their payroll taxes in stock and bonds. But the idea has taken on a new air of political vulnerability because of the upheaval on Wall Street, which Senator Obama has sought to seize on.

As John McCain worked his way through Florida and Ohio this week as the Republican presidential nominee, he was a candidate transformed. He unsmilingly raced through a series of relatively brief speeches, reading often from a teleprompter, and served up a diet of the kind of sound-bite attacks that he used to dismiss with an eye roll.

A Florida judge has deemed unconstitutional a law banning saggy pants that show off the wearer’s underwear. The law was approved by Rivers Beach voters in March after supporters of the bill collected nearly 5,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

A Florida woman trying to flee Baker County Sheriff’s deputies accidentally ran over herself Sunday afternoon. Police say she first tried to hit a deputy and then lost control and hit a lawn mower.

A man in the back seat next to the victim laid his handgun in his lap while he typed a text message. The victim grabbed the gun and shot that person, then shot one of the people in the front seat.

The absence of heavy fire directed at Gov. Palin had been expected, given a reluctance by Senator Clinton to turn her campaigning into a battle between two women. Yet advisers to Senator Obama said Mrs. Clinton was nonetheless their best surrogate to counter the Republican ticket’s new drive to win over her former supporters.

The fake money came to light when one child tried to pay for lunch. A cafeteria worker marked the note, and it didn’t react to the marker. She then alerted the dean of students, who found out that several students had fake $20 bills.

With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Senator Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Senator Obama’s aides said they were counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to rebut Ms. Palin — and, by extension, Mr. McCain.