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Justin Baldoni’s legal team implored a federal judge Thursday to dismiss actor Blake Lively’s lawsuit related to their 2024 movie “It Ends With Us,” arguing that her sexual harassment case concerned nothing more than “trivial and petty grievances.” Sigrid McCawley, one of Lively’s lawyers, rejected Baldoni’s lawyers’ premise and insisted the case revolved around “women feeling comfortable in their jobs and not being retaliated against.” Lively, 38, accused Baldoni, 41, and his Wayfarer Studios production company of orchestrating a punitive “smear campaign” after she spoke out about the allegedly toxic work environment he created on the set of “It Ends With Us.” Baldoni directed the film and starred alongside Lively. U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman is now weighing whether the high-profile case, filed in the Southern District of New York, should move forward. He heard arguments from both sides Thursday morning, presiding over an occasionally fiery hearing. Jonathan Bach, one of Baldoni’s lawyers, argued Lively knowingly agreed to co-star in a movie that would feature “hot and sexy scenes” as well as a “steamy and turbulent romance” adapted from the eponymous novel by Colleen Hoover. Liman interrupted Bach to say that acting in the project “does not mean you subject yourself to sexual harassment.” Celebrity News Jan 20 Taylor Swift and Blake Lively's texts about Justin Baldoni drama revealed Celebrity News Nov 2, 2025 Final judgment issued in Justin Baldoni's countersuit against Blake Lively Esra Hudson, another one of Lively’s lawyers, detailed the actor’s sexual harassment allegations against Baldoni, saying her client was “kissed, nuzzled and touched” without her consent. Baldoni was “consistently inappropriate” and crossed “boundaries” on set, Hudson argued. The hearing came after thousands of pages of documents were made public this week, including a filing that includes Lively’s claim that Baldoni pressured her to simulate nudity in a scene depicting her character giving birth. The documents also include a record of Lively’s text messages with one of her close friends, the pop superstar Taylor Swift, who used an expletive to describe Baldoni. “I think this bitch knows something is coming because he’s gotten out his tiny violin,” Swift wrote in one text, referring to Baldoni, according to a document filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Swift’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment this week. Lively initially filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department on Dec. 20, 2024, accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation. She then filed a federal civil lawsuit against him on Dec. 31, 2024. In late February, she filed an amended complaint against him as well as his company, the firm’s chief executive and other defendants. He filed a countersuit against her seeking $400 million, though a federal judge tossed that case. Lively’s amended complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, but it does not specify a dollar figure. It alleges Baldoni constructed a “multi-tiered plan” to tarnish her public reputation. “It Ends With Us” stars Lively as a flower shop owner who marries a neurosurgeon played by Baldoni. The film chronicles Lively’s character’s experiences with domestic abuse.

Consumers can expect their energy bills to jump in the next billing cycle and even months down the road as a major winter storm brews across the country. The National Weather Service said “widespread heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain” are expected in a large part of the country starting Friday and carrying through the weekend. Disruptive winter weather, like what many U.S. households are about to experience, can send bills immediately jumping because of surges in demand. “Everybody is racing to their thermostat to crank up the heat all at once — there’s just a tremendous demand pull that happens,” said Eli Rubin, a senior energy analyst at EBW AnalyticsGroup. In the short term, households’ prices will spike for both natural gas and electricity because of an increase in usage, he said, but electric heating is likely to experience a larger surge in demand because “electric heaters are not as efficient as gas heaters.” “They’re typically designed for regions like the Southeast that do not see the same sustained prolonged cold as, say, Minnesota,” Rubin said. “And so when we do get these severe cold spikes in those regions, the total amount of demand can absolutely skyrocket as a result.” A storm of this anticipated magnitude can also cause long-term increases in consumers’ energy bills. Natural gas prices have been soaring in the days leading up to the forecast winter storm, and they have risen about 63% since Monday, the most since December. But residential households won’t feel the price hikes immediately. Instead, the increases will gradually trickle down into their energy bills. “What happens with these huge price increases is that they’re absorbed slowly,” Rubin said. “State regulatory commissions and your local utilities are not going to suddenly double the rate you’re paying for natural gas overnight — but you will be paying. They’re going to phase it in over time.” Consumers who heat their homes with electricity will see a similar impact on their long-term bills, he said, adding that the longer-term price increases for both heating sources could take six months to a year, or even longer, to show up in utility bills. Increased electricity demand has already been on the rise because of the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers in the U.S., which consume large quantities of energy and have affected residential energy bills. As for natural gas, Henry Hofmann, a co-portfolio manager of the Catalyst Energy Infrastructure Fund, wrote in an email to NBC News that “inventories are ok currently, but the combination of freeze-offs and increased heating demand should cause a significant draw in the weeks ahead.” Freezing temperatures can cause equipment used in natural gas production and transportation not to work properly, or at all, as well as lead to power outages causing what is referred to as “freeze-offs,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. weather Jan 21 How to prepare for the winter storm that is set to hit half of the U.S. this weekend Extreme Weather Jan 6, 2025 Take these steps to protect yourself from winter weather dangers “We’d also expect some gas to be diverted from LNG facilities in the short-term to help balance the market,” Hofmann added, referring to liquefied natural gas. EIA projected in its Short-Term Energy Outlook released Jan. 13 that natural gas costs will go down this year but rise in 2027 because of “growth in demand—led by expanding liquefied natural gas exports and more natural gas consumption in the electric power sector—will outpace production growth.” Rubin said: “So we have some of these supply-side impacts that reduce supply at the same time we have demand surging. That creates a tremendous bullish impact on price.”

The United States and China have signed off on a deal that would hand control of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a group of investors backed by President Donald Trump, according to a White House official. The deal comes just ahead of a deadline the Trump administration had extended several times. Last month, TikTok CEO Shou Chew told employees that the company’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, had signed binding agreements to create a joint venture for the app in the U.S. The deal, facilitated by the Trump administration, means the U.S. version of TikTok will become majority-owned by a group of investors that includes the American tech giant Oracle, the California-based private equity fund Silver Lake and the United Arab Emirates investment firm MGX. Trump told reporters last year that the investors involved in the deal are “all very well-known people, very famous people actually, financially.” He touted in September that TikTok will be “American-operated all the way.” Social Media Jan 18 Social media addiction's surprising challenger? Anti-doomscrolling influencers Social Media Dec 18, 2025 TikTok signs deal with three major investors to form new U.S. joint venture ByteDance will keep a 19.9% stake in the U.S. operation, TikTok said in a December memo. The joint venture will be governed by a seven-member board of directors, according to a statement Thursday evening from TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC. It will be led by Adam Presser with Chew serving as a director, the statement said. The majority of the members are American, it said. Americans make up TikTok’s largest user and creator bases, with more than 150 million active users in the country. The popular short-form video platform has been subject to years of scrutiny across the political aisle in the U.S. over its Chinese ownership. Both Trump and former President Joe Biden had cited national security concerns in their attempts to push for a nationwide ban of the app. Such a ban almost came to fruition just over a year ago, when the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was supposed to take effect. The bipartisan bill, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, required ByteDance to sell the platform to an American company or face a ban. The looming threat of a nationwide TikTok shutdown stirred a mass exodus of users who, in fear of losing their audiences and income streams, migrated to other social media platforms, like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Many, to express their spite for U.S. lawmakers, also inundated the Chinese social media app RedNote. But aside from its briefly going dark on the eve of the ban, TikTok it has remained consistently available to its American users as Trump repeatedly issued executive orders to delay the ban. He extended TikTok’s shutdown deadline four times before he announced a tentative deal between Washington and Beijing in September. Even after the ban’s initial signing, there were signs that a deal would emerge as popular discontent about the decision surged. Last January, the Biden White House said it would pass responsibility for its enforcement to Trump’s incoming administration, and congressional leaders who had once championed the ban seemed to shy away from enforcing it, as well. Trump has also flip-flopped on his attitude toward TikTok. In 2020, during his first term, he signed an executive order to effectively ban it; that order was later halted in court. By 2024, however, he openly voiced his opposition to a TikTok ban and joined the platform in an attempt to reach young voters, even publishing a video promising to “save TikTok.”

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon heard arguments Thursday in Washington over the legality of the White House ballroom’s construction. While Leon did not rule from the bench, promising a decision in February, his comments during arguments left little doubt about what way he was leaning. Attorney Thad Heuer, representing the nonprofit National Trust for Historic Preservation, a group that works to protect U.S. historic sites, argued that the president does not possess the Constitutional authority required to tear down the East Wing of the White House, and construct a ballroom. “He’s not the owner,” of the White House, Heuer said. Leon appeared to agree, saying, “He’s the steward.” There was a great deal of discussion about the funding mechanism for the project. Leon compared it several times to a “Rube Goldberg Contraption,” because of the novel way in which the Trump administration is avoiding direct Congressional authorization for the project. The administration cites several federal statutes — and hundreds of millions of dollars in private funding — to argue the construction is legal. White House Jan 16 Trump quietly appoints 4 members to commission that will review White House ballroom plan White House Jan 8 White House details plans for Trump's expansive new ballroom “Congress does not hide elephants in mouse holes,” Heuer suggested about several million dollars in Congressional appropriations earmarked for “alterations and improvements” that the Trump administration is arguing allows for the construction of a $400 million ballroom. “The president didn’t want $400 million in taxpayer money to be used for this,” Department of Justice attorney Yaakov Roth, representing the Trump administration, said when asked why Trump didn’t ask Congress for funding, and therefore authorization to build. “He wanted to use donations,” Roth said. NBCUniversal’s parent company, Comcast Corp., is among the donors. Roth also cited the White House pool built by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and the White House Tennis Complex as two structures on the White House grounds that did not get direct congressional authorization. Leon appeared skeptical of that line of argument. “The ’70s Ford Pool? You compare that to ripping down the East Wing?” Leon asked. “C’mon, be serious.” Roth claimed the Trump administration would be “irreparably harmed” if Leon were to order construction paused. “Are we going to suspend construction in the middle?” Roth asked. He said a pause would expose the existing building to the elements, and would create national security concerns. As to the suggestion about whether the White House bunker construction — which is ongoing underneath the ballroom site — could continue if the ballroom construction doesn’t, Roth claimed “It can’t be divided that way.” Roth noded to the political limitations of the president’s actions. “Nobody has touched the Executive mansion,” he said. “That is the core site,” Roth added. A White House official earlier this month said the administration is aiming for a final presentation of the ballroom to the National Capital Planning Commission in March.