• 2017 Congolese police decapitation attacks
  • Authorities find the remains of two missing U.N. investigators—former Swedish politician Zaida Catalán and U.S. national Michael Sharp—in a shallow grave in the province of Kasaï-Central, Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Reuters) (BBC) (UN News Centre)

• Police investigate the discovery of human excrement in cans of Coca-Cola in a Northern Ireland bottling facility. None of the contaminated product left the facility. (The Guardian)

• Cyclone Debbie
  • A Category 4 severe tropical cyclone travels over the Whitsunday Islands and crosses the coast of Queensland, Australia, near the town of Airlie Beach. (ABC)
• Over the last week, a meningitis outbreak has killed at least 140 people in Nigeria. (BBC)
• All 141 people on board Peruvian Airlines Flight 112 escape when the aircraft crashes on landing at Francisco Carle Airport, Jauja, Peru. (The Aviation Herald)

• Georgia–European Union relations
  • Georgia's visa-free regime, which allows travel to most member states of the European Union, with the exception of Ireland and the United Kingdom, enters into force. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• Brexit
  • British Prime Minister Theresa May signs a letter invoking Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Its notification to the European Council tomorrow will formally begin the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. (BBC)

• A Belgian Court in Brussels declares that Delphine Boël’s case against former king Albert II of Belgium is inadmissible even though genetic testing has proved that her legal father Jacques Boël is not her biological father. (The Royal Central)
• Simone Gbagbo, the former First Lady of Ivory Coast, is acquitted of crimes against humanity. She remains in prison for a previous conviction for undermining state security. (BBC)

• Proposed second Scottish independence referendum
  • Lawmakers in the Scottish Parliament vote in favor of holding a second independence referendum for the country within two years. (Al Jazeera)
• List of executive actions by Donald Trump
  • U.S. President Trump signs an executive order undoing former President Obama's climate change policies. (BBC)

• Accounts of sightings of animals thought to resemble the extinct thylacine, the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times, prompt a search in the Far North of the Australian state of Queensland. (The Guardian)

• In association football, and as CONMEBOL qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup continues, the Argentina forward Lionel Messi is banned for four matches, five and a half hours before kickoff in his team's match against Bolivia. (BBC)