The Wisconsin High School football season kicks off with Week 1 action on Thursday and Friday.

Here’s a look at some of the area Western Wisconsin teams set to kick off their seasons.

Baldwin-Woodville

2024 record: 12-2 (Division 4 state runner-up)

The Blackhawks lost their biggest offensive producers last season, including do-it-all standout Gavin Sell. But the cupboard is far from empty.

Back are a number of Baldwin-Woodville’s top defensive players from a year ago, including Trevor Murdock, Brody Everts and Dawson and Drew Veenendall.

Season opener: Home vs. Tomah, 6 p.m. Friday

Ellsworth

2024 record: 7-4 (lost in Level 2 of Division-4 playoffs)

The Panthers have a chance to expand their passing game this season with quarterback Jack Stoltenburg and his top returning receiver from 2024, Omar Coulson. It will be interesting to see if that aerial attack includes more balls for senior tight end George Rohl, a North Dakota commit who had 22 grabs last season. Also back is disruptive lineman Chace Kressin.

Season opener: at La Crosse Logan, 7 p.m. Thursday

Hudson

2024 record: 7-3 (lost in Level 1 of Division-I playoffs)

Expectations for the Raiders remain high this fall, especially with Cooper Adair again under center. Hudson didn’t lose a regular season game with the hyper efficient Adair as the starting signal caller last fall. He’ll have his backfield partner Payton Pingel at his side, while defensive playmakers Liam Mayer and Ben Englund remain in the fold.

Season opener: at Eau Claire Memorial, 7 p.m. Thursday

New Richmond

2024 record: 11-1 (lost in Sectional Championship of Division-2 playoffs)

All eyes on quarterback Nick Stellrecht, who’s one of the best signal callers in Wisconsin. He threw for 1,750 yards and 22 scores as a junior, and figures to carry an even heavier load for a Tigers team that lost a lot of top producers from a group that delivered an undefeated regular season in 2024.

Season opener: Home vs. Marshfield, 7 p.m. Thursday

Prescott

2024 record: 9-2 (lost in Level 2 of Division-4 playoffs)

Many of the stars from last year’s Cardinals squad have since graduated, meaning Prescott will largely have to rely on fresh faces to reproduce the magic of 2024.

But one of the few key returners is senior receiver and defensive back Kobe Russell, a North Dakota State commit capable of turning any game on its head.

Season opener: Home vs. Durand, 7 p.m. Friday

River Falls

2024 record: 3-6 (missed postseason)

River Falls saw its streak of consecutive playoff appearances stopped by what the Wildcats would surely characterize as a disappointing season last fall.

But the Wildcats are built to bounce back. Last year’s senior class was small, and River Falls returns quarterback Tino Massa, 1,000-yard rusher Joseph Tarasewicz, a stout defensive lineman in Austin Stellrecht, experience in the defensive backfield and, perhaps most importantly, size on the offensive line. That’s highlighted by senior interior lineman Sam Simpson, an Indiana commit.

Season opener: Home vs. Wisconsin Rapids, 7 p.m. Thursday

Somerset

2024 record: 2-7 (missed postseason)

Maybe the best two-win team in the state last season, the Spartans were tough-luck losers with five one-score defeats. Math would tell you the law of averages should even out, setting Somerset up for a strong 2025.

But the bulk of Somerset’s production on both sides of the ball last fall came via do-it-all quarterback Kane Donnelly, who has since graduated.

Season opener: at Bloomer, 7 p.m. Friday

St. Croix Central

2024 record: 5-5 (lost in Level 1 of Division-4 playoffs)

All of St. Croix Central’s big producers with the ball from a year ago have since departed, particularly from its staunch rushing attack.

But the Panthers still have big bodies up front to drive the attack forward, along with the likes of Casey Boeseneilers and Will Fredereicks returning on defense.

Season opener: at Mauston, 7 p.m. Friday

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WASHINGTON — The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by more than $700 million annually, the Trump administration announced Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in a statement, “Over the last 20 years, ODNI has become bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence.”

She said the intelligence community “must make serious changes to fulfill its responsibility to the American people and the U.S. Constitution by focusing on our core mission: find the truth and provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence to the President and policymakers.”

The reorganization is part of a broader administration effort to rethink its evaluation of foreign threats to American elections, a topic that has become politically loaded given President Donald Trump’s long-running resistance to the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

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In February, for instance, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded an FBI task force focused on investigating foreign influence operations, including those that target U.S. elections. The Trump administration also has made sweeping cuts at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which oversees the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election systems.

Gabbard’s efforts to downsize the agency she leads is in keeping with the cost-cutting mandate the administration has employed since its earliest days, when Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency oversaw mass layoffs of the federal workforce.

It’s the latest headline-making move by a key official who just a few months ago had seemed out of favor with Trump over her analysis of Iran’s nuclear capabilities but who in recent weeks has emerged as a key loyalist.

She’s released a series of documents meant to call into question the legitimacy of the intelligence community’s findings on Russian election interference in 2016, and this week, at Trump’s direction, revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former government officials.

The ODNI in the past has joined forces with other federal agencies to debunk and alert the public to foreign disinformation intended to influence U.S. voters.

For example, it was involved in an effort to raise awareness about a Russian video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania that circulated widely on social media in the weeks before the 2024 presidential election.

Notably, Gabbard said she would be refocusing the priorities of the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which her office says on its website is “focused on mitigating threats to democracy and U.S. national interests from foreign malign influence.”

It wasn’t clear from Gabbard’s release or fact sheet exactly what the changes would entail, but Gabbard noted its “hyper-focus” on work tied to elections and said the center was “used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition.”

The Biden administration created the Foreign Malign Influence Center in 2022, responding to what the U.S. intelligence community had assessed as attempts by Russia and other adversaries to interfere with American elections.

Its role, ODNI said when it announced the center’s creation, was to coordinate and integrate intelligence pertaining to malign influence.

In a briefing given to reporters in 2024, ODNI officials said they only notified candidates, political organizations and local election offices of disinformation operations when they could be attributed to foreign sources. They said they worked to avoid any appearance of policing Americans’ speech.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, hailed the decision to broadly revamp ODNI, saying it would make it a “stronger and more effective national security tool for President Trump.”

By ANDREW DALTON, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man charged with fatally shooting an “American Idol” music supervisor and her husband in their Los Angeles home will undergo mental evaluation to determine whether he’s fit to stand trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Raymond Boodarian, 22, was set to be arraigned in a courthouse in Los Angeles but did not enter a plea. A judge suspended the criminal proceedings against him while a psychiatrist examines him to determine his competency.

He’s charged with two counts of murder in the killing of longtime “American Idol” producer Robin Kaye and her husband Thomas Deluca, both 70, who were shot when they came home unexpectedly during a burglary on July 10.

A judge at a court that specializes in mental health will consider the evaluation and decide whether Boodarian will proceed toward trial or be placed in a state hospital.

Boodarian stood behind a window in a custody area of the courtroom, and appeared to try to remain out of sight.

His attorney declined comment, and the district attorney’s office had no immediate comment.

Los Angeles County deputy public defender Nancy Kolocotronis stands in front of Raymond Boodarian, charged with the fatal shooting of “American Idol” executive Robin Kaye and her husband Thomas Deluca, in court on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Boodarian will undergo the same evaluation in the same small courthouse on Hollywood Boulevard where a man charged with stalking Jennifer Aniston and driving into the front gate of her home was recently found to be not competent to go to trial.

Police said they responded to a 911 call about a burglary at the home of Kaye and Deluca in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles. Police said they found no sign of forced entry or other trouble and left.

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Four days later the couple’s bodies were found, shot to death, when officers carried out a welfare check at the home. Boodarian was arrested the following day.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman later said in a community meeting that investigators believe the couple arrived home unexpectedly while Boodarian was burglarizing it. He shot them with their own gun and later called 911 himself, Hochman said.

Kaye had been with “American Idol” for more than 15 years and was working on the upcoming season of the hit singing competition TV series at the time of her death. She had also worked in the music departments of several other productions, including “The Singing Bee,” “Hollywood Game Night,” “Lip Sync Battle,” and several Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants.

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing the operators of LA Fitness, over allegations that they make it “exceedingly difficult” for consumers to cancel gym memberships and other related services offered in their clubs nationwide.

In a Wednesday complaint, the FTC accused Fitness International and its subsidiary Fitness & Sports Clubs of illegally charging consumers “hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted recurring fees” as a result of cumbersome cancellation processes. The agency said that tens of thousands of customers have reported difficulties with these policies to date.

“The FTC’s complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced — a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel,” Christopher Mufarrige, director of the agency’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement.

Beyond LA Fitness, California-based Fitness International operates brands like Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club, and Club Studio — spanning across more than 600 locations with over 3.7 million members nationwide. And the FTC pointed to two “unfair and unlawful” cancellation processes that it says these gyms have used for years: in-person cancellation or cancellation by mail.

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Both of these options require consumers to print out a form on the gym’s website, which includes logging in with credentials that the agency says some customers don’t have or remember. And if a customer opts for in-person cancellation, there’s limited hours and often difficulty finding a manager to process the forms, the complaint notes — while mailing the form comes with additional costs.

“Each of these cancellation methods is opaque, complicated, and demanding — far from simple,” the FTC writes in its complaint. It also alleges that the company doesn’t adequately disclose cancellation offerings when consumers sign up for memberships, and that some will be signed up for additional services with recurring charges without realizing there may be different cancellation requirements.

According to the FTC, Fitness International now offers website cancellations for subscriptions “with stand-alone agreements” — but the agency said the process “still imposes unnecessary burdens” on customers and claims that that option is buried online. It’s also still not possible to cancel memberships on the company’s mobile apps, the FTC added.

Fitness International did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment on Wednesday.

This isn’t the first time that federal regulators have accused gym operators — and other companies with subscription services — of making their cancellation processes too difficult for consumers.

Under the Biden administration, the FTC adopted a “click to cancel” rule, which would have made it easier for consumers to end unwanted subscriptions. But last month, days before that rule was poised to go into effect, a federal appeals court blocked the proposed changes.

In its litigation against Fitness International, the FTC says it’s seeking a court order prohibiting the allegedly unfair conduct and money back for consumers who were harmed by difficult cancellation processes.