World at War: New York City is on alert today after the Islamic State released a video threatening Times Square. The video shows a man making a body bomb followed by pictures of Manhattan.

Authorities say they know of no specific threat to the city and Police Chief Bill Bratton was dismissive on CBS This Morning. “That video, nothing new to us.”

>In France, investigators say the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, was killed in yesterday’s shootout at an apartment building. After 5,000 rounds were fired and a woman blew herself up with a suicide vest, police found no immediately identifiable body parts.

But police say the raid broke up a terrorist cell that was preparing to act.

French President Francois Hollande has asked for extended emergency powers to protect freedom even while restricting it. “I say it firmly: France will remain the country of liberty, of movements, of culture,” Hollande said. “An active, valiant, dynamic country.”

Tech Beat: The Islamic State has released an image of the device it says was used to bring down the Russian airliner over the Sinai desert. The picture shows a gold Schweppes pineapple tonic can, a detonator, and a switch. The picture was published in the Islamic State’s slick online magazine “Dabiq.” That’s right, they have a magazine.

The accompanying article says “It was a rash decision of arrogance” for Russia to enter the war and so, “A bomb was smuggled onto the airplane, leading to the deaths of 219 Russians and 5 other crusaders only a month after Russia’s thoughtless decision.”

Fear Itself: Rookie House Speaker Paul Ryan is joining the rush to ban Syrian refugees from the US, saying he will introduce a bill that will effectively stop them from entering the country. The law would require ‪ the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the director of National Intelligence certify to Congress that each Syrian or Iraqi refugee admitted would not be a threat to US security. It’s designed to be impossible. “People understand the plight of those fleeing the Middle East,” Ryan said. “But they also want basic assurances for the safety of this country.”

President Obama said the law would provide no additional security for the US and he’ll veto it if it passes.

Econ 101: The Federal Reserve is all but broadcasting that it will raise interest rates by the end of the month. “While no decision had been made, it may well become appropriate to initiate the normalization process at the next meeting,” says the October minutes of the Fed. Short-term interest rates have been near zero since 2008 to stimulate the economy. Money is practically free for big financial institutions to borrow, but the stock market generally behaves as if a minor upward tic would be a disaster.

Nation: Former NFL quarterback Doug Flutie revealed yesterday that his father died of a heart attack — and his mother died of a heart attack just an hour later. They had been married 56 years. Flutie said in his announcement, “They say you can die of a broken heart and I believe it.” Flutie threw the famous “Hail Mary Pass” for Boston College to beat the powerhouse Miami in 1984.

>Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates won the National Book Award for nonfiction last night for “Between the World and Me,” his blunt account of being a black man in America. In his acceptance speech he said, “Every day you turn on the TV and see some kind of violence being directed at black people.”

The book was published this past summer amid protests over police shootings of unarmed black men. Even as Coates received the award, angry protesters were marching in Minneapolis over the police shooting of a man last Sunday.

Open Secret: Forty-three years after the song was released, singer Carly Simon admits, as everyone who cared already knew, that the second verse of “You’re So Vain,” is about her long ago boyfriend Warren Beatty. The lyric goes, “Well you said that we made such a pretty pair / And that you would never leave / But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me.”

Simon says the song is about three men and she’s not saying who the other two are. But they probably think the song is about them.

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