‘Heated Rivalry,’ ‘Widow’s Bay’ lead TCA Awards nominations
Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander and Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov in ‘Heated Rivalry.’ (Sabrina Lantos/HBO Max)
Heated Rivalry, Widow’s Bay and Industry lead the nominations for the 42nd annual TCA Awards with five apiece.
All three are nominated in the program of the year category alongside last year’s winner, The Pitt, as well as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Hacks, The Comeback, Shrinking and Pluribus.
The Pitt’s Noah Wyle is nominated in the individual achievement in drama category after winning in the category last year. He’ll face off against Heated Rivalry stars Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, as well as Industry stars Myha’la and Marisa Abela, and more.
Two new categories were also added this year: outstanding achievement in animation and outstanding achievement in international series.
The TCA Awards, voted on by members of the Television Critics Association, will announce the winners later this summer across TCA’s social media.
Mark Ballas stars in ‘Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro.’ (Disney/Maarten De Boer)
It’s time to head back to the ballroom for the new Dancing with the Stars spinoff, The Next Pro.
The brand-new series, which premieres Monday night on ABC, follows young professional dancers competing for the chance to become a pro on Dancing with the Stars.
Mark Ballas serves as a judge on the new series. He caught up with ABC Audio on the red carpet of the 2026 Disney Upfront, where he spilled details on what fans can expect.
“It’s a fascinating show, because it feels like Dancing with the Stars, which it kind of is, but it’s also very different because of the format,” Ballas said. “We’re looking for a pro that’s gonna take on the role of being a pro on Dancing with the Stars. Which is very complex, it’s very nuanced.”
How exactly does The Next Pro do this? Ballas said “the show did a really great job of setting up challenges for these dancers.”
“Whether it’s from choreographing, group work, chemistry, teaching challenges, these are the things that you face as a pro on Dancing with the Stars,” Ballas said.
He isn’t the only judge. His mother, Shirley Ballas, sits beside him to help determine who has what it takes.
“My mother is one of the most elite Latin American dance coaches in the world,” Ballas said. “Having her level of expertise on the panel is always an asset. No one knows the craft more than her.”
That being said, Ballas teased they approached the job in different ways.
“She’s been on the side as a judge, and I’ve always been on side as the pro,” Ballas said. “We had a couple of disagreements out in the field … but we also agreed a lot. She’s very good at what she does, she’s very direct. And when you’re improving on being a professional in this field, you need that.”
The book covers for Sarah J. Mass’ next installments in ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ series. (Bloomsbury)
Sarah J. Maas has revealed the titles and covers for the next two novels in her A Court of Thorns and Roses series.
The bestselling author took to Instagram on Monday to reveal the books will be titled A Court of Splintered Harmony and A Court of Forgotten Melody.
Her post featuring the book cover for A Court of Splintered Harmony was captioned, “What was broken will be remade.”
Maas’ post for A Court of Forgotten Melody included the caption, “What was lost will be reclaimed.”
A Court of Splintered Harmony will be released on Oct. 27, 2026, while A Court of Forgotten Melody will be released on Jan. 12, 2027.
Digital billboards displayed across Los Angeles, Denver and New York City also helped announce the news on Monday.
In March, Maas told Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper that her popular ACOTAR series will continue with books six and seven.
“It’s been a long time coming,” she said at the time. “It’s something that took me a long time to write, just because there were enough things going on in my life that I had to sort through.”
She didn’t reveal much about the upcoming novels, but talked about her writing process, saying, “The story that was finally ready to come out of me was big. Really, really big. And as I started writing this in like this Montana energy vortex, it came out of me in a way that surprised me.”
She went on, “By the time I got to the end of the part one, it was, like, 400 pages long. But what I was writing felt right. That was the story that needed to be told.”
What resulted was 1,000 pages of storytelling, she said. Because of this, she’s decided to release the next part of the ACOTAR series in three parts.
She added, “I’ve never told a story this way. This is how it wants to come out. Why do I have to be held back by the realities of the glue that we need to hold the pages or just like placement on a shelf?”
The author introduced the first ACOTAR book to the world in May 2015. It follows 19-year-old huntress Feyre, who is taken to a magical land by a beast-like creature called Tamlin, described as a lethal, immortal faerie.
“Her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae,” a book synopsis said.
A Court of Mist and Fury was released in 2016 followed by A Court of Wings and Ruin in 2017 and A Court of Frost and Starlight in 2018.
A Court of Silver Flames was released in February 2021.
Maas’ announcement was also a part of the author’s rebrand of her digital presence, with her previous social media posts removed on Instagram and her website transformed into a darkened landing page.
Blake Lively attends the 2026 Met Gala celebrating “Costume Art” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 4, 2026, in New York. Justin Baldoni speaks onstage at the Vital Voices 12th Annual Voices of Solidarity Award, Dec. 9, 2024, in New York. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images | Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)
A New York federal judge has ruled that Justin Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, must pay his former It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively’s attorneys’ fees, after the parties reached a settlement last month in Lively’s lawsuit against the actor and production studio.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman denied Lively’s claim for punitive damages but wrote that the actress was entitled to attorneys’ fees under California Civil Code Section 47.1.
Section 47.1 states in part that a “prevailing defendant” in a defamation case is “entitled to their reasonable attorney’s fees and costs for successfully defending themselves in the litigation,” as well as any additional damages permitted by a judge.
In a statement to ABC News following the ruling, Lively’s attorneys Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb said the judge’s decision “makes it clear that Ms. Lively brought her claims in good faith, that there was no evidence she acted with malice, and that she is the prevailing defendant under Section 47.1.”
“Ms. Lively is gratified that her lawsuit shows how Section 47.1 and laws like it create a path for survivors to hold accountable those who weaponize online attacks and retaliatory lawsuits to intimidate and silence survivors,” they added.
ABC News has reached out to representatives for Baldoni for comment.
Friday’s decision comes after the parties reached a settlement in early May in Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, ending their nearly year-and-a-half legal dispute.
According to settlement documents filed May 7 in the Southern District of New York, Baldoni, via his Wayfarer production company, and Lively agreed to settle their ongoing dispute on terms that Lively could still seek to recover attorney’s fees and additional damages.
The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Lively and Baldoni’s legal battle kicked off in December 2024, when Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department alleging “severe emotional distress” after she said Baldoni and key stakeholders in the film — which Baldoni also directed — sexually harassed her and attempted, along with Baldoni’s production company, to orchestrate a smear campaign against her.
Baldoni followed up the action by filing a lawsuit against the New York Times for libel and false light invasion of privacy on Dec. 31 after it published the article about Lively’s California complaint.
Lively subsequently formalized her complaint into a lawsuit against Baldoni in New York, also on Dec. 31.
Baldoni responded by filing a civil lawsuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and others for, among other things, extortion and defamation.
The suits were consolidated into one lawsuit in January 2025.
In June last year, Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against Lively, Reynolds and the couple’s publicist Leslie Sloane, as well as Baldoni’s defamation suit against the Times, was dismissed by Liman.
A federal judge in New York gutted much of Lively’s case against Baldoni in April of this year, including claims she was subjected to sexual harassment on set.
The judge determined in a ruling at the time that Lively would be allowed to pursue certain claims of retaliation against Baldoni’s public relations team over alleged harm to her reputation.
In May, after reaching a settlement in their protracted legal dispute, the two actors issued a joint statement via their respective legal teams, saying, “We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
