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headed the long list of visitors who gathered outside Israel's parliament building for the ceremony. Later Monday, Sharon's body was to be taken from the Knesset to his farm in southern Israel for burial.
• "Arik was a man of the land," President Shimon Peres, a longtime friend and sometimes rival of Sharon, said in his eulogy. "He defended this land like a lion and he taught its children to swing a scythe. He was a military legend in his lifetime and then turned his gaze to the day Israel would dwell in safety, when our children would return to our borders and peace would grace the Promised Land."
• Sharon died on Saturday, eight years after a devastating stroke left him in a coma from which he never recovered. He was 85.
• One of Israel's greatest and most divisive figures, Sharon rose through the ranks of the military, moving into politics and overcoming scandal and controversy to become prime minister in his final years. He spent most of his life battling Arab enemies and promoting Jewish settlement on war-won lands. His backers called him a war hero. His detractors, first and foremost the Palestinians, considered him a war criminal and held him responsible for years of bloodshed.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans are squaring off at the Supreme Court over the president's power to temporarily fill high-level positions.
• The high court is hearing arguments Monday in a politically charged dispute that also is the first in the nation's history to explore the meaning of a provision of the Constitution known as the recess appointments clause. Under the provision, the president may make temporary appointments to positions that otherwise require confirmation by the Senate, but only when the Senate is in recess.
• The court battle is an outgrowth of the increasing partisanship and political stalemate that have been hallmarks of Washington over the past 20 years, and especially since Obama took office in 2009.
• Senate Republicans' refusal to allow votes for nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau led the president to make the temporary, or recess, appointments in January 2012.
• Three federal appeals courts have said Obama overstepped his authority because the Senate was not in recess when he acted. The Supreme Court case in

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