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When designers talk about clothes with "raw emotion," "desire" and "happiness," as they have since the fall shows began a month ago, you wonder what they mean. Certainly the relaxed shapes at Stella McCartney on Monday — or at Céline, Prada and Marc Jacobs — come as a happy surprise. They are not only beautiful, they are comfortable as well.

But isn't comfort often associated with food and home? Could the message in the roomier coats, formless sweaters and the exquisitely refined slob appeal of Miuccia Prada's undone tweeds be: eat, enjoy! And, while you're at it, pass the potatoes.

This is decidedly bad fashion form, a clear demerit, and I'm sure I've missed some higher point about the virtue of an expandable waistband. But it's interesting to me that these are the collections, among others, that the mavens are craving. Phoebe Philo's fluttery skirts at Céline had everyone at her show in a swoon of desire, but I thought it remarkable that Ms. Philo had engineered the skirts (and their tops) in knits — rayon, silk or wool bouclé — and without a waistband or a zipper.

You just slip them on, not unlike your sweat pants. (I've been told by a Céline production manager that the skirts, which will retail for about $1,350 in silk or rayon, will retain their shape.) To be sure, Ms. Philo and her team that worked with an Italian mill to develop the knit get technical bonus points for resolving the problem of a classically feminine style. In a woven fabric, it would have looked like nothing special, or new. But fashion that is life-enhancing, as much as figure-flattering, is surely something that Ms. Philo cares about.

So does Ms. McCartney. She and her mostly female design team have a completely unfettered approach that keeps her brand distinctive. For fall she shifts the mood away from the feminine prints and sinewy cocktail dresses of recent seasons toward pinstripes and dark flannels, a haberdasher's dream — except everything is a little off-kilter.

Lapels are exaggerated or displaced, and some looks have a swag of fabric at the side that kicks out. But despite the appearance of structure, reinforced by the pinstripes, the clothes move dynamically over the body. There's also an amusing sense that Ms. McCartney's women have occupied men's tailoring on their terms. If they want a looser fit, then so be it. Also strong were long knock-around dresses in gray knit with deep black lace hems and some roomy silk separates in a scarred wallpaper print. Ms. McCartney had lots of color in her prefall line, but she might have given more to the runway.

The latest addition to Giambattista Valli's '60s shifts and cocktail chiffon are chic parkas, mostly in creamy white. And moccasins! Chloé looked plenty comfortable, too, with its many uniformlike capes, duffle coats and jumpers, but it needed to break out of the girls' school.

In their explicitness, Riccardo Tisci's clothes for Givenchy can often make people feel uncomfortable, and I like that. We can stand to be discomfited. But in the largest sense, this very soulful collection was about home, returning to the influences of Mr. Tisci's career, like religious symbolism and subcultures. But now he has a much firmer grip on the parts. He knows what he wants. And that was coolly, if not brilliantly, conveyed in new versions of his influential sweatshirts, and dark romantic paisleys interrupted by half-undone corsets taken from the torso of a biker's jacket.

Ten of the band members had been charged last May with third-degree felony hazing for the death of 26-year-old Robert Champion, but the state attorney's office said they are adding the charge of manslaughter for each defendant. They also have charged two additional defendants with manslaughter, though they have yet to be arrested.

The second-degree manslaughter charge, which was announced during a status hearing Monday afternoon, carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

Champion died in Orlando in November 2011 after he collapsed following what prosecutors say was a savage beating during a hazing ritual. It happened on a bus parked in a hotel parking lot after Florida A&M played Bethune-Cookman in their annual rivalry football game.

Authorities said Champion had bruises on his chest, arms, shoulder and back and died of internal bleeding. Witnesses told emergency dispatchers that the drum major was vomiting before he was found unresponsive aboard the bus.

Prosecutors had originally filed felony hazing charges because the charges only required that they prove the defendants took part in a hazing that resulted in death. It didn't require them to prove who struck the fatal blows.

Two former band members whose cases were resolved last year weren't among those charged Monday. Brian Jones and Ryan Dean, have already been sentenced after pleading no-contest to third-degree felony hazing last year. Both initially pleaded not guilty.

Jones was sentenced last October to six months of community control, which strictly limits his freedom with measures including frequent check-ins with probation officials. He also was given two years of probation and required to perform 200 hours of community service.

Dean was sentenced the following month and received four years of probation and 200 hours of community service.

Judge Marc Lubet conferenced with all the attorneys involved before Monday's hearing and said in court that it was a consensus that because of a witness list that includes more than 100 people, a June trial date was unlikely.

He has set another status hearing in the case for August.

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Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower.

Mr. Biden, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, also underscored Mr. Obama's threat to use military force — if all else failed — to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

"Presidents of the United States cannot and do not bluff, and President Barack Obama is not bluffing," he said to a standing ovation from about 13,000 Aipac supporters.

Moments later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appeared by satellite from Jerusalem to say that he looked forward to thanking Mr. Obama for his support. Mr. Netanyahu said he planned to discuss with him the threats from Syria and Iran, which he said was defying diplomacy and moving closer to the "red line" with its nuclear program.

The elaborate display of harmony was a departure from some recent years, when the Aipac conference showcased tensions between the Obama administration and Mr. Netanyahu's government over issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank or how best to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.

There was some quiet grumbling among participants about the president's choice of former Senator Chuck Hagel as defense secretary. Mr. Hagel had been fiercely criticized by some Jewish groups for comments he made about the influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups. But Aipac did not take a public position on Mr. Hagel's candidacy.

And after Mr. Biden's speech, it issued a glowing statement, saying it welcomed "the vice president's strong statement that the president is not bluffing in his commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

In his last appearance before the group, soon after he took office in 2009, Mr. Biden warned that "you're not going to like this," before declaring that the Obama administration wanted Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank, as a way to jump-start peace talks with the Palestinians.

This time, Mr. Biden did not mention settlements, and he said little about the peace process, which has been paralyzed for most of Mr. Obama's presidency despite his early efforts to play peacemaker. Administration officials have played down expectations that Mr. Obama will bring bold new proposals to revive the talks when he visits Jerusalem later this month.

Instead, Mr. Biden focused his remarks on the threats to Israel, mainly from Iran. Mr. Biden cited what he said was the president's unshakeable commitment to Israel's military superiority in the region: $3.1 billion in American military aid, including $400 million to help finance the construction of the antimissile system known as Iron Dome.

In addition to reiterating Mr. Obama's pledge, made before last year's Aipac conference, not to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, he said the United States would work with Israel to isolate terrorist groups like Hezbollah that are supported by Iran.

"Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, period," Mr. Biden said.

The vice president said that there was still a window for diplomacy with Iran, but that it was closing rapidly. He also stressed that the United States had built an unprecedented international coalition to pressure Iran, helping to halt its ascendency in the region in recent years.

Mr. Netanyahu took a darker view, saying that "diplomacy has not worked" and that Iran was "running out the clock" in nuclear negotiations with major powers. He added that sanctions had also not stopped Iran from continuing its uranium enrichment activities.

"Sanctions must be coupled with the clear and credible threat of military action," Mr. Netanyahu said.

Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu spoke about the need to prevent the chaos in Syria from putting its stockpile of chemical weapons at risk. Mr. Netanyahu said the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist groups like Hezbollah.

"They're like a pack of hyenas feeding on the carcass," he said, "and the carcass isn't even dead yet."

The prime minister did not appear in person at the conference, as is his custom, because he is still enmeshed in difficult negotiations to form a new government, after his Likud Party's surprisingly weak showing in elections in January.

But Mr. Netanyahu predicted that he would have a solid government in place by the time that Mr. Obama arrived, and he said that he looked forward to showing the president "a different Israel" — the high-technology powerhouse in the Middle East with a thriving economy.

And did anybody ever pull that awful linoleum up off the kitchen floor?

That's right, you loved the apartment. You wanted to buy that apartment. But somebody else beat you to it. And who could be crankier than a spurned lover who was all set to sign a big fat check?

"Mentally, we had moved in, we had decorated, we were already throwing parties," said Isabel Davis, who fell in love with an apartment at 65th Street and Central Park West and then watched the deal fall apart. "We were devastated."

Buying a home is an obstacle course strung with emotional tripwires, especially when New York City prices are involved. So if a buyer is ready to commit to an apartment but is ultimately rebuffed, it can be difficult to quickly put the old flame firmly in the past. Months or even years later, some rejected buyers shyly acknowledge that their curiosity still sometimes gets the best of them.

"I equate this to thinking you're going to marry someone, and then the wedding doesn't happen," Brian Lewis, a broker at Halstead Property, said. "You might meet someone else, and they're probably a better fit anyway, but on those lonelier, colder nights, you Google your ex."

Michael Pitt, an assistant director of a New York television show, still keeps a casual eye on an apartment that circumstance — or more precisely, his wife — denied him about 10 years ago.

"I still walk by it, and I still tell my daughter that she almost lived there," Mr. Pitt said of a white brick building about a block from his current address on the Upper East Side.

"My daughter is sick of it," he added.

Ms. Davis and her husband, Bob, had their hearts broken twice before finally closing on a co-op last year. After the first apartment, at 50 Central Park West, slipped through their fingers, they got back out there only to find themselves in a bidding war, which they promptly lost.

"It was higher than I wanted to go, but I still go online and look at the pictures," Ms. Davis said.

But Mr. Davis was persistent. A writer and a professor, he is also a real estate enthusiast who spends about half an hour each day looking at apartments online just for fun, he said. So with the help of Mr. Lewis, their broker, the Davises finally found a place with the space and the views they wanted, and they bought it.

"I'm happy," Mr. Davis said. "But until she dies, she'll think about 50."

For some buyers, it is the inability to duplicate what they almost had that makes them crazy. For others, it is something more visceral that gets under their skin: rejection.

"You can smell it and you can taste it, but it's just not yours," said Steven Sladkus, a real estate lawyer who has encountered this sentiment not only in friends and clients, but also in himself.

Several years ago, Mr. Sladkus recounted, he put in a bid on a renovated apartment on the Upper East Side, but after some back and forth, he and the owner could not bridge a $25,000 gap.

"I was trying to be Mr. Tough Guy," Mr. Sladkus said. "I'm a lawyer; I'm a tough New Yorker. And I thought the seller was being a total pig."

Finally, he said, he gave up; but he did not exactly move on.

"I checked the listing for a while after to see if it sold, and it ended up languishing for a little while," Mr. Sladkus said happily. "It gives you a perverse sense of pleasure seeing it sit on the market. Let them go scratch; they could've had a fantastic buyer!"

The apartment eventually sold for a sum between what the buyer had asked and what Mr. Sladkus had offered, he said.

Regret and longing for deals that go poof can create heartburn not only for eager buyers, but also for their brokers. Sandy Bragar, a broker at Douglas Elliman, has been working for a year with a client who passed on an apartment she loved months ago because a contractor told her the floors were crooked. Even now, with another deal finally getting close, the specter of that first apartment still haunts the client.

"She just couldn't get it out of her head, and it became a comparison for everything else," Ms. Bragar said. "What happened in the end — and I hope it's the end, seriously — she upped her price and is getting less space."

Most buyers say the home they eventually end up with is probably the best fit for them anyhow. Both Mr. Sladkus and Ms. Davis described the result of their search as "bashert," a Yiddish word for meant to be or destiny. But not everyone is so philosophical.

Eleonora Srugo, a real estate agent at Douglas Elliman, said that two years ago, she had clients who lost out on an apartment in Midtown because of problems with their bank. Instead, they bought one just like it, in the same line of the same building, a few floors lower. Evidently, this was not close enough.

"They heard through the doorman that the person who bought it never actually moved in, so they were able to structure a deal," Ms. Srugo said. They are currently in contract to sell the apartment they have and buy the one upstairs.

"I'm happy we were able to make it happen," Ms. Srugo said. "But they're still going to take a loss."

He is sprinting toward a crowded March 17 Congressional primary, in which 16 Republicans and 2 Democrats are vying for the chance to represent a redrawn district that runs along the coast through Charleston and Hilton Head, with some Low Country farmland woven in.

Forgiveness has been Mr. Sanford's comeback theme, both in advertisements and interviews. What he has been through, he said, has made him a more compassionate — though no less conservative — candidate.

"I think you do way more soul-searching on the way down than you do on the way up," he said as he fought back tears.

The way down, in his case, was a divorce from Jenny Sanford, his wife of 21 years, ethics fines and censure by his party after he went missing for six days in 2009 to pursue a romantic relationship with an Argentine woman to whom he is now engaged.

Mr. Sanford had told his aides that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

He limped through the last year and a half of his term in disgrace, retiring to the family farm in Beaufort to work on his "inner journey," as he put it. Then the seat opened up in the Congressional district he represented in the 1990s.

Plenty of people wanted Jenny Sanford, whose personal wealth and policy savvy had allowed her to rise to a position of political influence in the wake of it all, to run for the seat. She declined. She also declined a request by Mr. Sanford to help run his campaign, something he would not comment on.

The Sanford comeback attempt is only one wrinkle in what, by all accounts, is the wildest political race in the country right now. And that is saying a lot for a state that is used to offering great political theater.

The sheer number of candidates is remarkable enough, but the people on the list bring a certain star power to the special election for a seat formerly held by Tim Scott, a Republican appointed to the Senate last year.

In addition to Mr. Sanford, the Republican field includes Teddy Turner, the schoolteacher son of the media mogul Ted Turner; two powerful legislators; a retired sheriff; and a Libertarian.

For the Democrats, the only candidates are Ben Frasier, a quirky perennial with conservative views who has run in nearly every Congressional election since 1972, and Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a businesswoman and the sister of the television host Stephen Colbert.

The political chain reaction that made the election necessary in the first place is no less cinematic.

It started in December, when Senator Jim DeMint announced that he was leaving office to run the Heritage Foundation. Gov. Nikki Haley, a Tea Party favorite, appointed Mr. Scott to the seat.

For those who appreciate the odd ways Southern politics can turn, Mr. Scott became the first black Republican elected to Congress from South Carolina in 114 years. To do it, he had to defeat Paul Thurmond, the son of Strom Thurmond, a former segregationist who fathered a child with the family's black maid.

The scrum surrounding Mr. Scott's Congressional seat is no less dramatic, at least by South Carolina standards.

If Ms. Colbert Busch makes it to the general election and faces Mr. Sanford — a situation many here see as a real possibility — there is a chance that a Democrat might retake a seat that has not been held by a Democrat since 1981 but is traditionally Democratic. In the presidential election, 58 percent of voters in the newly redrawn district voted for Mitt Romney.

"The primary is unlike any other," said Robert Oldendick, the executive director of the Institute for Public Service and Policy Research at the University of South Carolina. "The general election will be fascinating, too, but for a different reason. It could be a matter of how much resistance is there to Sanford, particularly among Republican women voters in the district."

Ms. Colbert Busch is selecting some of her issues accordingly. On Friday, she issued a statement condemning the all-male South Carolina delegation for voting against the Violence Against Women Act, especially "in light of the fact that South Carolina was recently ranked No. 2 in the U.S. for the rate at which women are killed by men."

She is using her personal story as part of her campaign, too. Divorced early in her life, she was left to raise three children. She headed back to college, then developed a career in the male-dominated international shipping business that lasted decades.

She is currently on leave from Clemson University, where she works on a wind power project.

Her mother, who raised 11 children and was left a widow after a plane crash, remains her touchstone, as do the politics of John F. Kennedy and former Senator Fritz Hollings.

"I believe we must take care of each other, all of us," she said.

The Republican field is so crowded that there is likely to be a runoff in April before the general election in May. Early polling shows that most people view Mr. Sanford as the one to beat.

As a result, he is being attacked by many candidates. Larry Grooms, a state senator who has woven his conservative Christian values into his campaign, said that the risks of going up against a candidate like Ms. Colbert Busch were too high to have anyone but what his campaign called "an airtight nominee."

Mr. Turner, who teaches at a private Charleston day school and has variously raced yachts and shot news in Moscow for CNN, which his father founded, was the first to broadcast ads in the primary. He has not let up on buying airtime, and he has said in interviews that he is more fiscally convervative than even Mr. Sanford, whose campaign has been encouraging supporters to spray-paint campaign signs on plywood to save money.

Mr. Turner, on the other hand, says he might spend as much as $500,000 on the race. He regularly finds himself distancing his political views from those of his famously liberal father.

"If I were riding Ted Turner's coattails, would I be living in South Carolina and running as a Republican?" he said.

Ms. Colbert Busch, on the other hand, is enjoying the lift from her famous relative. Her brother has mentioned her race on his late-night talk show, which is dedicated to spoofing Republicans. He held a fund-raiser for her in New York and traveled to South Carolina last week for another one in a bowling alley. A private dinner with the pair (plus a signed copy of Mr. Colbert's book) sold for $5,200.

She does not have to worry much about the primary, but the Republicans do. With so little time until the vote, and the airwaves already crowded with ads trying to portray each candidate as more of a deficit hawk than the next, many in the fight say personal contact will win the day.

The turnout is likely to be small, so even a few votes can make a big difference.

"I will probably shake several hundred hands before the day is over," Mr. Grooms said in an interview last week. "It'll be all about a ground game."