Super Bowl halftime show planners are reportedly considering Justin Bieber and Harry Styles as their leading candidates for the blockbuster event set to take place in Los Angeles in February 2027.

However, despite their apparent status at the top of the list, both global pop stars are believed to be hesitant about accepting the high-profile invitation should it arrive.

As reported by TMZ, Roc Nation has Bieber and Styles among its preferred choices for the Super Bowl 2027 halftime show at SoFi Stadium on February 14. Neither artist has reportedly received an official approach yet, with the NFL traditionally revealing its performer near the end of September.

Jay-Z has the final say on the halftime entertainment through Roc Nation, which serves as the NFL’s live music and entertainment strategist.

Still, reports suggest that Bieber and Styles may turn down the opportunity, despite the scale of the platform. Super Bowl halftime performers are not paid for their appearances.

While the Super Bowl stage has featured many of music’s most famous names, artists have long performed without a fee, often viewing its vast audience and publicity value as the reward.

Last year’s Bad Bunny halftime performance — the first delivered without English-language songs — sparked widespread discussion and controversy, prompting Jay-Z to explain how the selection process works.

“I think everyone should experience music in its totality,” he told GQ. “For many years, only one side of music was being represented. We have an opportunity to offer a more balanced picture of what popular music looks like today.”

‘I’m not going out on a limb, this is the most famous people in the world. I didn’t pick, like, the indie artist that I really like from Portland – It’s the number one most streamed artist in the world. Him!’

The Bad Bunny show set global viewership and social media records, but fell short of the most viewed show of all-time on US television ratings. 

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The show averaged 128.2 million viewers from 8:15 to 8:30 p.m. ET, making it the fourth-most-watched halftime behind Kendrick Lamar (133.5 million, 2025), Michael Jackson (133.4 million, 1993) and Usher (129.3 million, 2024). 

The previous year, Kendrick Lamar was also considered a controversial choice, but Jay-Z pushed back on the idea that he was a ‘hard one to get across the board’ in the same interview.  

After explaining that decision, Hov was asked about his choice for the year prior, Kendrick Lamar, and if that was ‘a hard one to get across the board.’

‘Not without conversations that was dated, you know what I mean?’ Jay-Z replied. ‘The stats show. 

‘Kendrick broke the audience record, it’s not rocket science, this is the music of our time and it should be represented on the biggest stage because – I’m not saying they’re the only artists, right, obviously, other artists would be offended – But, I think that was the right choice. 

‘I chose the guy that was having a monster year. I think it was the right choice. What do I care about them two guys battling? What’s that got to do with me? Have at it.

‘They drag everybody in it, like everyone’s part of this conspiracy to undermine Drake, I guess. But, it’s like, what the f***? I’m f***ing Jay-Z! All due respect to him. I’m f***ing Hov.

‘Respectfully. It doesn’t make any sense. It couldn’t be that these guys just don’t like each other. I think this has been brewing, just like me and Nas was brewing. 

‘It didn’t happen at the Summer Jam – that happened with ‘Lex with TV sets, the minimum.’ It was a whole bunch of stuff leading up to that point. I actually regret that because I really like Nas. He’s a really nice guy.’

In another bizarre moment from a series already overflowing with them, Pete Alonso delivered a historic, game-tying homer at Citi Field — then soaked in the cheers of Mets fans who had just watched him threaten to take a game away from their own team.

With one out in the top of the ninth Tuesday and the Mets protecting a one-run lead, Alonso saw a 2-0 ghost forkball from Kodai Senga that failed to vanish. Instead, the pitch sat plainly in the heart of the strike zone.

Alonso did not miss. He turned on the offering and blasted the 300th home run of his career in a stadium where he has hit so many before.

The blast itself was dramatic, but the response around Citi Field was even more striking. Alonso flipped his bat aside and rounded the bases as much of the crowd of 28,097 cheered.

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“Pete Alonso” chants rolled through the ballpark until Alonso — playing as a visitor and having just tied the game at 3-3 — emerged for a curtain call. For a Mets fan base with little else to celebrate, the support belonged to the star they feel got away.

When the Alonso chants finally faded, they were replaced by a loud, stadium-wide chorus of “Fire Stearns” across Queens.

An Arizona homeowner says his homeowners’ association foreclosed on and sold his $475,000 house after he fell behind on dues totaling less than $1,000.

Toby Newton, 53, bought the four-bedroom Mesa home in 2022. He told News Media that he later missed quarterly HOA payments after losing his sales job and receiving a diabetes diagnosis. Newton also said his partner has been undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

“I was a year and a half behind because of the situation I found myself in with my girlfriend and myself getting sick,” Newton said. “That’s how it started. I called the HOA to make an arrangement with them to get them paid and they wouldn’t talk to me. They told me I had to talk to their attorney and that’s when it blew up.”

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Newton’s HOA fees were roughly $170 every three months. As his financial troubles mounted, he said the unpaid balance eventually reached $977.

News Media has contacted the HOA’s attorney for comment.

Newton said he reached out to the Superstition Springs Community Master Association to try to establish a repayment plan and bring his account current. He initially proposed paying an additional $50 each month on top of his regular assessments to reduce the debt.

He said the association rejected that proposal.

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A monthly increase of $200 was also rebuffed, he said. The HOA eventually began foreclosure proceedings.

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“I just don’t understand how an HOA that’s supposed to be there for the community doesn’t work with the community at all,” Newton said.

Meanwhile, the debt ballooned to nearly $10,000, Newton said, mostly for attorney’s fees for the HOA. The home was sold at a public auction in November 2025 for just $8,172, the Mesa Tribune reported.

“The sale happened and I’m still in the house,” said Newton. “I haven’t been kicked out yet. That’s what I’m trying to avoid. I’m just trying to save it because I don’t know how it could go from owing them $977 to $10,000.”

Newton said he wasn’t aware of the auction until two days before. He said he has no plans to leave the home, which he purchased to spend his golden years after retirement.

“We are holding on to hope that we may still have a chance to buy our home back,” an online fundraiser created by Newton and his partner states.

HOAs have long been accused of abusing their authority and fining, or even foreclosing on homeowners, for committing even the most mundane violations.

Across the country, many HOAs are taking a tougher stance on unpaid dues amid mounting financial pressures. Real estate experts have said the aggressive collection efforts are being driven by rising operating costs, shrinking reserve funds, and concerns that unpaid assessments could leave associations unable to cover essential expenses, FOX Business previously reported.

HOA-related foreclosures have jumped nearly 40% compared with two years earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

A Florida man suspected of drunk driving was filmed trudging through swamp water known to contain alligators while carrying two small children after allegedly running from a crash scene.

Police in Lakeland said the alarming sequence began at about 4am on September 9, when Isaac Kinsey, 27, allegedly drove through a road-closure sign and struck sandbags on Highway 33.

His vehicle eventually stopped after hitting exposed tree roots in a construction area, authorities said, but Kinsey allegedly left the scene on foot.

Responding officers discovered two vacant child safety seats in the vehicle, prompting an urgent search for Kinsey and the children believed to have been with him.

Roughly 30 minutes later, a drone operator located Kinsey in a wooded swamp south of the crash site.

Disturbing drone video showed him moving through the alligator-infested marsh with a two-year-old child and a 10-month-old infant in his arms.

As he struggled across the difficult, waterlogged terrain, Kinsey appeared to fall repeatedly, causing the children to go beneath the water, the footage showed.

At one point, the video appeared to show Kinsey leaving the two-year-old behind while continuing through the swamp with the baby, before falling several more times.

In dramatic body camera video, an officer could be seen racing to the edge of the alligator-infested swamp water to catch up with Kinsey and rescue the children.

‘I could hear them crying in the woods,’ the officer could be heard saying as a baby whimpered at a distance.

When Kinsey then emerged from the water, he put his hands up in surrender, claiming he ‘did not know there was a swamp right here.’

But the officer seemed uninterested in his excuses, as he demanded Kinsey hand over the infant. 

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A moment later, he could also be heard encouraging the toddler to come forward. 

The children were then promptly taken to a local hospital, where they were treated and released.

As news then got out that the two young children were safe, an officer back at the crash site could be heard saying: ‘Ooh, thank you God for finding those kids.’ 

Meanwhile, police said Kinsey admitted he was intoxicated as he ‘displayed multiple indicators of impairment.’

He also allegedly had a suspended drivers’ license at the time, and is now facing three felony charges and eight misdemeanor offenses – including two counts of negligent child abuse with great bodily harm.

Police Chief Sammy Taylor told Fox 13 he was left outraged by Kinsey’s lack of care not only for the others on the road, but also for his own children who he’s glad didn’t drown.

‘It was just like a doll he was throwing around, and several times [they] went underneath the water,’ he noted.

‘I’m a father and grandfather, and it just makes your blood boil.’

The department also noted on social media that ‘this incident could have ended with the loss of two innocent lives.

‘The rapid deployment of Lakeland PD’s drone technology, along with the persistence and teamwork of responding officers, helped locate the children in an extremely difficult environment and get them the care they needed.

‘There is no excuse for impaired driving,’ the police department added. 

‘We are thankful these children survived and proud of the officers whose actions helped prevent an even greater tragedy.’ 

City Council progressives are again seeking to curb Asian-American students’ access to the city’s most selective public high schools, advancing what critics call racial injustice in the name of racial equity.

Queens Democrat Nantasha Williams and Brooklyn Democrat Lincoln Restler follow the same rationale that critics say led state Education Commissioner Betty Rosa to weaken the value of a New York diploma: removing measures that reveal public schools’ deep failures to educate Black and Hispanic students.

The council members argue that the small number of Black and Hispanic students admitted to Stuyvesant High School, Bronx Science and other specialized schools represents a serious inequity. But critics say they do not confront the underlying cause: shortcomings in K-8 education that leave too few students prepared to excel on the race-blind Specialized High Schools Admissions Test.

Instead, critics contend, their approach would punish the students succeeding under the current system by imposing an admissions framework that excludes students from heavily Asian neighborhoods.

Williams and Restler wrote to Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, urging additional admissions at the eight elite high schools that do not use the SHSAT and, ideally, the elimination of the test altogether.

(They also propose expanding enrollment by thousands of seats. Yet the state’s class-size law is expected to reduce enrollment at these schools unless the city expands the buildings to add classrooms.)

Their most immediate proposal targets students admitted through the summer Discovery prep program, where 62% of the current cohort is Asian. They would restrict Discovery eligibility to students from the city’s 15 lowest-income school districts — a move that would exclude 90% of low-income Asian students.

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Citywide poverty rates among Asian-American students are as high as, or higher than, those among Black and Latino students; Asian families, however, are more likely to live in economically diverse neighborhoods.

Critics argue that the Williams-Restler proposal deserves a more candid label: the Asian Exclusion Act.

The Asian Wave Alliance condemned the premise, saying it amounts to the belief “that racial diversity requires reducing opportunities for one minority group in order to increase opportunities for another.”

AWA co-founder Yiatin Chu rightly ripped this “attack on merit masquerading as ‘diversity.’ ”

Felicia Thomas-Williams of the state Board of Regents inadvertently exposed the racism here by arguing for the state’s new no-standards graduation pathways: “You don’t assess a fish on climbing a tree because fish can’t climb trees.”

Unless she’s just being cynically dishonest, the implication is that Thomas-Williams thinks we shouldn’t assess black and Hispanic kids on literacy or numeracy because she doesn’t believe they can become proficient in reading or math: That’s outright bigotry.

Nantasha Williams and Lincoln Restler are every bit as bigoted, or perhaps just equally dishonest.