French newspaper office torched after latest edition mocks sharia law

The offices of Charlie Hebdo, one of the more insolent of France’s satirical weeklies, were a charred mess early Wednesday, soon after copies of its latest edition mocking sharia, or Islamic law, hit the newsstands. The front page of the broadsheet featured the Prophet as a bug-eyed, bearded man – named as its so-called guest editor-in-chief – saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.” Police were investigating reports that two men were seen throwing firebombs or Molotov cocktails at the building. The paper’s website also was hacked, at one point showing only the picture of a mosque with the words “no god but Allah” before appearing only as a blank page.