“Second copy of Declaration of Independence discovered”

A second parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence has been found. In England, of all places. It's a remarkable discovery, because the only other parchment manuscript copy of the historic document is housed behind glass at the National Archives in Washington, DC. You see, most copies of the Declaration of Independence are just that -- copies. Danielle Allen and Emily Sneff, researchers from Harvard, presented their findings last week at Yale University, found this parchment manuscript in a records office in Sussex County, England. So they're calling it The Sussex Declaration. "Up until now, only one large-format ceremonial parchment manuscript was known to exist," Allen said. “This one was produced a decade later.” Both versions measure 24 by 30 inches, although unlike the official one the Sussex copy is oriented horizontally. The list of signatories in "The Sussex Declaration" is not grouped by states. It supports the notion that the Declaration's authority rested on one united people, not a collection of states. John Hancock's signature is more prominent on the official Declaration, while on the Sussex copy all the signatures are the same size. The scholars determined the parchment was definitely written in the US, mostly likely in New York or Philadelphia. It is believed that the Third Duke of Richmond -- known for his support of Americans during the Revolution -- could have originally owned the document. It is unclear, however, when and how the parchment reached the UK.

In Other News Arkansas put to death two men Monday night in the first back-to-back executions in the United States since 2000. Jack Harold Jones and Marcel Wayne Williams were among eight inmates set for execution in April before the state's supply of a lethal injection drug expires at the end of the month. The compressed timeline set off a series of last-minute challenges from inmates challenging the state's lethal injection protocol. The Arkansas Supreme Court and the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals denied requests for stays from Jones and Williams earlier Monday, as did the US Supreme Court. Brennan Agranoff is a 17-year-old with a lot on his plate. The high-school junior balances homework with another full-time job he's had since he was 13: He's founder and CEO of HoopSwagg, a custom socks startup. HoopSwagg isn't just a little project on the side for this teenager. In four years, Agranoff has grown his idea to make custom-design athletic socks into a profitable online-only business with annual sales of more than $1 million. Agranoff's lightbulb moment came in 2013 at a high-school basketball game, where he noticed most kids were wearing the same plain Nike athletic socks. If these simple socks started such a craze, he wondered: What would happen if he kicked things up a notch and printed custom designs on them? Fast forward four years, and HoopSwagg now offers more than 200 original designs created by Agranoff himself. The company is now shipping 70 to 100 orders a day, with each pair of socks priced at $14.99.