John McCain and Barack Obama have made it clear that they would pick very different kinds of justices. The results could be particularly dramatic under Mr. McCain, who is likely to complete President Bush’s campaign to make the court an aggressive right-wing force.

Inaccurate media releases by the registrar of elections warned that students registering to vote could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.

At a lunch Friday in Minneapolis, two of John McCain’s top advisers — Charlie Black, a veteran political operative, and Dan Coats, a former senator from Indiana — were extolling Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s virtues to about 150 influential evangelicals as evidence of the senator’s ideological commitments.

The case has become the focal point of a dispute between Mexico and the United States over whether some Mexicans have been denied fair trials because they were never given an opportunity to talk to a consul. A 1963 treaty requires foreigners accused of crimes to be given that opportunity.