Scroller: z-index not working, <p> tag disappearing

I just uploaded the News Scroller to Joomla and am happy with it, but I'm hitting some snags with its styling.

To start, I copied the CSS from the example that starts with "Lisa Carol..." from this demo page: http://joomla15.sakic.net/ajax-scroller-2/

I copied over my correct module id and adjusted the width and height in  .mContainer and .Scroller div to match my module. When I put in an image at that size -- and an image only -- it scrolls correctly.

However, when I add text and a title, I run into two problems:

• In the article, if the text is before the image, in the scroller it bumps the image to the right of the text instead of having the text layer over it. If the text is after the image in the article, it simply does not appear in the scroller. I also noticed that while there's a <p> tag around the text in the article, it disappears from the source code, so in this case it's not connecting with its intended style.
• I turned title display on in Joomla administration, and added a high z-index to the title in the CSS. However, the title also pushes the image to the right instead of layering over it. In this case, the title is connecting with its CSS (other changes I make apply correctly), but the z-index doesn't seem to be working.

To make the Scroller not strip your tags, set the "Strip tags" to No and set "Char limit" to 0 (no limit).

If text is not layered over the image it's up to CSS, you must position it correctly with absolute position.