Author: admin

• Lively filed a sexual harassment complaint against her “It Ends With Us” costar Baldoni and accused him of a smear campaign.
• Baldoni filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, Lively, her rep, and Ryan Reynolds in response.
• In November 2025, a judge officially ended Baldoni’s lawsuit.

The “It Ends With Us” press tour in the summer of 2024 was overshadowed by rumors and speculation of a feud between lead star Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, her costar and director.

But while the movie survived the backlash and went on to become one of the summer’s biggest hits at the box office, grossing $350 million worldwide, the “It Ends with Us” drama didn’t end there.

In December 2024, Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni, setting off a cascade of subsequent lawsuits brought by Lively, Baldoni, and even tangential characters like Baldoni’s ex-publicist Stephanie Jones.

In June 2025, a judge threw out Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit. Baldoni was allowed to file an amended complaint, but in November, the judge formally ended the suit after the deadline for Baldoni to do so had passed.

Lively’s original lawsuit against Baldoni is still ongoing.

Here’s everything we know about their feud and legal battle.

Eve Crosbie and Ayomikun Adekaiyero contributed to previous versions of this post.

Baldoni didn’t interact with other cast members at press events, sparking feud rumors.

Fans suspected something was amiss when Baldoni and Lively didn’t interact during the press tour despite playing partners in the film.

Lively did press events with costars Brandon Sklenar and Isabela Ferrer and author Colleen Hoover, who wrote the book the film is based on. Baldoni did most of his press solo.

When they both attended the New York premiere on August 6, they were not photographed together. Lively posed with her castmates, Hoover, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and Hugh Jackman, his “Deadpool & Wolverine” costar. Baldoni was photographed with his wife and some of the other producers who worked on the film.

While speaking to Entertainment Tonight on the carpet at the New York premiere, Baldoni explained why he was stepping back from the limelight.

“This isn’t my night — this is a night for all the women who we made this movie for,” he said.” This is a night for Blake, this is a night for Colleen. I’m just so grateful that we’re here, five years in the making.”

On social media, fans theorized about the potential drama between the two.

The speculation intensified after a user on the r/ColleenHoover subreddit noted on August 6, 2024 that Lively and Hoover did not follow Baldoni on Instagram. Fans also noticed that the film’s other stars, including Sklenar, Ferrer, and Jenny Slate, did not follow Baldoni. Baldoni followed all of them except Hoover.

Business Insider could not verify whether they previously followed Baldoni.

Adding to this theory was a clip of Slate seemingly sidestepping a question about Baldoni at the movie’s New York premiere. Asked about having Baldoni as both a scene partner and a director, she responded by not mentioning him and instead speaking about how “intense” it must be to do both jobs.

As speculation increased, fans turned on Lively.

Many fans began blaming Lively for the supposed feud, accusing her of trying to take over the film.

This theory was supported by Baldoni and Lively’s interviews in the lead-up to the premiere.

On August 9, 2024, Baldoni told Today that Lively and Reynolds, who was not a producer on the film, contributed significantly to it.

“You can’t summarize Blake’s contribution in a sentence, because her energy and imprint is all over the movie and really, really made the film better, and from beginning to end,” Baldoni said.

Baldoni also said he struggled to balance allowing collaboration and having his voice drowned out entirely.

“You don’t have to listen to everybody, and that didn’t happen all the time, but there were just moments where I would get out of the way too much,” he said.

Baldoni said Lively should take over as director to adapt the sequel to the “It Ends With Us” novel, “It Starts with Us.”

Meanwhile, Lively told E! News on August 7, 2024 that Reynolds helped pen the opening scene of “It Ends With Us.”

The film’s screenwriter Christy Hal told People a day later that she wasn’t aware that Reynolds had written some of the dialogue used in the final version of the script.

“When I saw a cut, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cute. That must have been a cute improvised thing,'” Hall said. “So if I’m being told that Ryan wrote that, then great, how wonderful.”

Fans also criticized how Lively promoted the movie, choosing to focus on its lighthearted and romantic elements instead of its heavy domestic abuse plot.

Baldoni was the only cast member who consistently spoke about the domestic abuse element.

A clip of Lively making an off-color remark to a reporter in a 2016 interview resurfaced amid the ‘It Ends With Us’ drama.

As online sentiment toward Lively turned increasingly negative, journalist Kjersti Flaa released an archival clip of an interview with Blake Lively on August 10, 2024 titled “The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job.”

“It actually took me a while to get over the experience,” Flaa told BI in an email on August 19, 2024 of the interview, which took place years earlier.

“Every time I entered a room after this I got nervous that something similar might happen again,” she wrote.

Lively’s costar made a statement asking people to stop focusing on ‘what may or may not have happened.’

Sklenar, who plays Lively’s other love interest in “It Ends With Us,” spoke out about the backlash in an Instagram post on August 20, 2024.

“Colleen and the women of this cast stand for hope, perseverance, and for women choosing a better life for themselves. Vilifying the women who put so much of their heart and soul into making this film because they believe so strongly in its message seems counterproductive and detracts from what this film is about,” he said.

“This film is meant to inspire. It’s meant to validate and recognize,” Sklenar added. “It is not meant to once again, make women the ‘bad guy,’ let’s move beyond that together.”

Representatives for Baldoni, Lively, Reynolds, Hoover, and Sklenar did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Months later, Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment and a smear campaign against her.

On December 20, 2024, Lively filed a legal complaint against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment, retaliation, breach of contract, inflicting “emotional distress,” and conspiring to damage her public reputation.

Lively’s complaint also named Wayfarer Studios, Baldoni’s production company, and Jamey Heath, the company’s CEO, as two of the 11 defendants.

In the complaint, Lively said an all-hands meeting about Baldoni and Heath’s behavior on set was held in January 2023. She accused him of showing her nude videos and images of women, improvising kissing scenes or intimate scenes, and entering her trailer while she was naked.

Lively said Heath and Baldoni responded by hiring Melissa Nathan, a crisis PR representative, and Jed Wallace, a Texas-based contractor, both defendants in the complaint, to orchestrate a “multi-tiered” plan to “destroy” her public reputation and stop her or anyone else from speaking out about what happened on set.

She also said that the cast agreed to a marketing plan created by the film’s distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment, to avoid talking about the sad parts of the movie, which Baldoni broke away from.

“What the public did not know was that Mr. Baldoni and his team did so to explain why many of the Film’s cast and crew had unfollowed Mr. Baldoni on social media and were not appearing with him in public,” the complaint said.

Baldoni’s attorney said Lively blamed Baldoni in hopes of improving her reputation.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, told BI in a statement after the complaint was filed: “It is shameful that Ms. Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr. Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives, as yet another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation, which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film; interviews and press activities that were observed publicly, in real time and unedited, which allowed for the internet to generate their own views and opinions.”

Freedman said Nathan was hired because Lively made multiple demands and threatened not to show up to set or promote the film if they were not met.

When asked to respond to Freedman, a representative for Lively referred BI to a statement shared with The New York Times on December 21, 2024: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”

On December 24, 2024, publicist Stephanie Jones sued Baldoni, his film studio, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel, a former employee of Jones’ PR company, for breach of contract and defamation.

In the suit, Jones alleged Baldoni and the PRs orchestrated a smear campaign against Lively while her company was working with Baldoni. Jones said this was done behind her back until August 2024, when Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios stopped working with the company and worked directly with Abel.

In the following days, Hoover and other stars reacted to the lawsuit.

Lively’s costars from 2005’s “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” — America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel — shared a joint statement supporting Lively after she made the complaint.

Hoover and Sklenar, who worked on “It Ends With Us,” seemed to both throw their support behind Lively by sharing links to her allegations on their Instagram stories.

“@blakelively, you have been nothing but honest, kind, supportive and patient since the day we met,” Hoover wrote in her story post. “Thank you for being exactly the human that you are. Never change. Never wilt.”

Hoover has since deleted her Instagram, TikTok and Threads account.

Representatives for Hoover did not immediately respond to a comment request from BI.

Baldoni was dropped by his talent agency.

On December 21, 2024, The New York Times reported that Ari Emanuel, chief executive of the parent company that owns Baldoni’s talent agency, William Morris Endeavor, said the agency had stopped representing him.

On December 9, 2024, before the complaint was released, Vital Voices, a nonprofit organization that supports women leaders, awarded Baldoni the Voices of Solidarity Award to honor his advocacy work for women.

On December 23, 2024, Vital Voices said in a statement on their website that they had rescinded the award.

“The communications among Mr. Baldoni and his publicists included in the lawsuit — and the PR effort they indicate — are, alone, contrary to the values of Vital Voices and the spirit of the Award,” the statement read.

Baldoni filed a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and others mentioned in a New York Times story that detailed Lively’s accusations against Baldoni filed a lawsuit against the newspaper on December 31, 2024.

The lawsuit, obtained by BI, said the Times’ story published on December 21, 2024 “relied almost entirely on Lively’s unverified and self-serving narrative” and accused the publication of “disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives.”

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, contained screenshots of messages that it said contradicted the Times’ reporting.

In a statement provided to BI after the lawsuit was filed, a Times spokesperson said the newspaper stood by its reporting and would “vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”

“Our story was meticulously and responsibly reported. It was based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents, including the text messages and emails that we quote accurately and at length in the article,” the statement said.

The outlet also published its full statement responding to the allegations.

In a statement provided to BI after Baldoni’s lawsuit was filed, Freedman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said Lively had orchestrated a “vicious smear campaign” and that the Times “cowered to the wants and whims of two powerful ‘untouchable’ Hollywood elites.”

Freedman also said that they would also sue other individuals “who have abused their power to try and destroy the lives of my clients.”

In a statement provided to BI about Baldoni’s suit, Lively’s lawyers said: “Nothing in this lawsuit changes anything about the claims advanced in Ms. Lively’s California Civil Rights Department Complaint, nor her federal complaint.”

Lively filed her own lawsuit in New York.

The same day Baldoni filed his lawsuit against the Times, Lively filed a lawsuit against him, Wayfarer, and others in New York federal court.

Representatives for Lively said the lawsuit, which was obtained by BI, was based on the legal complaint Lively previously filed with the California Civil Rights Department. The lawsuit accuses Baldoni and his PR team of engaging in a campaign to retaliate against her for speaking out about sexual misconduct.

“Unfortunately, Ms. Lively’s decision to speak out has resulted in further retaliation and attacks,” her lawyers said in a statement provided to BI. “As alleged in Ms. Lively’s federal Complaint, Wayfarer and its associates have violated federal and California state law by retaliating against her for reporting sexual harassment and workplace safety concerns.”

Representatives for Baldoni and Wayfarer did not address the lawsuit filed by Lively when reached by BI.

Baldoni’s lawyer accused Reynolds of teasing the actor with a ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ character.

On January 7, Freedman told SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show” that his team planned to take further legal action.

Freedman also alleged Reynolds used his influence to help Lively take over “It Ends With Us” and to mock Baldoni on “Deadpool and Wolverine,” via a new character in the film called Nicepool.

In the film, which premiered in July 2024 and was the second-highest-grossing movie of 2024, Nicepool, a version of Deadpool from an alternate dimension whose face has not been disfigured, jokes about a woman’s pregnancy weight, claims to be a feminist and wears a man bun.

Freedman alleged this was based on Baldoni, who has a reputation for being a feminist and has been known to wear his hair in a bun in the past.

In the movie, Nicepool is eventually killed by Ladypool, a female version of Deadpool from an alternate dimension played by Lively.

“What I make of that is that if your wife is sexually harassed, you don’t make fun of Justin Baldoni,” Freedman said. “You don’t make fun of the situation. You take it very seriously. You file HR complaints. You raise the issue and you follow a legal process. What you don’t do is mock the person and turn it into a joke.”

Baldoni’s company Wayfarer sued Lively, her publicist, and Reynolds.

On January 16, 2025, Baldoni, his associates at his company Wayfarer Studios, and his publicists Nathan and Abel sued Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane, and her husband Ryan Reynolds, alleging they orchestrated a smear campaign against him.

Baldoni’s lawsuit, which seeks $400 million in damages, alleges that Lively, with the help of Reynolds and Sloane, hijacked “It Ends with Us” by wresting creative control away from Baldoni, then worked to destroy his reputation and livelihood.

The suit, which contains many of the same details from Baldoni’s defamation suit against the Times, also claims that Reynolds pressured the talent agency WME, which also represents Lively and Reynolds, to drop Baldoni.

The agency did so in December but a WME spokesperson previously denied Reynolds and Lively put pressure on the agency.

Freedman told BI that their suit was “based on an overwhelming amount of untampered evidence detailing Blake Lively and her team’s duplicitous attempt to destroy Justin Baldoni.”

“Justin and his team have nothing to hide,” the statement adds, “documents do not lie.”

Lively’s legal team said Baldoni’s team’s suit is another attempt to “shift the narrative” from one about harassment claims to one around battles for creative control.

“This latest lawsuit from Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios, and its associates is another chapter in the abuser playbook,” Lively’s legal team said. “This is an age-old story: A woman speaks up with concrete evidence of sexual harassment and retaliation and the abuser attempts to turn the tables on the victim.”

Baldoni’s team released behind-the-scenes footage from the “It Ends With Us” set.

In Lively’s complaint, Lively said Baldoni acted as himself instead of Ryle while filming a slow-dance sequence for the romance film.

“At one point, he leaned forward and slowly dragged his lips from her ear and down her neck as he said, ‘it smells so good,'” the complaint read. “None of this was remotely done in character, or based on any dialogue in the script, and nothing needed to be said because, again, there was no sound.”

Her team alleged Lively later objected to this behavior and said Baldoni replied, “I’m not even attracted to you.”

On January 21, Baldoni’s production company and lawyer hit back by sending a nearly 10-minute behind-the-scenes footage of the cast filming the scene to outlets including the Daily Mail.

Baldoni’s team said in a statement at the beginning of the video that the footage contains three takes filmed on May 23, 2023, and said these were the only versions filmed of the scene.

“Both actors are clearly behaving well within the scope of the scene and with mutual respect and professionalism,” they added.

The video also showed that the initial direction in the “It Ends With Us” script is that Baldoni and Lively’s characters just dance together.

In the takes, Baldoni repeatedly moves in to kiss Lively, and Lively pulls away and says it would be better if they talked during the scene. At one point, Baldoni rubs his face on both sides of Lively’s neck seemingly without warning, but the pair joke about it in the video.

The video has elicited a range of responses on social media. Some users thought Lively looked uncomfortable, while others believed Lively was attracted to her costar.

Lively’s attorneys sent a statement to The Hollywood Reporter after the video was published, saying that the footage corroborated Lively’s story because “every moment of this was improvised by Mr. Baldoni with no discussion or consent in advance, and no intimacy coordinator present.”

“The video shows Ms. Lively leaning away and repeatedly asking for the characters to just talk. Any woman who has been inappropriately touched in the workplace will recognize Ms. Lively’s discomfort,” the statement said.

“They will recognize her attempts at levity to try to deflect the unwanted touching. No woman should have to take defensive measures to avoid being touched by their employer without their consent.”

Lively’s attorneys also said that Baldoni’s choice to release the video to the media instead of presenting it to court was an “unethical attempt to manipulate the public” and a “continuation of their harassment and retaliatory campaign.”

“While they are focused on misleading media narratives, we are focused on the legal process,” her attorneys said.

Freedman responded in a statement sent to Business Insider via email on Wednesday: “Prior to filing her lawsuit in court, Ms. Lively went to The New York Times in an effort to publicly destroy Justin Baldoni. When Mr. Baldoni exercises his right to publicly defend himself by putting forth actual facts and evidence, for Ms Lively and team this instantly becomes morally and ethically wrong.”

The statement continued: “Ms. Lively wants very different standards to apply to her but fortunately, truth and authenticity apply to everyone and can never be wrong. Looking at the video and the evidence to come, I can understand why Ms. Lively would now, not want this to play out in public.”

Baldoni’s lawyers created a website containing his complaint and a timeline of events.

In February 2025, Baldoni’s lawyers launched a website containing two documents related to his legal battle with Lively.

The first is an amended version of Baldoni’s $400 million counter-lawsuit against Lively and Reynolds.

In the amended complaint, Baldoni’s team claims that the metadata on The New York Times’ website shows that the publication had access to Lively’s civil rights complaint at least 11 days before publishing its report on Baldoni’s alleged smear campaign, titled “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”

Another update in the lawsuit took aim at Lively’s husband and accused him of using the character of Nicepool in “Deadpool & Wolverine” to bully Baldoni, saying that the “caricature of a ‘woke’ feminist” was a “transparent and mocking portrayal of Reynolds’ warped perception of Baldoni.”

The second document on the new site is a 168-page “timeline of relevant events” related to the feud and the movie’s production. The timeline dates from January 2019, when Baldoni approached Hoover about adapting her novel, to January 2025.

In a statement to CNN, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman said: “The decision to amend our lawsuit was a logical next step due to the overwhelming amount of new proof that has come to light.”

Variety reported that the Times has disputed “inaccuracies” in Baldoni’s complaint.

A judge threw out Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit.

On June 9, US District Judge Lewis Liman dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit, in which the actor and director accused Lively of taking creative control of “It Ends with Us” and damaging his reputation. The suit also alleged that Lively had falsely accused Baldoni of sexual harassment as a way to take control of the production.

The countersuit had previously been combined with a separate suit Baldoni had filed against The New York Times and Lively’s publicist Leslie Sloane, which accused Sloane of planting rumors to smear Baldoni in the press and the Times of facilitating their circulation.

Judge Liman ruled that Lively’s claims of sexual harassment were legally protected and immune from a lawsuit. Liman is still weighing whether to dismiss Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni.

Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit was dismissed after deadline lapse.

On October 31, Judge Liman officially ended Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively.

Liman stated in his order that he contacted all parties on October 17 that his final judgment to conclude the case was coming soon. Only Lively responded. With Baldoni’s side missing the deadline to continue to claim, the judge dismissed the lawsuit.

Lively’s original lawsuit against Baldoni is still ongoing. A court date is set for March 2026.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

• Zohran Mamdani is leading the NYC mayoral race with plans centered on affordability.
• Mamdani plans to make childcare and buses free, freeze rent, and pilot city-owned grocery stores.
• Early voting is seeing a high level of turnout across all five NYC boroughs.

The frontrunner of the New York City mayoral race has big plans ahead.

Zohran Mamdani‘s meteoric rise as the Democratic candidate is not just fueled by his social media prowess. It is also spearheaded by his plans to provide universal childcare, make buses free, freeze the rent for rent-stabilized units, build more affordable housing, and create a pilot program experimenting with city-operated grocery stores.

Early voting for the mayoral race began on October 25 and will continue until Sunday, November 2, before polls open again at 6 a.m. ET for the official Election Day on November 4. As of Friday, the NYC Board of Elections said that there have been 480,338 early ballots cast in total, which is an increase compared to early voting turnout in the mayoral race in 2021.

Mamdani’s key plans would be funded by a proposed 11.5% increase in state corporate tax, which is estimated to bring in new annual revenue of $5 billion, as well $4 billion in income from a proposed 2% increase in income tax for NYC residents who make more than $1 million a year. Both plans would need the approval of the state legislature.

Mamdani has also proposed increasing the efficiency of city contracts and hiring more auditors to enforce the tax code, which his campaign estimates would bring an additional billion in revenue.

Affordability became a national focus in recent years due to pandemic-era inflation. Two new polls conducted in October by Lake Research Partners, a progressive polling firm, indicate that measures to boost affordability, such as raising the minimum wage, are popular across competitive swing districts and major cities.

Here is a look at Mamdani’s key plans for NYC and how much they will cost, as he faces off independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa on Election Day on November 4.

Universal childcare

Expanding free childcare to babies and to toddlers under the age of three is Mamdani’s most ambitious and costly plan.

NYC already offers free pre-school to many toddlers above three, but for parents with even younger kids, accessing childcare is a struggle. According to the New York Comptroller’s Office, annual average childcare prices for one child in New York in 2023 were about $12,000 for home-based care, $17,476 for toddler center-based care, and $20,459 for infant center-based care. A 2024 report by public policy think tank 5BORO Institute found that more than 80% of families cannot afford day care for their children.

The Mamdani campaign estimates that providing childcare to all NYC families could cost $6 billion annually. The plan would be funded by the proposed tax raise on corporations and the wealthiest residents, and the campaign said it would also generate revenue through expanding the labor force. According to a January report from the NYC Comptroller, expanding free childcare would bring 14,000 mothers to the workforce and generate $900 million in labor income.

Fast and free buses

NYC has one of the highest densities of public transit users in the country, yet the city’s buses only average a speed of eight miles per hour, and Mamdani wants to change that.

Mamdani proposed that buses be completely free to the more than a million riders every day, who are mostly commuters for work purposes.

He also plans to create more busways that are limited to other through traffic to speed up the transit.

The city currently provides a 50% discount on public transit fares for low-income residents, but fare evasion has remained at around 40% every quarter since 2024. Mamdani’s campaign estimates that free buses would cost under $800 million every year.

This estimate does not factor in Mamdani’s plan to build more bus-only lanes.

More rent-stabilized homes — at better rates

Last summer, a city lottery opened for the first time in 15 years for NYC residents to get help paying their rent, and more than 630,000 people applied to get on the waitlist. The application only remained open for one week, but the need for affordable housing was on full display.

Mamdani plans to address the housing issue by tripling the city’s production of publicly subsidized, rent-stabilized homes, at 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. The plan would benefit households that make less than $70,000 a year, and it would cost the city $100 billion over the next decade.

Separate from the plan to build, Mamdani plans to freeze rent for the one million rent-stabilized units across the city, which could be achieved with relative ease and comes at zero direct cost to the city’s budget. This rent freeze would only affect rent-stabilized units, which make up a little under half of the city’s rental stock, and would not apply to market-rate units.

If elected, Mamdani as mayor could appoint members to the Rent Guidelines Board who align with his affordability goals.

The plan could draw the ire of building owners who would need to shoulder more costs in maintenance and property taxes.

City-operated grocery stores

Mamdani has also suggested a pilot program of five city-run supermarkets, one in each borough, to bring down the cost of groceries. The program would require approval from the city council, and these grocery stores would be selling food at wholesale prices.

According to the NY State Comptroller’s Office, the cost of food at home grew 65.8% between 2013 and 2023 in NYC, which far outpaces the rate of broader inflation.

Including cost of rent, utilities, warehouse, property taxes, and the initial cost to stock up goods, the Mamdani campaign estimates that the five stores would cost $60 million annually.

Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, is also pushing forward a similar idea. According to a feasibility study done in 2024, building three stores would cost the city $26.7 million upfront.

• My ex husband and I divorced a decade ago.
• Every other weekend he comes and stays at my house with our kids.
• Having him do his parenting time at my place has helped my kids stay organized.

My ex-husband and I split up a decade ago when our third child was a baby, and one of the best things about our divorce was finally having my house to myself.

At the time, I never thought we’d share space again. But now, every other weekend, my ex stays in my home with my kids. He cooks them dinner in my kitchen and eats at my dining room table. On Fridays, he walks to the store near my house to by movie-theater candy and sits with my kids for movie night in my living room. On Sundays, they do our weekend chores together.

While I’d prefer to have full reign over my home, his parenting time weekends have helped my kids stay organized and learn to trust him after many years of inconsistent visits.

I moved after our split

When we first separated, it made sense for my ex to come to what was once our shared home to visit his kids. Soon after, the kids and I moved three hours away to Seattle for my job. I drove back once a month and rented a hotel room for my ex’s parenting time — or he drove to Seattle. Over the next couple of years, my ex cancelled his parenting time so often that my two oldest kids stopped asking about him — and my youngest started calling every man he saw “daddy.”

Then, after months without a visit, my ex husband called to tell me about an epiphany he’d had, causing him to want to re-enter the kids’ lives in a major way. He planned to move to Seattle and wanted to see the kids more consistently. He asked if he could do parenting time at my house again, just until he’d secured stable housing. I agreed.

One of my kids uses a wheelchair and I was worried about accessibility

Our daughter uses a wheelchair, a hearing aid, and a walker. I was concerned about the accessibility of the houses and motels where he slept, and I wanted to create a safe and stable place for my kids to reconnect with their dad without the burden of packing up all their clothes, homework, and gear.

In the last seven years, their dad has been consistent in bursts, though he’s also gone through periods of low contact. Because I’ve allowed him to do his parenting time in my home the whole time, regardless of their dad’s presence, my kids have always had a home-base.

They always have enough food and clothes, and they never have to worry about leaving their stuff behind. Though my kids have visited my ex husband’s houses and apartments, they’ve never gotten attached to one of his homes only to have it taken from them when he spontaneously moves. Instead, the adults are the ones carrying the burden of going from place to place. When my ex is at my house, I stay with my current partner or travel for work. When I am at my house, he stays with his partner.

It’s great for the kids, but not always easy for me

Sharing my home for parenting time has ultimately been a great experience for my kids, but it hasn’t always been easy for me. Many of the vintage arguments from our marriage have resurfaced — sometimes over and over. When we were married, I was the “handyman” of our house, and that hasn’t changed. The difference is that now that we’re divorced, I’ve had to learn to deal with resentment when my ex breaks something in my home and doesn’t fix it. We also have totally different standards when it comes to cleaning. Having my ex in my space has meant learning to confront those familiar sore spots with renewed boundaries.

When we were married, boundaries felt like a heavy, interpersonal problem. A decade into coparenting with my ex, they’re more like professional contracts. My therapist tells me that boundaries aren’t about something I want my ex husband to do — they’re about something that I will do as a result of his actions. For example, when I recently came home after his parenting time to find the blinds on one of my windows broken, I offered him options: he could pay for new blinds or install the new blinds when they arrived — plus complete another house project that he could more easily reach than me. I made sure the options I offered really worked for me. He chose the latter, and when he completed it, I felt only appreciation.

We’ve been able to co-parent respectfully

On the journey to a more respectful coparenting relationship, there have been more than a few implosions. There were times I was desperate to have my house to myself or filled with resentment when I came home to a mess. I’m sure he had similar moments of anxiety or frustration living for days at a time in a space that doesn’t belong to him.

Now that my kids are older and becoming more responsible for their stuff, I can see a road to them staying at their dad’s more often. In the meantime, the struggle to face down the strife of our marriage and come together time and again to model a respectful parenting relationship has allowed my ex husband and I to keep a consistent, stable, and caring home for our kids — even if I have to clean a bit extra two Mondays a month to make my home feel like it’s really mine.

• Ground delays are slowing travel at Newark Liberty International Airport.
• Airports are experiencing delays and disruptions amid the government shutdown.
• A shortage of air traffic controllers is affecting operations.

A shortage of air traffic controllers on Sunday led to ground delays at Newark Airport, according to New York City officials, who warned the delays could spread to nearby airports like JFK and LaGuardia.

Inbound flights to Newark are delayed an average of 218 minutes, according to the FAA and FlightAware.

On Sunday morning, the NYC Emergency Management agency wrote on X that the airport is under a ground delay program due to staffing shortages in its control tower.

“FAA planning notes show a possibility of a full ground stop later if staffing shortages or demand increases,” the post said. It also said that delays at Newark “often spread to JFK and LaGuardia, so travelers flying to, from, or through NYC should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections.”

The government shutdown, which began on October 1, has led to flight delays and disruptions at airports nationwide due to a certified air traffic controller shortage. Although controllers received partial pay during the first few weeks of the government shutdown, those paychecks ended on October 28, meaning they’re working without pay as the holiday rush nears.

“They’re confronted with a decision: Do I put food on my kids’ table, do I put gas in the car, do I pay my rent, or do I go to work and not get paid? They’re making decisions,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’ve encouraged them all to come to work. I want them to come to work, but they’re making life decisions that they shouldn’t have to make.”

The president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, echoed that sentiment in a statement published Friday.

“This situation creates substantial distractions for individuals who are already engaged in extremely stressful work,” NATCA President Nick Daniels said. “The financial and mental strain increases risks within the National Airspace System, making it less safe with each passing day of the shutdown.”

On October 30, FlightAware launched a “Misery Map” to help travelers track delays and cancellations. Early Sunday afternoon, the map showed 51 delays out of Newark and six cancellations. Denver International and O’Hare International in Chicago both showed over 50 delays.

Newark and the FAA did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for a comment.

• Two suspects in the Louvre jewelry heist had a previous theft conviction together, the Paris prosecutor said.
• Laure Beccuau said they had both been convicted in a theft case in 2015 in Paris.
• French police have made a number of arrests as part of an investigation into the Louvre heist.

Two of the suspects in last month’s daring Louvre jewelry heist had a previous theft conviction together, the Paris prosecutor has said.

Speaking to France Info on Sunday, Laure Beccuau said the two men had long criminal records, including a 2015 conviction in a theft case.

“What’s interesting about these criminal records, is when we compare them, we see that they were involved in the same theft case for which they were convicted in 2015 in Paris,” she said.

Four people — three men and one woman all in their thirties — have been charged in connection with the Louvre heist, which saw thieves break into the iconic museum’s Galerie d’Apollon and make off with several pieces of “priceless” jewelry.

Authorities say the thieves gained access to the museum using a truck with a lift system and an angle grinder to breach a window. They are said to have then targeted several display cases before escaping on motor scooters.

Beccuau said that those in custody were “clearly local people” who “lived more or less in Seine-Saint-Denis,” an area just north of the French capital.

She previously told BFM TV that around 60 investigators had been mobilized to track down the thieves, adding that authorities had “total determination” to recover the stolen items, which include royal jewels from the First and Second French Empires.

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin has said that the state had “failed” to protect one of its most famous landmarks.

Speaking on France Inter radio, Darmanin said: “We cannot completely secure all locations, but what is certain is that we have failed, since it is possible to set up a freight elevator in the middle of a Paris street, lift people up in a matter of minutes to steal priceless jewelry, and give France a terrible image.”

• Each state has its own signature sandwich, from a grilled cheese to something called a Jucy Lucy.
• Indiana claims to have the best pork tenderloin sandwich in the nation.
• Illinois is known for the Horseshoe, an open-face sandwich topped with fries and cheese sauce.

If you’re heading out on a road trip this fall or holiday season, why not try a famous local sandwich?

In honor of National Sandwich Day on November 3, Business Insider found the most famous local sandwiches in every state, and while some may be up for debate, every sandwich on this list is worth trying at least once.

Plus, with grocery prices rising and restaurant entrées facing potential price hikes, sandwiches, which are often among the least expensive items on the menu, could be a more affordable option.

These are America’s most famous local sandwiches, from a classic grilled cheese to something called a Horseshoe.