NEW YORK (AP) — To the cheers and applause of thousands of BookCon attendees, “Heated Rivalry” author Rachel Reid and director-screenwriter Jacob Tierney walked on to the main event stage at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center. The two Canadians have been international celebrities for just a few months, and still find themselves wondering if all the noise is for someone else.
“We don’t really get to experience this kind of energy and fandom in person very often,” Tierney told The Associated Press just after their joint appearance, a highlight of the weekend gathering of (mostly) young book fans. “It’s been a bit more of an amorphous online thing.”
Since the first episode of “Heated Rivalry” dropped last November, Tierney's adaptation of Reid's “Game Changer” series featuring star-crossed hockey greats Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov has become a phenomenon that boosted the sport's popularity, made Reid a leader of the thriving genre of sports romance fiction and made Olympic torchbearers out of lead actors Hudson Williams (Shane) and Connor Storrie (Ilya). Tierney expects to begin filming the second season this summer, based in part on the second of Reid's novels about Shane and Ilya, “The Long Game.” The author, meanwhile, is working on a third Shane and Ilya book, “Unrivaled.” Both are scheduled for 2027 releases.
“Heated Rivalry” fans know well the story of how the HBO Max show was born, and of Reid's jarring swing from despair to exhilaration. In August 2023, she learned that she had early onset Parkinson's disease. Days later, she received an Instagram message from a man she had never met, but would soon change her life in a very different way: Tierney.
The 46-year-old Tierney is a Montreal native, former child star and award-winning filmmaker whose credits include the TV series “Letterkenny.” In October, Little, Brown and Company will release a collection of Tierney's annotated scripts, “I'll Believe in Anything: The Making of Heated Rivalry Season 1.”
Reid, 44, is a longtime hockey fan. Born Rachel Goguen in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she chose her pen name for the practical reason that it's easier to pronounce and remember. She's been open about the impact of fame and her health, posting an Instagram announcement in February that she was pushing back the release date of “Unrivaled” from this fall to next summer. Onstage, she acknowledged it had been “tricky” to write since the series took off.
“I'm in a place where the whole world seems to care about what happens next to these characters,” she said. “I'm still determined to stick to what I've always done when I was writing, just kind of pretend I'm writing for me and I hope other people like it.”
During their AP interview, Reid and Tierney spoke of the joy of sex on the page and screen and how Shane and Ilya just won't leave them alone. The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
REID: I really like a forbidden romance. I really like the rivals-to-lovers element. I just also like a queer love story with a happy ending. And I really like hockey, so I think there’s just a lot of elements in it that are just very much what I personally would like. I think if this show had come out and had nothing to do with me, I would be obsessed with it still.
TIERNEY: I did not grow up with stories like this. We don’t as gay men, as queer people. We do not get to have happy endings in media very often. I would definitely have watched it (even if he didn't direct it), that’s for sure. I’m sure I would have had notes. I'm a little picky.
TIERNEY: It was a kind of a series of increasingly surreal and overwhelming moments. And by the time the sixth episode aired, it really did feel like we were kind of at the center of a strange maelstrom. But I also was like, “Am I making this up? Is this actually happening?”
REID: I did a bookstore event the day after the trailer came out. They showed the trailer at the event, and everybody in the audience knew every word of the trailer and was saying it along with the trailer. So that was when I was like, “OK, this is going to be nuts.”
REID: Honestly, I love writing them and I’ve never found that to be the difficult part. I think it might be the easiest part for me. I actually really enjoy it. Not to praise myself too much, but I think maybe that’s why people like the scenes. They weren’t hard for me. It’s not a scary thing. It’s not the part that I have to close my eyes and write or anything. It's my favorite part.
TIERNEY: Sex is a language in this show, sex is a way that we watch this couple evolve over the course of a fairly long amount of time in terms of the story, eight years. And so the sex is different every time, a way of watching them evolve both separately and together. I think sex reveals a lot about yourself that you don’t even intend to reveal. And I find that quite fascinating as a storyteller.
REID: Yeah. That’s why I keep writing books about them, because they just keep talking. With other characters, I’ve written the books and they’ve left. But these guys just stick around.
REID: They're fun to write. I love it.
TIERNEY: It's a coloring book now.
REID: It’s 20 pages.
TIERNEY: Don’t tell the truth.
REID: The thing that hasn’t changed is how much fun they are to write. I find their voices very easy to put on the page. More than any other characters I’ve created, they arrived fully formed. They kind of just appeared one day.
REID: There’s a lot of myself in Ilya, for sure. There’s a lot of, kind of hockey player archetypes — the flashy, cocky European superstar, that’s definitely a type. The uptight, very serious good boy-captain. And there’s been plenty of NHL players from decades of hockey. And I’ve been a fan for decades. And obviously there have been some really great rivalries. And we’re getting probably to the end of the (Sidney) Crosby-(Alex) Ovechkin rivalry right now. But that rivalry at its peak was so fun.
REID: A sense of humor, mostly. It's a little bit mean. I also kind of like to use humor to cover up emotions, you know, things like that. I think I also notice things about people a bit, but maybe stay quiet about it.
REID: I told Jacob I wish I had never met them. (Laughing) It is challenge writing without thinking about somebody having to actually say or do what I’m writing, for sure. I’m trying to just block that out. I just need to pretend it definitely will never happen, because I think that’s the only way I can do it.
RR: Yeah. That book will come out June 1. Hell or high water, it's coming out.
Author Rachel Reid poses for a portrait in New York on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
Jacob Tierney, left, and Rachel Reid pose for a portrait in New York on Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States was indefinitely extending its ceasefire with Iran as a new round of peace talks was on hold.
Pakistan had planned to host a second round of talks, but the White House suspended Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad as Iran rebuffed efforts to restart negotiations. Iran acknowledged the ceasefire extension but didn't say Tehran was ready to attend a new round of talks to end the war, state television reported Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Iran’s semiofficial news agencies are reporting that the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has attacked a third ship on Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, throwing into question efforts to end the war. Nour News, Fars and Mehr all reported the attack by the Guard on a vessel called the Euphoria. They said the vessel had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, without elaborating. The Guard has seized the other two ships that were attacked, Iranian state television separately reported.
Here is the latest:
The ministry added that the Wednesday afternoon strike on the village of Yohmor also wounded two people.
Arsenio Dominguez, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, on Wednesday condemned attacks on shipping after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired on three ships in the Strait of Hormuz, seizing two and taking them to Iran. Earlier, Trump said the United States would continue to blockade Iranian ports.
“The attacks on and seizures of commercial ships are unacceptable,” Dominguez said, urging an immediate halt and the release of vessels and crews. He warned that the situation remains “extremely volatile” and questioned why companies risk seafarers’ lives.
Nearly 20,000 seafarers remain at sea after seven weeks, uncertain when they can return home, he added.
An analytics firm focusing on global energy and freight markets says it recorded 34 movements of sanctioned and Iranian-linked tankers in and out of the Persian Gulf in the week after the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The firm, Vortexa, says it identified 19 outbound and 15 inbound movements of such vessels between April 13 and Monday.
Six of those outbound movements were “confirmed laden with Iranian crude, representing about 10.7 million barrels,” it said in an email to The Associated Press.
It was not immediately clear whether all those barrels reached markets overseas.
Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, called on the international community on Wednesday to immediately pressure the Israeli army into allowing the rescue of journalist Amal Khalil, who works for the daily Al-Akhbar.
RSF added that Khalil is currently trapped near the southern Lebanese village of al-Tiri following an Israeli airstrike close to her vehicle.
“Her life is in danger right now! Continued Israeli airstrikes are preventing rescuers from reaching her,” RSF said.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun called on the Lebanese Red Cross to work on the rescue of Khalil, along with another journalist, Zeinab Faraj, who was with her.
Aoun requested the Lebanese Red Cross to coordinate with the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers “to carry out the rescue operation in the shortest possible time.”
The management company of a container ship that was fired upon in the Strait of Hormuz early Wednesday says the Liberian-registered Epaminondas was “approached and fired upon by a manned gunboat” while transiting the strait about 20 nautical miles off the coast of Oman.
The Technomar company said all crew were “safe and accounted for” and no injuries were reported, but that preliminary inspections indicated the ship’s bridge had been damaged.
“Technomar remains in close contact with the crew and relevant authorities. Our priority remains the safety and well-being of our crew as we work with all relevant stakeholders to ensure their continued safety and investigate the incident,” the company said. It did not provide further details, but said more information would be released “when there are material developments.”
Sadri Haghshenas spends her days selling borek — a layered, savory pastry — at a shop in Istanbul, but her mind is on her daughter in Tehran.
The family had to send her home to Iran after they ran into difficulties renewing her visa, despite fears that a shaky ceasefire could soon collapse.
For years, short-term residency permits have allowed tens of thousands of Iranians to pursue economic opportunities and enjoy relative stability in neighboring Turkey. But it’s a precarious situation, and the war has raised the stakes.
“I swear, I cry every day,” Haghshenas said, raising her hands from behind the counter of the pastry shop. “There is no life in my country, there is no life here, what shall I do?”
Turkey hasn't seen an influx of refugees, as most Iranians have sought safety within their country. Many who've crossed the land border were transiting to other countries where they have citizenship or residency.
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The strike targeted a vehicle in the town of Tayri on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.
No further details on the identities of the victims were immediately available.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack.
The strike comes despite a 10-day ceasefire that went into effect Friday. Since then, several Israeli strikes have been reported, while Hezbollah has claimed a couple of attacks since Tuesday.
On Saturday, a U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon came under attack with small arms fire leaving one French peacekeeper dead and three others wounded, two of them seriously.
French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X that a wounded soldier, who was repatriated Tuesday from Lebanon “where he had been seriously wounded by Hezbollah fighters, died this morning from his injuries.”
Hezbollah had denied is was behind the attack.
“We entered the negotiations in good faith and with seriousness, but the negotiating party (the United States) has shown disregard and lack of good faith,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, said Wednesday, according to Iran’s State TV.
A second round of negotiations, expected in Pakistan’s capital later this week, has not yet been confirmed. On Tuesday, President Trump extended a ceasefire with Iran indefinitely, leaving the next steps for resuming talks unclear.
“Iran has not yet decided whether it will participate in the new round of peace negotiations with the United States scheduled for later this week,” Baqaei said.
GE Vernova, Boston Scientific and Boeing are leading the U.S. stock market toward another record after joining the list of companies reporting fatter profits for the start of the year than analysts expected.
But caution is still hanging over Wall Street on Wednesday, and oil prices are also rising on uncertainty about what will happen in the war with Iran.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% and was on track to top its all-time high set Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 360 points and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9%. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil briefly topped $100.
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Talking about the repercussions of the Iran war, the head of the International Energy Agency said Wednesday that “we are facing the biggest energy crisis in the history.”
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin that what ”we lost in the this war is much bigger than all the crises put together in terms of oil and gas. Plus, plus, there are vital commodities that we are losing — petrochemicals, fertilizers, helium, sulfur.”
However, Birol also pointed out that “there will be a major response to this crisis as well” and that “it is now the job of the governments to design their energy policies in terms of industrial sector, while keeping the competitiveness of the existing industries, preparing the next steps for the tomorrow’s industries.”
He said he also expects that “there will be a similar response in all parts of the economy, car manufacturing industry, electric industry and in the industry sector.”
“And this is a wonderful opportunity,” he added.
The Israeli military said it intercepted around 40 Israeli civilians that attempted to enter Syria on Wednesday afternoon. The military said the civilians gathered at the border and then were able to infiltrate several hundred meters into the Israeli-military controlled buffer zone in Syria before being returned to Israel and taken into police custody.
The Israeli media identified the infiltrators as part of the right-wing group “Pioneers of Bashan,” which calls for establishing Jewish settlements in Lebanon and Syria.
The group added in a statement that its attack on the post in the southern village of Bayada on Wednesday came in retaliation for Israeli violations of the 10-day ceasefire that went into effect Friday.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah is violating the ceasefire adding that the Iran-backed group launched “a hostile aircraft” toward Israeli soldiers operating in the area of southern Lebanon.
The military said the aircraft was intercepted by Israel’s air force and did not cross into Israel.
It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings aren’t immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained.
Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said.
“I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?”
It’s not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
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President Joseph Aoun’s comments on Wednesday came a day before a second meeting is scheduled to take place in Washington between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors.
Aoun said in comments released by his office that preparations are ongoing for negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.
He said the aim of the future talks is to “fully” stop Israeli attacks, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, release of Lebanese prisoners in Israel, deployment of Lebanese troops along the border and beginning the reconstruction process.
Aoun said the support to Lebanon that was promised by U.S. President Donald Trump and other countries “provided us with an opportunity that we must not miss, as it may not come again.”
The latest Israel-Hezbollah war was halted by a 10-day ceasefire that went into effect Friday.
A semiofficial news agency close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard again raised the idea Wednesday that Gulf Arab states remained vulnerable to having their undersea data cables being cut in the Strait of Hormuz.
The report by the Tasnim news agency suggested that “simultaneous damage to several major cables — whether through accidents or deliberate action — could trigger severe outages across the Persian Gulf.”
Multiple cables run through the strait. Already, the region has faced outages after undersea cables were cut multiple times in the Red Sea. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels had threatened cables in the past.
With uncertainty over whether the ceasefire lasts, residents of Tehran say they are anxious about what comes next.
“Last night my family all stayed awake, waiting for the clock to show 3:30 a.m. and see who really has the upper hand,” said Reza Tehrani, a 34-year-old resident of Tehran.
Tehrani said Trump is making a series of false claims, including that Iran will give up its enriched uranium. “It’s obvious that he will eventually take his warships back and nothing will happen. We will win, rest assured,” he said.
One resident voiced frustration with the uncertainty.
“We should know where we stand. Is it going to be a ceasefire, peace or the war is going to continue?” said Tehran resident Mashallah Mohammad Sadegh, 59. “The way things currently are, one doesn’t know what to do.”
The European Union’s top energy official is warning that the massive energy crisis sparked by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is set to hit prices for months, even years, to come.
EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said Wednesday that “this is not a short-term, small increase in prices. This is a crisis that is probably as serious as the 1973 and the 2022 crises combined.”
Jørgensen says the war is costing Europe around 500 million euros ($600 million) each day and that “we are looking into some very difficult months, or maybe even years” ahead. “Even in a best-case scenario, it’s still bad,” he told reporters.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei acknowledged the ceasefire extension in comments reported Wednesday by Iranian state television.
Baghaei did not specifically say Tehran was ready to attend a new round of talks with the United States in Islamabad.
“Diplomacy is a tool for securing national interests and security, and whenever we reach the conclusion that the necessary and reasonable conditions exist to use this tool to achieve national interests and to consolidate the achievements of the Iranian nation in thwarting the enemies’ malicious objectives, we will take action,” he reportedly said.
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said an emergency doctor, Golnar Naraqi, and an Iranian citizen of the Bahai faith, Venus Hossein Nejad, have been out on bail since late March.
The two women were arrested separately during the January anti-government protests. The protests across Iran were met with a bloody crackdown that left thousands killed and arrested.
In a social media post Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump reposted a photo of six women and two teen girls that a conservative activist said are facing prosecution by the Iranian government.
Iran’s judiciary swiftly responded, saying some of the women have already been released without naming them. It said none of them face the death sentence. Internet restrictions have limited the flow of information out of Iran.
Rights groups say at least two of the other women still in detention are facing charges that carry the death sentence. There have been multiple executions during the war against alleged spies and protesters, mostly accused of links to Israel.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has attacked a third ship Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, semiofficial Iranian news agencies reported.
Nour News, Fars and Mehr all reported the attack by the Guard on a vessel called the Euphoria. They said the vessel had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, without elaborating.
The Guard has seized the other two ships that were attacked, Iranian state television separately reported.
Two ships earlier attacked Wednesday by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard now are in the force’s custody and are being taken to Iran, Iranian state television reported.
It identified the vessels as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas. The ship’s owners could not be immediately reached for comment.
The seizures represent an Iranian escalation after the U.S. earlier seized two Iranian vessels as ceasefire talks were due to take place in Islamabad.
The Guard said in a statement the ships “allegedly operated without authorization, repeatedly violated regulations, manipulated navigational aid systems and sought to covertly exit the Strait of Hormuz, endangering maritime security.”
The strait had been considered an international waterway open to all before the war, even though it sits in Iranian and Omani territorial waters.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Lebanon to work with Israel to disarm the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah ahead of negotiations in Washington on Thursday.
The meeting follows a similar gathering last week in Washington, and is the first time in decades the two countries are speaking directly.
“We don’t have any serious disagreements with Lebanon. There are a few minor border disputes that can be solved,” Saar said during Independence Day remarks to Israel’s diplomatic corps.
“The obstacle to peace and normalization between the countries is one: Hezbollah,” he said, adding that Lebanon could have “a future of sovereignty, independence and freedom from the Iranian occupation.”
Israel’s military has currently established a buffer zone stretching around 10 kilometers (6 miles) into southern Lebanon to remove the threat of short-range rockets and anti-tank missiles toward northern Israel.
An independent Islamabad-based analyst, Syed Mohammad Ali, says U.S. President Donald Trump has apparently concluded that a blockade of Iranian ports is a more effective way to pressure Iran’s already fragile economy than the continued use of force.
“As far as Trump’s war strategy is concerned, this blockade appears to be less expensive and more effective,” he said Wednesday.
Ali said prospects for a second round of talks between the United States and Iran have not faded, as Pakistan, with support from regional countries, continues efforts to prevent the collapse of negotiations.
He said securing an extension of the ceasefire for an indefinite period from Trump is an achievement for Pakistan.
China said after the announcement of an extension of the ceasefire that it is “imperative” to keep the conflict from reigniting.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Wednesday that the current situation in the Middle East is at “a critical stage.” He said China “is ready” to work with the international community to maintain peace, following four principles President Xi Jinping proposed a few days earlier, including peaceful coexistence and adherence to international law.
“It’s imperative to prevent the recurrence of the conflict with utmost efforts,” he said.
The United States must end its blockade on Iran as a prerequisite for any further ceasefire talks in Islamabad, an Iranian diplomat said Wednesday.
Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, the head of the Iranian mission in Egypt, told The Associated Press that communications with Pakistani mediators are underway “to implement Iran’s conditions.”
“We won’t negotiate under threat,” he said. “We won’t go to Islamabad before the lifting of the blockade.”
He accused the U.S. of using the ceasefire to build up more forces for a possible resumption of military action against the Islamic Republic.
“Behind the scenes, they say something, but in public, they say and do something else,” he said.
A woman mourns as other hold portraits of Hezbollah fighters, who were killed before the ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel, during a mass funeral procession in the southern village of Kfar Sir, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Coffins of Hezbollah fighters killed before the ceasefire in the war between Hezbollah and Israel are carried on a truck past mourners during a mass funeral procession in the southern village of Kfar Sir, Lebanon, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
President Donald Trump departs after speaking at an event for NCAA national champions in the State Dining Room of the White House, Tuesday, April 21, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A banner shows a graphic depicting Iranian-built drones with a sign in Farsi that reads: "Arash drone is the nightmare for Iran's enemies," as an Iranian flag waves at left, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man rides his motorbike that is adorned with an Iranian national flag, in southern Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
