Midday Roundup: France mourns victims, hunts terrorists

Day of fear. Paris subway trains stood still and the city fell to silence at noon local time today to honor the victims of Wednesday’s terror attack at a newspaper office. Twelve people died in the shooting at the office of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that had mocked the Prophet Muhammad and Islamic extremists. Police have apprehended one of the three suspected attackers, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad. Brothers Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, both French nationals in their 30s, remain at large. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the Kouachi brothers were known to France’s intelligence services. Cherif Kouachi was convicted of terrorism in 2008 for being involved in a network sending radical fighters to Iraq. Tensions remain high in France, where two bombings and one shooting have occurred since the Charlie Hebdo attack. No one was injured in the two bombings near mosques, but a police officer died in the shooting on the southern edge of Paris. It’s unknown whether that incident was related to Wednesday’s terror attack.

Papal screening. The Vatican today hosted a screening of the film Unbroken, after which director Angelina Jolie met Pope Francis and received a rosary from him. The film tells how Olympian Louis Zamperini became a World War II prisoner of war, enduring brutal abuse at the hands of his Japanese captors. The movie does not tell how Zamperini became a Christian at a Billy Graham Crusade after the war and went on to lead many others to faith in Christ. “To be invited to screen Unbroken at The Vatican is an honor and a tribute to Louie’s legacy as a man of faith and someone who exemplified the power of forgiveness and the strength of the human spirit,” Jolie said in a statement, according to E! News. “These are universal themes at the heart of the human experience everywhere.” The Pope did not attend the screening, but met with Jolie and two of her daughters briefly afterward.

Chain reaction. Two people died in an 18-car pileup in whiteout conditions in Western Pennsylvania on Wednesday. Timothy Floravit, 35, of Beaver Falls, Penn., and Leonard Mink, 67, of Nancy, Ky., both died after exiting their vehicles. Floravit was looking for his children, who had been ejected from the vehicle. They were later found unharmed. It was about 10 degrees outside and blowing snow when the crash happened. Several others involved in the accident received non-life-threatening injuries.

Rough seas. Divers trying to retrieve the black boxes from the wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 in the Java Sea have encountered strong currents and blinding silt. The Indonesian government might try to raise the tail so the flight data and cockpit voice recorders can be retrieved. The Dec. 28 disaster killed 168 people onboard the plane. Bad weather is believed to have contributed to the crash, whose main cause remains unknown.

Fan favorites. The People’s Choice Awards lauded pop culture’s favorite actors, actresses, and singers Wednesday night. TV’s The Big Bang Theory won several awards, including Favorite TV Show and Favorite TV actress, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting. Actress Betty White won Favorite TV icon, and actor/director Ben Affleck won Favorite Humanitarian for founding the Eastern Congo Initiative.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.