Draft of Famous MLK Letter to Go Up for Auction

A draft of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” is scheduled for auction in New York on Thursday and could fetch a value of as much as $15,000, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. It will be among more than 500 items going on the auction block during the Swann Auction Galleries’ Printed & Manuscript African Americana sale. The 1963 letter is one of the most famous writings of the Civil Rights years and only five other known drafts are in existence, says the AJC. It was written on scraps of paper by King while he was jailed during the Birmingham protests, but was later published in newspapers and magazines and drew attention to the Civil Rights struggle.

UK Packs Up to Officially Leave the European Union in Brexit Trigger

The British envoy to the European Union has delivered a letter to the European Council on Wednesday, beginning the formal divorce of the United Kingdom from the EU, nine months after the nation voted to leave the group of nations. It means that the UK. has started a two-year negotiating process to eliminate the decades long link between itself and its neighboring countries. “Today the government acts on the democratic will of the British people,” Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers in the House of Commons, adding, “This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.”  Voters in the U.K. decided 52 to 48 percent to exit the EU as the result of a campaign from fringe right and populist politicians and fueled by anti-immigrant sentiments throughout the country.

Suspect rams car into Capitol Hill police cruiser

A woman who authorities described as “erratic” struck a U.S. Capitol police vehicle Wednesday morning and was taken into custody. Shots were fired during the exchange, although it is not clear if the suspect had a weapon. As police attempted to stop her, she made a U-turn and fled, nearly striking officers and striking at least one other vehicle, Capitol Police spokeswoman Eva Malecki said, according to the Associated Pres. A brief pursuit followed before the woman was stopped. She said, the incident “appears to be criminal with no nexis to terrorism.”

Trump Declines to Throw Out Baseball Season’s First Pitch

The Washington Nationals say that President Trump has turned down an offer from them to throw out the ceremonial first pitch of the 2017 baseball season, breaking a 107-year-old tradition dating back to President William Howard Taft. A spokesperson for the Nationals said that the president would not be at the game between the team and the Miami Marlins next Monday due to a scheduling conflict. President Barack Obama threw the ceremonial first pitch at the Nationals’ opener in 2010, marking the 100th anniversary of a presidential pitch to start the season.


With reporting by AP