Permawar: The US staged a drone strike against the ISIS terrorist known as “Jihadi John,” the masked British man seen on videotape beheading prisoners, including American journalist James Foley. US officials are saying there is a “high degree of certainty” they killed the man whose real name is Mohammed Emwazi. The drone struck just as Emwazi was getting into a vehicle and one official said he was “vaporized.”

>The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two suicide bombs that killed at least 43 people and wounded 240 in a crowded residential district of Beirut yesterday. That attack was targeted at an enclave of Hezbollah, the militant group that has sent fighters to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his civil war against rebels and the Islamic State.

If ISIS was involved, it’s evidence that the group is changing its tactics and expanding its reach in its religious war.

College Protests: Protests over race relations that toppled the president of the University of Missouri have spread to other schools across the country, including Ithaca College, where students also are demanding the resignation of their president. Students protested at Yale in Connecticut and the dean of students at Claremont McKenna in Southern California resigned in a dustup over an email she sent to an Hispanic student.

The University of Missouri system is trying to take quick action to remedy its original problem, yesterday naming a black man to be interim president, just days after naming a black man to be chancellor for diversity.

Deadline: A University of Missouri administrator who was a leader in the gang that blocked a student news photographer from doing his job during a campus demonstration has been suspended. Janna Basler, the associate director of student life, was one of the lead bullies trying to stop student Tim Tai from taking pictures in a public place.

Also, the student who took video of the entire incident has filed a complaint against Assistant Professor of Communications Melissa Click, who had called for some “muscle” to take him away. Mark Schierbecker told the Missourian newspaper, “My number one priority at the moment, is making sure she never teaches ever again.”

The Back Room: Republican Party leaders and big donors are in a near panic over the prospect that either Ben Carson or Donald Trump might become their nominee for president, virtually assuring that Hillary Clinton would win the election, the Washington Post reports. The paper says some Republican biggies are so upset that they are considering drafting Mitt Romney to make a comeback as their man.

In a way the party is facing its own failures, the Post says. Republicans disappointed that their politicians can’t get anything done even with a majority in both houses of Congress are turning to outsiders.

Wuddya Gunna Do?: An 80-year-old New York mobster accused of helping plan the infamous 1978 Lufthansa Airlines heist featured in the movie “Goodfellas,” was acquitted of all charges yesterday in Brooklyn after a long trial that revealed the inner workings of the mob. Prosecutors had argued that Vincent Asaro, 80, had been part of what was then the biggest cash theft in US history; $5 million and $1 million in jewels.

Now broke, Asaro has been described as a middle-management mobster, an “earner” who arranged truck hijackings and major robberies. The trial testimony was spiced with such names as “Johnny One-Arm,” “Skinny Don,” and “Jimmy the Gent.” Although former associates and his own cousin testified against him, Asaro beat the rap entirely, including murder.

The NY Post headline today says, “Jolly Goodfella.”

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