February 6, 2025 — Governor Kathy Hochul joined Superintendent Steven G. James in honoring 176 new State Troopers as they graduated today from the 216th session of the Basic School of the New York State Police Academy. The ceremony was held at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany. Today’s graduation increases the State Police ranks to 5,034 sworn members.
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National News
‘Say good night’: MAGA ex-MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s primary loss prompts online glee
MAGA former MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell lost his bid to become the governor of Minnesota, per reports.
According to projections by NBC News and CBS News, Lindell lost to state lawmaker Lisa Demuth, who won with more than 44 percent of the vote. However, she'll face what's expected to be an uphill battle against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The result was an upset. Lindell had been leading in limited public polling heading into Election Day and carried an endorsement from President Donald Trump, according to reporting by NBC News.
However, online commentators didn't seem very upset by his loss. Lindell entered the race in December and stepped down as the MyPillow CEO this month to focus on his campaign. He built his political profile by spreading false claims that Trump won the 2020 election. A federal judge ruled last year that he defamed Smartmatic by falsely claiming its voting machines helped rig that election.
"Say good night, My Pillow guy!" wrote political commentator and former Obama White House adviser David Axelrod in a post on X. "Despite @realDonaldTrump's endorsement, Lindell loses his @GOP race for governor of Minnesota."
"He was doomed in the general against Klobuchar," wrote Democratic political strategist Mike Nellis. "But Mike Lindell falling short in Minnesota is a HUGE embarrassment to Trump after his endorsement. He looks more and more like a lame duck every single day."
"Poor Mike Lindell," joked political consultant Norman Ornstein. "He won't sleep well tonight. It could be because he lost the Republican primary for governor in Minnesota despite being endorsed by Trump. Or, more likely, it's because of his pillow."
"Apparently Minnesota Republicans have gotten tired of nominating losers," wrote radio show host Matt Forney. "Amnesty Mike Lindell got trounced and that waterbrained psycho Royce White came in a distant third in the Senate primary."
National News
Trump ditched cabinet secretaries as ‘sacrificial lambs’ on decoy plane: NYT
President Donald Trump left his cabinet secretaries and top advisers on a plane threatened by Iran while he moved to safety, The New York Times reported.
Air Force One was targeted by Iran as he left a NATO summit in Turkey, but reports are surfacing that Trump switched planes by hiding in a catering cart. However, the latest reporting by The Times reveals Trump also ditched Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and traveling press, who were "kept in the dark."
Two anonymous officials told Times reporter Maggie Haberman that Stephen Miller, Trump's top domestic policy adviser, and Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, were also left on the threatened decoy plane. Trump meanwhile left Ankara, Turkey, aboard a C-32A military jet.
According to Haberman's reporting, Rubio knew about the threat from Iran and that he was traveling on a plane that had been targeted for an attack. However, it's unclear if other top White House officials knew about the threat too.
The anonymous officials who spoke with Haberman said that at least some of the White House staff who also left on the endangered plane were unaware of the threat.
A White House spokesman didn't respond to a request from The Times for comment about the discussion to decide who would be left on the threatened plane and who would be whisked to safety with Trump.
The New York Times's reporting did, however, include a comment from Andrew Marlowe, the Hollywood screenwriter of the 1997 Harrison Ford thriller "Air Force One."
Marlowe told The Times that even though the Secret Service was trying to keep Trump safe, the optics of the reporting that has been coming out don't make him look good.
"Now real life isn't a movie, but given the circumstances, I'm not sure I could ever script a moment like that for a heroic main character," Marlowe said. "If the threat were that great, it's hard to imagine the audience rooting for any character who would trade his own safety by treating the remaining civilians onboard as potential sacrificial lambs, especially without their informed consent."
