By STEPHEN WHYNO, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The NFL is not considering dropping Bad Bunny as its Super Bowl halftime headline performer, Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday, reaffirming a decision to put the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican artist on the league’s biggest stage that led to criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his supporters.

Goodell addressed the Bad Bunny controversy at his news conference following the annual fall owners meeting. It is the first time he has commented on the move announced in late September that garnered worldwide attention, including an increase in streams of Bad Bunny’s music, along with backlash.

“It’s carefully thought through,” Goodell said. “I’m not sure we’ve ever selected an artist where we didn’t have some blowback or criticism. It’s pretty hard to do when you have literally hundreds of millions of people that are watching.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a news conference at the NFL owners meetings, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

The 31-year-old born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has been vocal in his opposition to Trump and his policies. He decided to do a 31-day residency in Puerto Rico, avoiding stops in the mainland U.S., citing concerns about the mass deportation of Latinos.

He performs in Spanish and is expected to do so at the Super Bowl.

“We’re confident it’s going to be a great show,” Goodell said, acknowledging there could be more talent added to the lineup along with Bad Bunny. “He understands the platform that he’s on, and I think it’s going to be exciting and a united moment.”

The San Francisco 49ers are hosting the Super Bowl on Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. It is unclear if Trump plans to be there, though he has made appearing in person at major sporting events a significant part of his second term in the White House.

Trump in an interview on conservative news network Newsmax said he had “never heard of” Bad Bunny.

“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said. “I don’t know why they’re doing it. It’s, like, crazy. And then they blame it on some promoter they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

FILE – Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio (aka Bad Bunny) attends the premiere of “Caught Stealing” at Regal Union Square on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

Goodell defended the decision on Wednesday, explaining it was made because of Bad Bunny’s immense popularity.

“He’s one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world,” Goodell said. “That’s what we try to achieve. It’s an important stage for us. It’s an important element to the entertainment value.”

Banning the tush push has been tabled … for now

Echoing what senior VP of football operations Troy Vincent said Tuesday, Goodell said there has not been much discussion about the tush push quarterback sneak since an effort to ban it narrowly failed to pass in the spring.

Vincent said the primary concern is how tough it is to officiate the maneuver that the Philadelphia Eagles have successfully executed so often. It was not on the formal agenda at this meeting, though owners did get an update on penalties and other football matters.

“It’s something we will continue to monitor on all phases, just like we do every other aspect of the game,” Goodell said. “We don’t have any proposals to bring it back up. It wouldn’t surprise me if something does evolve. But it’s not something we’re really focused on during the season.”

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More from Roger Goodell at the NFL owners meeting

Asked about replay reviews and the length of time they are taking, Goodell said game times are actually down through the first seven weeks compared to last season, despite a surge in kick returns after an adjustment was made to the so-called dynamic kickoff.

“That’s quite remarkable when you add the number of kickoffs,” Goodell said. “You’re going to get more fouls. You’re going to get different sets of fouls. You’re going to have a little bit (more) length of the game.”

Goodell said he had breakfast with interim Players Association executive director David White before one of the league’s international games this season but expects any talk about a move to an 18-game regular season and other collective bargaining discussions to wait until the union chooses its long-term leader.

The current CBA runs through the 2031 league year. White told The Associated Press last month that an 18-game season was not inevitable.

“The negotiations will be a lot more than just simply the 18 and two (exhibition games),” Goodell said. “There are a lot of issues that we are going to raise and I’m certain that the players will raise, and that’s what it should be. That’s what collective bargaining is all about. They’re going to need time to make sure that they’re prepared, that they’re ready for the negotiations (and) they have their priorities straight, and then we can begin negotiations.”

Goodell said work is being done to choose sites for the Super Bowl to cap the 2028 and ‘29 seasons and expects an announcement on those next year.

Kevin Fixler, The Idaho Statesman

BOISE, Idaho — Attorneys for Bryan Kohberger, who is serving life in prison for killing four University of Idaho students, are protesting a request to tack on additional restitution paid by their client to cover expenses for two of the victims’ families and will make arguments in court in two weeks.

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Prosecutors submitted financial compensation filings to the court last month and sought a combined $27,330 for the families of homicide victims Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen. An itemized statement with receipts for the expenses was filed under seal but relates to travel and accommodations, Kohberger’s defense wrote.

Kohberger, 30, reached an agreement in July to plead guilty to four counts of murder in exchange for avoiding a trial and also dropping a possible death sentence. In the deal, he also agreed to pay about $29,000 in restitution between the families of victims Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin and reimbursement of the state’s crime victim’s compensation fund.

The four University of Idaho undergraduates were stabbed to death at an off-campus home in Moscow in November 2022. Kohberger, then a graduate student at nearby Washington State University across the Idaho-Washington state line, was arrested about seven weeks later and sentenced to prison for the violent crimes.

Kohberger’s plea agreement eliminated any chance of parole and his rights to appeal his four consecutive life sentences. He also pleaded guilty to one count of felony burglary and received an additional decade in prison, as well as $270,000 in fines. With the agreed-upon restitution, the total is more than $300,000.

Led by Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s public defense team argued in its objection to the additional restitution that he has “no ability now or in the future to pay” because of his sentence. The state’s request was also filed more than 60 days after Kohberger was sentenced, they wrote.

The Goncalveses and Mogen’s mother, Karen Laramie, already received a combined $208,000 in assistance through GoFundMe fundraisers to offset such costs, the defense attorneys added. In addition, the crime victim’s compensation fund already covered a combined $3,000 for urns for Goncalves and Mogen’s remains, their objection said.

A virtual hearing over the additional restitution request has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Nov. 5.

©2025 The Idaho Statesman. Visit idahostatesman.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By MICHAEL MAROT and STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indianapolis judge on Wednesday confirmed Dec. 11 as the trial date for Fox Sports analyst and former NFL player Mark Sanchez, who’s charged with attacking and seriously injuring a truck driver outside a hotel in what prosecutors say was a dispute over a parking place.

The pretrial conference lasted only about 2 1/2 minutes. Sanchez, who was more seriously hurt in the confrontation, was not required to be present and did not enter a plea.

“Thank you for allowing our client to be excused from today’s hearing. He’s still recovering from the injuries he sustained,” defense attorney Tim DeLaney told the judge, who also set another hearing for Nov. 20 and confirmed the next pretrial conference date for Dec. 2.

Most of those dates were set earlier, but they’re all subject to change. DeLaney said Sanchez’s recovery process is ongoing and may impact the schedule. Prosecutors expressed doubt afterward that Dec. 11 is a realistic trial date.

Defense attorneys left without taking questions from reporters.

Sanchez has been off the air since the Oct. 4 incident at the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. He was in town for the weekend’s game between the Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders. Sanchez was stabbed in the chest and spent a week in a hospital. The trucker, who claims self-defense and has not been charged, is suing him and Fox Sports for unspecified damages.

Prosecutors charged Sanchez with a felony count of battery involving serious bodily injury, along with three misdemeanor charges, including public intoxication. He declined to address the allegations as he left the hospital with his arm in a sling Oct. 12.

“I’m just focused on my recovery and I just want to thank the first responders. … But I’m focused on my recovery, and I just want to see my wife, I want to see my son, my two baby girls,” Sanchez told Indianapolis station Fox59. “There’ll be a day to answer all these questions, and unfortunately, today is not that day.”

Sanchez remains free on bond. The court allowed him to return home to California.

A detective’s affidavit says the 38-year-old Sanchez accosted 69-year-old Perry Tole, who had backed his truck into the hotel’s loading dock. Tole, who drives for a cooking oil service company, told police that Sanchez smelled of alcohol and his speech was slurred. He said Sanchez entered his truck without permission, then physically blocked and shoved Tole, who then hit Sanchez with pepper spray.

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When Sanchez advanced despite being sprayed, Tole told police, he pulled a knife to defend himself.

Security video shows Sanchez throwing Tole toward a wall on the hotel and to the ground, before running off, the affidavit says. Police found him at a restaurant on the same block.

“We are literally talking about people fighting over a parking space and — or a dispute about where people are parking, and it resulted in someone receiving just incredibly significant injures,” Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears told reporters Oct. 6.

Sanchez had a 10-year NFL career before retiring in 2019. He spent four seasons with the New York Jets and also played for Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington. He appeared on ABC and ESPN before joining Fox Sports as a game analyst in 2021.

Fox Sports has said little publicly about the incident, except for a brief statement immediately afterward.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Mark, and we ask that everyone please respect his and his family’s privacy during this time,” the network said in a social media post.

Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.

By Tim Henderson, Stateline.org

As the federal shutdown continues, states have been forced to fall back on their own resources to spot disease outbreaks — just as respiratory illness season begins.

The shutdown has halted dashboards and expert analysis from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors indicators such as wastewater to provide early warnings of the spread of COVID-19, influenza, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and other infectious diseases.

The pause leaves states with less early warning on disease outbreaks, potentially endangering lives even as child vaccination rates drop amid increased exemptions and hesitancy fed by misinformation. State and local officials can combat outbreaks with targeted advice to get vaccinated and stay home when sick, but they need to know where to do that first. And residents won’t know to take precautions if they’re unaware when many in their community are falling ill.

Wastewater is particularly crucial to finding outbreaks before people start seeking treatment, said Dr. John T. Brooks, a former chief medical officer for CDC’s Emergency COVID-19 Response who retired last year.

“This is one more piece of information to each American citizen to inform their decision, like, ‘Do I want to get vaccinated, and is now the time?’” Brooks said. “It really helps protect Americans by identifying communities where you may need to ramp up, raise awareness, remind people about hygiene.”

Ericka McGowan, senior director for emerging infectious disease at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said the absence of CDC involvement “could be a problem if there’s some major issue [states] miss.” Generally, states and localities gather their own health information, but many rely on the CDC for analysis and public display.

Washington state’s wastewater surveillance program, for instance, uses the CDC’s dashboards to display information to the public. Now, only state officials can see the information, and they would have to rethink the system if the shutdown continues, McGowan said.

Caitlin Rivers, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies infectious disease outbreaks, checked all 50 states for shutdown-related data issues. In a Substack post, Rivers said the result of the shutdown is “DIY surveillance.”

Georgia had to pause its influenza report, which would normally start this month, because of missing CDC data. However, health officials are working on a version using only state information, said Nancy Nydam, a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Public Health. Some hospitals report cases to the state and some directly to the CDC, so there will be some information gaps during the shutdown, she said.

In the meantime, Georgia has its own data on emergency room visits showing cases of suspected COVID-19, flu and RSV declining between August and early October.

Georgia also has its own wastewater surveillance program, which provides early warning of diseases spreading in the population before confirmed cases show up in hospitals. But some states rely on CDC wastewater surveillance.

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Michael Hoerger, an associate professor at Tulane University, had to pause his state-by-state wastewater reports on COVID-19 because of the lack of CDC wastewater data and an unrelated pause in data from a private wastewater reporting collective called Biobot, he said. Biobot did not respond to a request for comment.

“The pause means that we won’t have a good sense of which states are dealing with elevated transmission [of COVID-19] until the data come back online,” Hoerger said. “I can still post useful national estimates and forecasts, but that doesn’t really help with states that are outliers from what’s happening nationally.”

Hoerger’s Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative released a report in August on COVID-19 hot spots in California, and the highest state rates for COVID-19 in late September were in Connecticut, Delaware, Nevada and Utah.

For the time being, all Hoerger can do is rely on past forecasts predicting about 499,000 new COVID-19 infections a day as of Oct. 13, the first time it’s been under 500,000 since July.

“We’re in a bit of a blackout at the moment in terms of real-time rigorous data,” Hoerger said. “Fortunately, at least nationally, we’re in a relative lull in transmission.”

Like Georgia, many states can monitor wastewater on their own to track COVID-19, flu, RSV and other diseases, according to a list compiled by Hoerger’s Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative.

Texas, for example, has not had trouble updating its data during the shutdown, health department spokesperson Chris Van Deusen said. “We do our own surveillance for most metrics,” he said. However, the state no longer gets information on new COVID-19 and RSV deaths from the federal government, he said.

North Carolina also gathers its own wastewater data and interprets it with help from the University of North Carolina and local health departments. Normally, the CDC would weigh in with its own guidance and post results on a national dashboard— actions that are paused in the shutdown, said Hannah Jones, a spokesperson for the state health department.

But even if they have their own wastewater data, other state and local health departments may rely on the CDC for analysis and guidance, said McGowan, of the state health officials group.

“Even if you collect the data, you still have to have someone who is an expert to analyze that data to give you some kind of result,” McGowan said. “A lot of localities don’t have that kind of expertise in house and they rely on the CDC for that type of technical expertise and guidance. So there’s a gap there.”

Rivers, the Johns Hopkins associate professor, wrote in her post that she sees “clouds on the horizon” in some states. There are more young children, who are most susceptible to RSV, visiting emergency rooms in Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, she wrote, and also more hospitalizations in Texas.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.