Trump says he is serious about Canada becoming the 51st state
In an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier ahead of the Super Bowl Sunday, President Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state.
“Yeah it is,” when asked if his threats to annex Canada are a “real thing.”
“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year, essentially a subsidy to Canada?”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on a hot mic on Friday saying that President Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state is “a real thing,” Canadian public broadcaster CBC reported.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Black national anthem, will be sung by Ledisi at the Super Bowl
Singer Ledisi will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which is widely known as the Black national anthem, at the start of the Super Bowl.
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“Lift Every Voice and Sing” has a short Super Bowl history, but the song itself has been around since 1900, when it was first performed by a choir of 500 schoolchildren in Jacksonville, Florida. It was written by James Weldon Johnson, who considered the piece a hymn.
There will also be an American Sign Language performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by actor Stephanie Nogueras.
In Super Bowl interview, Trump says Elon Musk is “not gaining anything” with DOGE
President Trump said in pre-Super Bowl interview that he trusts Elon Musk, who has already exerted massive influence at the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, especially since Musk is “not gaining anything” in the role.
“I wonder how [Musk] can devote the time to it,” Mr. Trump told Fox News. “He’s so into it.”
Mr. Trump sat down with Fox News host Bret Baier at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend before Super Bowl LIX between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. Mr. Trump will be the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.
Mr. Trump said he was surprised that no previous sitting president had attended and said he thought it would be “good for the country for a president to be at the game.”
Are new helmets reducing concussions in the NFL?
Ten years ago, the NFL began teaming up with helmet manufacturers to try to build safer equipment.
“If you look at a helmet from say 20 years ago and compare it to today’s helmet, there’s several major changes. We have materials that do a better job at absorbing force and not transmitting that force to the brain,” Neurosurgeon Dr. Allen Sills, chief medical officer for the NFL, told CBS News. “We’ve got better padding inside there. It’s placed strategically within the helmet in different places based again on where we expect force to occur and how we want to minimize that force.”
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Aside from improving equipment, the NFL has tried to reduce concussions by increasing player awareness and by changing certain rules, including starting teams closer to each other and farther downfield on kickoffs to lower the odds of high-speed collisions.
“The headline coming out of the 2024 season is that 2024 saw the fewest number of concussions on record in the NFL,” Jeff Miller, who heads up health and safety for the league, said at a press conference last month.
In 2024, there were 182 concussions during practices and regular season games — a 17% drop compared to the previous season, which saw 219 in 2023.
— Leigh Ann Winick, Sara Moniuszko
Who’s singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl?
Multi-talented performer Jon Batiste will sing the national anthem Sunday.
The multi-Grammy winner is set to open the game at kickoff at 6:30 p.m. EST. He told Entertainment Tonight last month that he hopes his performance “lasts the test of time.”
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The 38-year-old was the bandleader for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” from 2015 to 2022. He also was the co-composer for the Pixar animated movie “Soul.”
His documentary “American Symphony” won a Grammy for best music film this month, along with his song “It Never Went Away” from the documentary for best song written for visual media.
Some Super Bowl ads already live online
Super Bowl LIX is expected to draw more than 120 million viewers Sunday, making it one of the most-viewed television events of the year.
With an audience of that size, a few ad spots are reportedly selling for a record $8 million. That compares with a 30-second spot selling for about $7 million during last year’s game.
Beyond the investment on securing Super Bowl air time, advertisers spend additional millions on creating their commercials, adding to the pressure for their investments to pay off.
This year’s mix of ad categories for the most part includes the usual suspects: beverages, snacks, tech companies and telcos, according to Mark Evans, executive vice president of ad sales for Fox Sports. There will be a focus on AI in more commercials, he said, and slightly more pharmaceutical companies advertising this year.
Click here for some of the ads you can already watch online.
What is at stake Sunday
A win Sunday would cement the Chiefs Patrick Mahomes as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, giving him an unprecedented four Super Bowls, all before the age of 30. It would also carry extra meaning for Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who led the Eagles for 14 seasons before his firing in 2012.
But this could prove the toughest Super Bowl challenge for the Chiefs of any in the Mahomes era. This Eagles team is arguably more talented than the one from two years ago, with the NFL’s leading rusher in Saquon Barkley, and one of the stoutest defenses in the league.
The Eagles are seeking just the second title of their storied franchise. Their only Lombardi Trophy came in 2018 on the back of an extraordinary playoff upset run led by backup quarterback Nick Foles, culminating in his defeat of Tom Brady’s New England Patriots.
And in a twist, Brady will be broadcasting Sunday’s Super Bowl for Fox.
For Super Bowl, NFL scrapping “End Racism” end zone stencil in favor of “Choose Love”
The NFL is stenciling “Choose Love” in the back of one of the end zones at the Superdome for the Super Bowl on Sunday in what the league says is an effort to encourage the country after a series of tragedies over the first six weeks of the year.
It’s not using “End Racism” for the first time since the NFL began using Super Bowl end zone stencils.
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“The Super Bowl is often a snapshot in time and the NFL is in a unique position to capture and lift the imagination of the country,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement this week. “‘Choose Love’ is appropriate to use as our country has endured in recent weeks wildfires in Southern California, the terrorist attack here in New Orleans, the plane and helicopter crash near our nation’s capital and the plane crash in Philadelphia.”
“It Takes All of Us” will be stenciled in the other end zone as it’s been since the league began using field stencils in 2020 for the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative.
Teams this season have selected “Vote,” “End Racism,” “Stop Hate,” or “Choose Love” for the other end zone.
Who is favored headed into Super Bowl LIX?
Just hours before kickoff, sportsbooks have the Chiefs as 1.5-point favorites over the Eagles, a number which has remained steady throughout the past week.
The game is expected to be high-scoring, with an over-under of 48.5, according to sportsbooks. The two teams combined for a 73-point shootout in their first Super Bowl meeting.
The Chiefs 15-2 record this season is somewhat deceptive, eking out wins, with the team only going 8-9 against the spread, per Covers.com. The Eagles finished with a 14-3 record but went 11-6 against the spread. The Chiefs finished 11th in the NFL with a regular season point differential of plus-59, according to StatMuse, while the Eagles finished second with a point differential of plus-160.
How much are Super Bowl tickets?
As of Thursday, the cheapest nosebleed Super Bowl seats in the Superdome were going for about $3,400 with fees on Ticketmaster, while on StubHub the cheapest tickets were listed for significantly less at just under $2,550 with fees.
Ticket packages sold directly by the NFL start at roughly $6,700 per person and include amenities along with the seat, like access to tailgate parties, meet-and-greets with football stars, and free food and drinks.
The priciest tickets were on the ground level near the Chiefs’ area on the field. Seats in that section cost around $8,650 on StubHub, with comparable seats costing up to $12,000 on Ticketmaster.
Who’s performing at the Super Bowl halftime show?
Rap megastar Kendrick Lamar is headlining the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX halftime show.
This is not the first time Lamar has graced the halftime show stage. He performed at Super Bowl LVI in 2022 during an ensemble act that also featured the likes of Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem and 50 Cent.
Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images
Lamar will be joined on stage by special guest SZA, the league announced in January.
The two are set to go on a 19-city North American tour that kicks off in April. The duo has collaborated on songs “30 for 30,” “luther,” “Gloria,” “All the Stars” and “Doves in the Wind.”
Super Bowl menu ideas and recipes
From burgers, hot dogs, tacos, BBQ and wings, to salsas and cocktails, here are some tempting recipes and menus from top chefs, cookbook authors and restaurateurs to go with watching the Big Game.
They include the likes of Eddie Jackson’s Cajun sticky wings, Erik Blauberg’s ultimate chili with watermelon and Guy Fieri’s chicken avocado egg rolls.