(image: NBC News)
France honored the three police officers who fell in the line of duty during the violent rampage of the Charlie Hebdo killers in Paris last week. France’s highest honor, the Legion D’Honneur, was pinned to the caskets by President Hollande in a ceremony at police headquarters. In Israel, the four victims of the attack on the kosher supermarket were also laid to rest.
The lower house of the French parliament – after a minute’s silence and spontaneously breaking into the national anthem, reportedly for the first time in almost a century – voted to extend military action against ISIS in Iraq.
As fresh footage of the attack on Charlie Hebdo emerged, a new issue of the magazine is published on Wednesday as controversy continues over its cover. The cartoonist who drew the feature piece explained how the illustration came together.
I looked at Muhammad. He was crying. And then, above, I wrote ‘All is forgiven,’ and I wept,” he told a news conference. “And there it was. We had found our cover—not the one the world wanted us to make, but the one we wanted to make.
Meanwhile, with widespread debate over next steps and how to deal with a new growth of both anti-semitism and anti-Islam sentiments, Jacob Heilbrunn writes at Reuters on the dangers of a European-wide nationalist resurgence. German leaders attended a vigil organized by Muslim groups in Berlin, in part a response to recent anti-immigrant rallies, particularly in Dresden on Monday.
* WORLD * There’s already skepticism over plans for new cybersecurity measures in the US and for proposed changes governing law enforcement access to encrypted material by UK prime minister David Cameron. Trevor Timm in The Guardian writes that “banning all encryption won’t make us safer,” no matter what Cameron says.
The FT’s Dan Garrahan and guests discuss the muted media coverage of last week’s Boko Haram massacre.
Wednesday is the second day of the Pope’s three-day visit to Sri Lanka, where he has given the country its first-ever saint.
According to Nasa, the “safe flyby” of an asteroid, known as 2004 BL86, set to happen on January 26, will be the closest by an asteroid this large until 2027.
* POLITICS * In what might read at first glance as a rejected script idea for Caddyshack 3, a former bartender at a county club in Ohio was charged with threatening to poison House speaker John Boehner.
In potential presidential politics today, NJ Gov Chris Christie gave his State of the State address, with one eye clearly on the national landscape. Two other Governors who may be considering a 2016 run – Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Indiana’s Mike Pence – also delivered their annual state report card.
Meanwhile, former Governor Mike Huckabee seems to think a fruitful line of attack to promote his own possible candidacy is to criticize the First Lady for letting her daughters listen to Beyonce.
As speculation continued over a likely Mitt Romney run, Sen Rand Paul took a concrete step in that direction, hiring a new campaign manager.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton further filled out her potential campaign team while Elizabeth Warren seemed to rule out a run. Or not.
* CULTURE * Amazon announced that it had signed Woody Allen to write and direct a full series of half-hour television shows, to be available next year through Amazon’s Prime Instant Video platform.
Now you can pay ten bucks to have an envelope full of glitter mailed to someone you don’t like.
* BUSINESS * Shares in wearable camera maker Go Pro tumbled after Apple was granted a patent for a wearable camera.
The House of Representatives is on Wednesday set to pass a package of Bills making changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, covering consumer financial protection.
* SPORTS * The Brooklyn Nets’ Russian owner, Mikhail Prokhorov is exploring the sale of the team, according to Bloomberg.
* MEDIA * Most of the New York Times’ most popular items last year weren’t news stories, a significant change compared with just a year ago.
Katrina vanden Heuvel writes at the Washington Post on the legacy of Bill Moyers, who “has turned off his microphone” after 40 years on the air.
Finally, a correction from The Guardian highlighting the importance of appropriate hyphenation.
The Overnight Note 