On the day U.S. forces killed Soleimani, they launched another secret operation targeting a senior Iranian official in Yemen  —  On the day the U.S. military killed a top Iranian commander in Baghdad, U.S. forces carried out another top secret mission against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to U.S. officials.

Iraqi PM tells US to decide mechanism for troop withdrawal  —  BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has told the U.S. secretary of state to send a delegation to Iraq tasked with formulating the mechanism for the withdrawal of U.S troops from Iraq, according to a statement released Friday.

With love and gratitude...  I ran for president to help forge another direction for our country.  I wanted to discuss things I felt needed to be discussed that otherwise were not.  I feel that we have done that.  —  I stayed in the race to take advantage of every possible effort to share our message.

Trump's New National Security Team Made Fast Work of Iran Strike  —  White House advisers were cohesive and less inclined than their predecessors to push back against the president's wishes  —  WASHINGTON—President Trump and his senior national-security advisers waited anxiously …

Dear Colleague on Next Steps on Impeachment  —  For weeks now, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has been engaged in tactics of delay in presenting transparency, disregard for the American people's interest for a fair trial and dismissal of the facts.

'Don't tell me it doesn't matter': Impeachment trial hurts presidential campaigns  —  There are many ways Elizabeth Warren can continue her presidential campaign from Washington during President Donald Trump's impeachment trial: Surrogates in Iowa, national TV appearances and on social media.

Bloomberg to fund sizable campaign effort through November even if he loses Democratic nomination  —  Exclusive: The former New York City mayor plans to continue paying hundreds of staffers and funding his digital operation to defeat Trump even if he's not the nominee.

The 50 Greatest War Movies Ever Made A look back at a genre that has inspired a century of cinema.  —  Speaking to Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune in 1973, Francois Truffaut made an observation that's cast a shadow over war movies ever since, even those seemingly opposed to war.

The Fall of Donald Trump's Fixers  —  The mogul-turned-president has long relied on loyalists to push the limits in defense of his image, but Roy Cohn, David Pecker and Michael Cohen all wound up out in the cold  —  For decades, Donald Trump has depended on loyalists to take care of especially sensitive and difficult tasks.

Trump Has Made Us All Stupid  —  The decline of discourse in the anti-Trump echo chamber.  —  Donald Trump is impulse-driven, ignorant, narcissistic and intellectually dishonest.  So you'd think that those of us in the anti-Trump camp would go out of our way to show we're not like him …

Firefox attacks: Homeland Security urges all users to update browsers immediately in rare warning  —  If you use Mozilla Firefox's web browser you'll want to drop what you are doing right now and update it.  That urging doesn't just come from Mozilla-it comes from the United State's Department …

U.S. Probes If Russia Targeting Biden in 2020 Election Meddling  —  U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are assessing whether Russia is trying to undermine Joe Biden in its ongoing disinformation efforts with the former vice president still the front-runner in the race …

Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max  —  The company expressed regret at the embarrassing communications it sent to investigators on Thursday, which included a comment that “this airplane is designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys.”

Trump has a rare public moment of self-awareness  —  But it wasn't an unprecedented one.  —  President Trump is a man who practically begs you to caricature him.  His devotion to his shtick is either so complete that he rarely breaks character, or the character has simply become him over many decades.

Justice Dept. winds down Clinton-related inquiry once championed by Trump.  It found nothing of consequence.  —  A Justice Department inquiry launched more than two years ago to mollify conservatives clamoring for more investigations of Hillary Clinton has effectively ended with no tangible results …

Black Britons Know Why Meghan Markle Wants Out  —  It's the racism.  —  Ms. Hirsch is the author of “Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging.”  —  The British press has succeeded in its apparent project of hounding Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, out of Britain.

AOC riles Dems by refusing to pay party dues, bankrolling colleagues' opponents  —  EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already topped the fundraising charts in her short time in Congress, but the liberal darling won't donate a cent of her millions to Democrats' House campaign organization …

Trump's unhinged rally rant underscores case for reining him in  —  At a rally in Ohio on Thursday night, President Trump drew deafening cheers by boasting about his order to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, deriding Democrats with petty schoolyard taunts and mocking the very idea …

West Backs Off of Blaming Iran Despite Crash Evidence  —  President Donald Trump and other Western leaders appeared willing to afford reasonable doubt to Tehran, despite evidence it shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet.  —  WESTERN LEADERS BY consensus agreed Thursday that Iran shot …

She Was a Star of New York Real Estate, but Her Life Story Was a Lie  —  Faith Hope Consolo had the entire press fooled, including us.  Then a message came in.  —  Wrapped in furs, dripping with diamonds and with her blond hair perfectly coifed, Faith Hope Consolo cut a glamorous figure in the flashy …

Shocking number of young Americans say other countries are better  — The poll also noted Republicans who like other countries in the same age group barely reach 20 percent.  — Fifty-five percent of Democrats in the same age group wouldn't mind if other countries became as militarily powerful as the U.S.

Buts of the Democratic Party  —  Leading Democrats speak in unison over President Trump's decision to order the termination of Iranian terrorist mastermind Qassem Soleimani after he reported for work in Baghdad last week (Washington Free Beacon supercuts video below).

Klobuchar praised ‘broken windows’ policing and pushed strict crime measures at start of political career  —  (CNN)In her first run for office in 1998, Amy Klobuchar embraced tough-on-crime measures that included harsher penalties for juvenile offenders, increasing conviction rates and expanding jails.

Virginia Democrats won an election.  Gun owners are talking civil war  —  Democrats' pledge to pass new gun laws has sparked a grassroots pro-gun movement that will bring thousands of activists to a volatile rally this month  —  Thousands of Virginia residents have shown up at meetings across …

Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: Reuters/Ipsos poll  —  WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The idea of imposing a wealth tax on the richest Americans has elicited sharply divergent views across a spectrum of politicians, with President Donald Trump branding it socialist …

Democrat Amy McGrath enters 2020 with $9 million war chest in Senate race against Mitch McConnell  —  Democrat Amy McGrath, who is running to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, finished 2019 with a $6 million fundraising haul to add to her impressive war chest heading into 2020.

Job market ends 2019 with disappointing 145,000 growth in payrolls  —  By Jeff Cox@JEFF.COX.7528@JEFFCOXCNBCCOM  — December's payroll and wage growth missed expectations, according to the Labor Department.  — Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 145,000 while the unemployment rate held steady at 3.5%.

College Professor Out After Joke Suggesting Iran List U.S. Cultural Targets  —  Asheen Phansey is no longer employed by Babson College after joking that Iran should target Minnesota's Mall of America and a home of the Kardashian family.  —  An adjunct professor is no longer on staff …