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An independent panel that convened Tuesday for the first time to review deaths and serious injuries of abused and neglected children won’t have access to the state’s full case files, prompting concern among some of its members. [H-L]

The setting at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Tuesday represented the height of refinement, but Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of The Guardian, reminded the black-tie crowd at the annual dinner for the Committee to Protect Journalists of something it knew all too well: in many parts of the globe, its profession is under murderous assault. [NY Times]

The 7th Circuit Court found a specific First Amendment right to record police officers. It’s the second federal appeals court to strike down a conviction for recording police. In August 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that a man wrongly arrested for recording cops could sue the arresting officers for violating his First Amendment rights. [HuffPo]

It’s a redneck with a confederate flag and a black doll in a noose. Of course it’s racism in Kentucky. Why is there even doubt that it’s racism? [WKYT]

You will probably be just as surprised to learn as we were that John McCain still has not been put away in a retirement home somewhere in Phoenix. [Wonkette]

Quick, let’s watch everyone act surprised that Bob Stivers is the new David Williams. Meaning he keeps the same staffers, keeps the same priorities. [CN|2]

Here’s a more in-depth look at the Republicrat elections that took place in Frankfort yesterday. [Ronnie Ellis]

The discovery of microbes thriving in the salty, sub-zero conditions of an Antarctic lake could raise the prospects for life on the Solar System’s icy moons. [BBC]

This is your duh moment of the day. Jerry Abramson will not be a Democratic Senate candidate in 2014, taking on the nation’s most powerful Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. [WKYU]

The nation’s largest group of pediatricians is urging its members to write prescriptions in advance to enable teenagers to have fast access to the so-called morning-after birth control pill. [NPR]

University of Pikeville a state university? Still a terrible idea, but Stumbo’s pushing it. And that’s the headline from the mainstream. He gets ripped further from that point. [H-L]

Is this what Mitch McConnell fears? Or is he just playing a big game of pat-a-cake? [WaPo]

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress. [HuffPo]