Sucker Punch: President Trump along with his wife Melania made a surprise trip to troops in Iraq yesterday, his first visit with the military in a war zone and considered long overdue.

  Speaking at an air base west of Baghdad, Trump bragged that, “We’re no longer the suckers, folks, we’re respected again as a nation.”

  The President told troops at Al Asad Air Basethat he has no plans to withdraw any of the 5,200 Americans in Iraq. “We can use this as a base if we wanted to do something in Syria,” he said. “If we see something happening with ISIS that we don’t like, we can hit them so fast and so hard” that they “really won’t know what the hell happened.”

  Trump recently announced that he’s pulling all 2,000 Americans out of Syria and half the 14,000 out of Afghanistan. He said it’s time to leave Syria because the US should not be involved in nation-building, something George W. Bush said before he got deeply mired in nation building. Trump said, “The nations of the regions must step up and take more responsibility for their future.” 

What Goes Down:Stocks rose dramatically yesterday, about 5 percent, regaining the ground lost in the Christmas Eve bloodbath. The Dow Jones was up 1,086 points, a one-day record. The Nasdaq was up 361. 

 Retail stocks did well because they reported big Christmas sales. Apple had its best day in five years.

 The administration rattled the markets early in the week when Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called the major banks and basically asked them if they had enough money to avoid a financial crisis. Investors sold, wondering whether Mnuchin knew something they didn’t. He didn’t.

Heavy Weather: A winter storm is bringing blizzard warnings all the way from New Mexico to Fargo, North Dakota. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain will spread into parts of New England and eastern New York tonight.

Hypersonic:Russia completed what it says was its final test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile that will be added to the country’s arsenal. It flies at 20 times the speed of sound. President Vladimir Putin called it a “wonderful, perfect New Year’s gift for the country.”

Walled Off:The Senate returns to work today attempting to present President Trump with a spending proposal that will satisfy his demands for border security and end the government shutdown. No votes are expected today, meaning this could drag through the weekend and into the new year.

President Bone Spur: A Queens podiatrist who rented his office from Donald Trump’s father diagnosed the future President with bone spurs to get him out of being drafted into the Vietnam war, according to a story in The NY Times.

  The two daughters of Dr. Larry Braunstein say their father often talked about how he made the diagnosis as a favor to Trump’s father, Fred. What the doctor got in turn was immediate access to Fred Trump if there were any problems with the building. The older Trump also eased off on rent increases. Dr. Braunstein died in 2007 and there are no paper records to support the daughters’ account.

Immigration:Customs and Border Protection has ordered medical checks on every child in its custody after an 8-year-old boy from Guatemala died late on Christmas Eve. It was the second death of an immigrant child in the agency’s custody this month.

Baby It’s Cold Out:An American adventurer has beaten his British competitor in a solo race across Antarctica and become the first to do it.

  Colin O’Brady, 33,  finished in 53 days, ahead of British Army Captain Louis Rudd, 49, after their solo and unassisted race across the ice.

  On one of his last days O’Brady described on social media a brutal storm he faced in the morning. “Blowing snow, sub zero temps and zero visibility. I packed off and headed out into the whiteout.”

 The 921-mile trek took the two racers across the coldest continent on Earth. O’Brady dragged a 375-pound sled carrying his food and equipment. He said he had lost so much weight on the journey that his wristwatch was slipping off.

The Obit Page:Sister Wendy Beckett, a Roman Catholic nun who became an international television star as an art critic with the BBC, has died in England age 88.

  Sister Wendy was a Carmelite nun who had dedicated her life to prayer and poverty. In her spare time she wrote about art, getting the attention of a BBC producer who persuaded her to do a stand-up documentary discussing the paintings in Britain’s National Gallery. That was it for prayerful anonymity.

  With her slightly buck teeth and faint speech impediment, Wendy brought human stories and a common touch to the presentation of art. She made a series of television specials and wrote 15 books.

  Stardom was not her thing. She once said, “Nothing is more humiliating than being on television. You make such a fool of yourself.”