Transgender minors won't have access to puberty blockers, hormones or surgery under legislation passed in Missouri

By Jarrett Renshaw and Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House on Wednesday called on Congress to pass permitting legislation

Senator Joe Manchin vowed to oppose President Joe Biden’s nominees to fill key positions at the US Environmental

Thousands of fans have joined Rita Lee Jones’ family at her wake in Sao Paulo to mourn the death of Brazil’s “Queen of Rock”

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has defended his decision not to join most of his Republican counterparts across the country in supporting a lawsuit challenging the safety and approval of the abortion medication mifepristone

Appropriate for an album called “Kismet,” the reunion of songwriter Diane Warren and singer Belinda Carlisle happened by chance

When President Joe Biden speaks at a community college in New York on Wednesday, he's expected to hit Republicans hard for budget cuts they are demanding as part of their bill to raise the debt ceiling.

Jennifer Lopez has shared some thoughts about motherhood and explained why her 15-year-old twins, Max and Emme, “don’t want to talk” to her anymore. The 53-year-old singer talked about how her children, who she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony, are in the midst of their teenage years during a recent appearance on The View. She noted that when raising her children with husband Ben Affleck, she’s been more of the “bad cop” instead of the good one. “I remember my mom saying to me, ‘I’m always the bad guy, I got to discipline you,’” she said about her mother, Guadalupe Rodríguez. “And there is some truth to that. You get a little bit of the brunt of it.” After tying the knot in 2022, Lopez blended her family with Affleck’s, who shares three children with his ex-wife, Jennfier Garner: Violet, 17, Seraphina, 14, and Samuel, 11. During her appearance on The View, the Shotgun Wedding star noted how her mother’s wisdom about parenting stayed with her, as her twins have started to spend less time with her. “I’m experiencing this now, you know we all experience it for the first time with our own kids,” Lopez explained. “And you’re just like, ‘Oh, this is what she was talking about.’ This is the time where your kids don’t want to talk to you. And they’re kind of individuating from you.” She continued: “And it’s all necessary. And intellectually, I understand it, but my heart, my heart hurts.” When TV host Sunny Hostin poked fun at how teenagers sometimes stay “locked up in their rooms,” Lopez agreed. She explained how she encourages her twins to come out of their rooms, as she exclaimed: “Let’s hang out. I miss you!” This isn’t the first time that Lopez has opened up about her relationship with her twins. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in February 2022, the Marry Me star discussed how her children feel about having a famous mother. “They love it and they don’t. I think they’re very proud. They love me, I love them,” she said. “The three of us are like super, super close. But I think it’s a thing that people know who their mom is. They’re navigating that. They’re teenagers now. Their friends know things.” Earlier this year, Lopez took to Instagram to share a video tribute to Max and Emme in honour of their 15th birthday. Affleck also makes an appearance in the video, as he was seen hugging Max in one short clip, while another photo showed him posing at a table with his wife and her two children. “Happy birthday to my beautiful, brilliant coconuts,” the “On the Floor” singer wrote in the caption. “I am so proud of you both in every single way. You bring so much joy and happiness to my heart and soul. I love you beyond forever.” Read More Jennifer Lopez’s mom says she ‘prayed for 20 years’ that her daughter and Ben Affleck would reunite Jennifer Lopez praises Ben Affleck for being the ‘best dad’ to her children Jennifer Garner says she ‘works really hard’ to avoid seeing stories about ex-husband Ben Affleck in the press Met Gala video shows Jennifer Lopez revealing her secret to perfect red carpet photos Jennifer Lopez praises Ben Affleck for being the ‘best dad’ to her children Jennifer Lopez’s mom ‘prayed’ that her daughter and Ben Affleck would reunite

Transgender minors won't have access to puberty blockers, hormones or surgery under legislation passed in Missouri

Scientists think they have found an explanation for what scientists thought was a “runaway” black hole speeding through the universe. Last month, scientists reported that they had seen what appeared to be an object unlike anything seen before. What originally appeared to be scratches on Hubble images was actually a black hole that had been thrown out from its home galaxy and was now speeding through the cosmos, scientists said. Astronomers had come to that conclusion after spotting a long trail of stars, formed 8 billion years ago. It was a stretched out, narrow shape, roughly the same size as our own Milky Way. Last month’s study suggested that those stars were the wake left behind from that runaway black hole. As the black hole travelled through a gas cloud, it left behind the right conditions to start forming stars, that study suggested. It was shock and a breakthrough for a number of reasons: it was unprecedented, and required a number of different conditions for it to be true. That led astronomers both to celebrate and question the theory, and in the time since other researchers have been working on their own ideas. Now scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) have suggested their own, more ordinary explanation of the unusual, long star structure. They suggest that it is in fact just a flat or thin galaxy – one without a bulge that makes it wider – that is being seen from its side. “The motions, the size, and the quantity of stars fits what has been seen in galaxies within the local universe,” said Jorge Sanchez Almeida, an IAC researcher who is the first author of the article, in a statement. “It’s a relief to have found the solution to this mystery, the new proposed scenario is much simpler. In one sense it is also a pity, because the existence of fleeing black holes is expected, and this could have been the first one to be observed.” The team compared the mystery structure with another, much better known galaxy, named IC5249. That is near to us, has a similar mass of stars, and doesn’t have a galaxy either. They found that it was surprisingly similar. The stars were moving in similar ways to those found in closer, comparative galaxies, researchers said. That led scientists working on the new paper to suggest that it is a relatively normal and expected galaxy, rather than an out-of-control black hole. But they hope that further observations will shed further light on what exactly it is doing – and could still allow the galaxy to prove of interest to astronomers. “We also looked at the relation between the mass of the assumed galaxy and its maximum velocity of rotation, and discovered that indeed it is a galaxy which behaves like a galaxy,” said Ignacio Trujillo, an IAC researcher who worked on the study. “It is an interesting object, because it is quite a large galaxy at a very large distance from Earth, where the majority of the galaxies are smaller.” The proposal is reported in a paper, ‘Supermassive black hole wake or bulgeless edge-on galaxy?’, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. Read More Aliens may intercept human communication ‘within next 100 years’, study says Powerful auroras likely this week due to rare ‘backward’ sunspot Meteorite crashes through roof of New Jersey home Aliens may intercept human communication ‘within next 100 years’, study says Powerful auroras likely this week due to rare ‘backward’ sunspot Meteorite crashes through roof of New Jersey home

Disney's stewardship of the Muppets yields a pretty flat set with "The Muppets Mayhem," which milks the idea of the Electric Mayhem Band recording their first studio album for more than it's worth. A horde of celebrity cameos provide occasional pop along the way, but beyond Muppets completists the 10-episode series provides a little too much reason to sound like Statler and Waldorf.

Steve Lacy has his very own Fender called The People Pleaser.