(image: Newsday)

The funeral of Wenjian Liu, the second of two New York police officers shot and killed two weeks ago, will be held this weekend in Brooklyn. Liu is the first Chinese-American police officer to be murdered in the line of duty, and his services will include both an NYPD and a traditional Chinese ceremony. Thousands of police and other mourners are expected to attend.

With relations still strained between Mayor Bill De Blasio and elements within the police force, Commissioner Bill Bratton appealed to officers not to turn their backs during the funeral service, as happened at last week’s ceremony for Officer Liu’s partner, Officer Rafael Ramos.

Meanwhile, controversy continues to surround the significance of an NYPD “virtual work stoppage” over the New Year, amid talk that strained relations between the mayor and police may lead to the 2016 Democratic convention not coming to Brooklyn as had been suggested.

* WORLD * Washington imposed more sanctions on North Korea in apparent retaliation for its role in the recent Sony hack. Treasury secretary Jack Lew said the US had “a commitment to hold North Korea accountable for its destructive and destabilizing conduct.”

The US and Iran have reportedly reached a tentative agreement over nuclear enrichment, ahead of the next round of formal talks on January 15.

Monday sees the start of jury selection for the trial of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, with some last-minute legal wrangling over venue and a possible postponement.

Saudi King Abdullah is said to be in stable condition after being hospitalized in Riyadh for pneumonia.

* POLITICS *  Tributes continued for former New York Governor Mario Cuomo who died on Thursday aged 82. There were a couple of remarkable obituaries by EJ Dionne in the Washington Post, David Frum at The Atlantic and by Adam Nagourney at the New York Times  who wrote:

He had a pointed sense of humor. When an engine failed in a puff of smoke on a state-owned Gulfstream G-1 jet one morning with the governor aboard, he barely noticed, and kept talking about national politics until he noticed that a reporter across the way had stopped taking notes and had turned ashen. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Aren’t you in a state of grace?”

There was also a piece in the New York Post remembering how important Cuomo had been to saving that paper in the 1990s when Rupert Murdoch was able to obtain an FCC waiver to purchase the ailing publication.

* MEDIA * Today’s print edition of the New York Times listed no corrections. The Grey Lady has seen some pretty spectacular walkbacks recently, from the infamous My Little Pony instance to the correct spelling of Chewbacca’s species, which does kind of make you wonder what sort of traffic these high-profile corrections are generating, and is it remotely worthwhile to let some humorous, inoffensive tweaks slip through in order to correct them?

* SPORTS * This is FA Cup Third Round weekend, with plenty of intriguing and, yes, even romantic ties to grab the attention. At The Telegraph, Adam Hurrey tells the tale of one of the greatest of all third round giant-killings, and “the goal that launched a thousand cliches.”

This weekend is also the tenth anniversary of an infamous disallowed goal which may have the distinction of setting the course of english football towards embracing its current goal-line technology. It only took a decade and some people believe we still haven’t gone far enough, but the fact remains that until this season, the referee had a worse view of the most crucial aspect of the game than millions of people watching at home. And that couldn’t be allowed to stand.