Letters

In many churches this weekend, religious leaders will extol the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in anticipation of Monday's federal holiday in his honor. Some will quote from his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Others will invoke a letter he wrote while in an Alabama jail four months earlier.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has asked the federal government to review its immigration enforcement priorities, warning that work-site raids on "non-exploitative" businesses could have "severe and lasting effects" on the local economy.

An elderly man who wrote in a letter to the editor about Saddam Hussein's execution that "they hanged the wrong man" got a visit from Secret Service agents concerned he was threatening President Bush. A Secret Service spokesman said it was the agency's duty to investigate Dan Tilli, 81, who the agents decided was not a threat.

THE year was 1915. War and privation had come to Germany. Meanwhile, in Berlin, a solitary man struggled with the equations for a new theory of gravity. "I have been laboring inhumanly," Albert Einstein, then 36, wrote to a friend in his native German. "I am quite overworked."

A primary-school caretaker has been charged in connection with a series of letter bombs sent to offices in Britain, police said. Miles Cooper, 27, faces charges of 12 offenses under explosives and assault laws. Nine people were injured in seven letter bomb attacks, police said. The last three drew national attention.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has put his personal diplomatic clout on the line to end the bloodshed in Darfur, demanding a cease-fire and fresh peace talks in a letter to Sudan's president, U.S. and Sudanese diplomats said Saturday. Ban has asked the Security Council to hold off on sanctions to give President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir time to respond to an all-out diplomatic drive outlined for the first time in the confidential letter, which was delivered Friday.

They don't seem like much at first glance, the two boxes of yellowing letters sitting amid the shelves of aged leather-bound volumes. But the 274 epistles have unlocked two decades' worth of mysteries about the years of correspondence between author Flannery O'Connor and longtime friend Elizabeth "Betty" Hester.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss took the unusual step of sending a letter to season-ticket holders Friday that expanded on brief written statements he had dispatched since Kobe Bryant initially began demanding a trade almost three weeks ago. In the letter, Buss said he wanted to address "overriding concerns or questions of the basketball side of the Lakers organization." Buss has owned the Lakers since 1979 and has rarely, if ever, addressed season-ticket holders in such a way.

In a historic overture to China and its estimated 12 million Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday urged the Communist-sanctioned church and its underground counterpart to unite while also suggesting that the Vatican was prepared to end a half-century diplomatic rift with Beijing. The pope was firm in denouncing restrictions placed on Catholics in China and reasserted his authority by insisting that Chinese bishops, priests and worshipers be loyal to Rome.