Martin Luther King Jr., Hero

I had the privilege of being part of this man's magic when I heard him speak in 1962, while I was in college in North Carolina. There -- in a segregated city where whites used one toilet and "coloreds" another, where the largest hospital admitted blacks only to windowless basement rooms -- the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in a single afternoon, welded into one thousands of people, black and white.

In his superb speech in Tucson, Ariz., Wednesday evening, Barack Obama did great service to the nation. He put to rest the libel that political incivility is responsible for the Tucson shootings. He did so with three words that he added to the written text: "It did not."

Florida senators held the first in a series of meetings Monday dealing with illegal immigration, with the goal of crafting legislation that will help the state enforce immigration laws and reduce social costs.

Attempting to connect invisible dots to link Sarah Palin and Jared Loughner, leftist conspiracy theorists continue to suggest that right-wing mayhem is on the loose.

Taking up Senate President Mike Haridopolos’ call to make Medicaid reform within Florida a priority, Senate leaders held a freewheeling discussion Wednesday with health care providers, insurers and patients in the first step toward comprehensive legislation.

Congress spent the week preparing for its more-than-month-long recess by finally passing the extension of the federal unemployment benefits. This $34 billion bill was passed in the Senate on Tuesday, just minutes after the newest senator from West Virginia was sworn in as the 100th United States senator for the 111th Congress.