World at War: Malian special forces have entered the Radisson Blu Hotel in the country’s capital Bamako where gunmen were holding up to 170 hostages. Amid sporadic gunfire, soldiers were going through the hotel floor by floor.

At least three people were killed when the gunmen stormed the hotel shouting “God is Great!” in Arabic. Hostages who are able to recite a passage from the Koran are being freed, security forces say.

Mali, a former French colony, has had trouble with an offshoot of al Qaeda for years. In 2013 France sent in troops to stop them from marching on Bamako.

>A third body, a male, was recovered from the apartment where French authorities shot it out with an Islamic State cell.

The family of  Hasna Ait Boulahcen, 26, who blew herself up at the start of the seven-hour standoff, tells reporters they are mystified about her quick turn to jihadism. Boulahcen was described as a party girl who smoked, drank, wore cowboy hats, and never read the Koran. A picture published online shows her naked in a bathtub; not exactly approved behavior for the Islamic State. Only recently did she become interested in the faith.

The Politics of War: The Republican House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve a bill imposing rules that would make it near to impossible for Syrian refugees to get approval to enter the US. It passed 289 to 137 with 50 Democrats in favor, enough to override a promised presidential veto. The bill goes to the Senate.

>Hillary Clinton called for tougher measures to destroy the Islamic State, including no-fly zones and more American ground troops. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York she said, “Our goal is not to deter or contain ISIS, but to defeat and destroy ISIS,” in a mild swipe at President Obama, who recently said ISIS had been “contained.”

>Earlier yesterday France’s lower house of parliament voted to extend emergency powers for three months, allowing warrantless police raids, searches and house arrests. The bill was to go before the upper house today.

Nation: Disgraced former Subway Sandwich spokesman Jared Fogle pleaded guilty yesterday to child porn and sex charges and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Fogle cried as he addressed the court saying, “Not a day will go by when I don’t think about what I did.”

>Jonathan Pollard, the Navy intelligence analysts convicted of spying for Israel was released this morning after 30 years in prison. His case has been a thorn in US/Israeli relations. Despite his desire to move to Israel, Pollard will not be allowed to leave the country for five years.

Bad Health: United Healthcare announced that it’s losing money on the insurance it sells through Obamacare and will pull out of the healthcare exchanges after the current signup period is over. United is the biggest healthcare insurer in the country … they aren’t going broke … but they say the half million people they insure through Obamacare is hurting profits. Under Obamacare, the percentage of uninsured Americans has dropped from 14.4 percent to 9 percent.

The Obit Page: Michael Gross, the graphic artist who designed the memorable logo for the movie “Ghostbusters,” has died at age 70 in Oceanside, Calif. The logo features a blobby white ghost popping out through the red circle of the international “banned” sign.

Gross also created one of the more sickly funny magazine covers of all time. For the National Lampoon in January 1973 he made a cover showing a hand pointing a revolver at the head of a cute black and white dog with wary eyes. The headline read, “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog.”

Frankenfish: The Food and Drug Administration for the first time has declared a genetically modified animal, a salmon, as fit for human consumption. The decision came over the objections of both consumer and environmental groups, which argued that the GMO fish might affect real fish if it’s let loose into the wild. And you know that will happen either in real life or a movie.

The GMO salmon called the “AquAdvantage” grows to about three times the size of a normal fish of its species. If this fish was an Olympic athlete, it would be disqualified for doping.