The Cowboys have acted quickly following the arrest of wide receiver Antonio Callaway, choosing to drop Callaway and sign a new outside target instead.Antonio Callaway, who was signed to the Dallas Cowboys' practice squad last November, was recently arrested for driving with a suspended lic...

The Los Angeles Chargers host the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night

After a second successive sensational performance, Tour de France overall race leader Jonas Vingegaard gave a crushing answer to...

An arrest has been made in Las Vegas in connection with the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur, a law enforcement source tells CNN.

In 1968, Capt Larry Taylor tried something that had never been done before under intense enemy fire.

Seven years ago, I was at my local antenatal class preparing for the birth of my firstborn. In my forties and armed with a coloured birthing ball, I looked around and gasped. All the other soon-to-be-mums were at least a decade younger than me. Some were nearly half my age. It briefly panicked me. Would I make any friends? Why did I leave it so late to have kids? Was I doing something wrong? In hindsight, though, I had no reason to worry: your forties is absolutely the best decade in which to have your first child. According to data published last week in The Daily Telegraph, the number of women becoming first-time mothers in their forties has increased in recent years: today, one in 25 UK births is to a woman aged 40-plus. That’s a lot of women just like me, despite the fact that getting pregnant over 35 gets you labelled as someone of “advanced maternal age”. That might sound harsh until you remember that older pregnancies used to be termed “geriatric” – thank God that’s been phased out. I’ve never regretted waiting until my forties, even if I had been trying for children for years by that point. My story is undeniably unique: my partner Alex took his own life while we were doing IVF, but that didn’t stop me from continuing to try to get pregnant. The maternal call was strong, so I decided to carry on with the process using Alex’s frozen sperm. Today I have two beautiful daughters with him: Lola, seven, and Liberty, five. It is an understatement to say I was ready for a baby at 40. I was grounded. Confident. Unlike when I was in my twenties or thirties, I knew exactly who I was and what made me tick. I had life experience. I no longer got FOMO. I didn’t even drink, having been through hell and back to become sober 20 years earlier. My career was fully off the ground, and therapy had helped me identify the family dysfunction I knew to ditch for the sake of my kids. I also wasn’t worried about my body bouncing back after the birth. I just desperately wanted to be a mum. Of course, there are all sorts of advantages to having children in your twenties and thirties. A huge bonus is that you’re simply more fertile. According to research, 31 is the magic age to have a baby – you’re still as fertile as in your twenties, but you also have more money. I’m sure motherhood in your fifties is great, too – although using your own eggs is highly unlikely, unless you froze them at some point before you turned 35. It means that some older mums often turn to donor eggs. Thinking back on my twenties and thirties, I don’t know how I would have managed motherhood. I don’t think I was ready to put my own needs on hold. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to juggle work and my children, especially with the spiralling costs of childcare. I do accept that there are greater risks inherent in waiting to have kids. Both the quantity and quality of eggs dwindle. The rates of failed fertilisation, miscarriage and birth defects rise with age. There’s also the social pressure that comes with not having children early – you’re forced into endless conversations about the “ticking timebomb” of your fertility, and expected to fend off probing inquiries about your biological clock. The British Fertility Society advises women to start trying for a baby by the age of 32 at the latest, for a 90 per cent guarantee of having a child without resorting to IVF. But this advice simply wouldn’t have worked for me – I was determined to find the right person to have children with, and that didn’t happen until I was 35. When mine and Alex’s attempts to naturally conceive failed, and then Alex died, only at that point did I know I had the maturity to go it alone. I do have some regrets – I wish I’d frozen my eggs at the peak of my fertility in my mid-twenties, for instance (this process costs between £4,000 and £7,000 in the UK). But otherwise, having children in my forties was the right thing to do. Yes, I had my wobbles. I remember sobbing on the bathroom floor after yet another failed pregnancy test. I would berate myself for leaving it so late. I had to force myself to remember that many women experience fertility struggles in their twenties and thirties, too. All of those anxious feelings, though, flew out the window once I had my first child. When I left the hospital to begin parenthood alone, a new bag of nappies in hand, I didn’t have a meltdown. I was just so grateful that I’d had a baby, especially when the odds seemed so stacked against me. Sleepless nights trying to coax my child back to sleep were what I had most desired. It was all so good, in fact, that I went on to have a second child in my forties. I had a spare embryo in a freezer in St Petersburg. Now I call her Liberty. Every day since becoming a mum, I have embraced the mess and chaos, and appreciate every minute. I’m sure my younger self would cringe at the thought of me spending my evenings helping my children with their homework. But I’m proud to say that I’m living my best life. Read More Vanessa Hudgens addresses pregnancy speculation amid Cole Tucker engagement Rachel Bilson reveals she’s suffered multiple miscarriages Pregnant woman has maternity photo shoot in hospital before giving birth Hailey Bieber responds to ‘disheartening’ pregnancy rumours Like Rebecca Adlington, I also lost my baby at 20 weeks Britney Spears reveals she had an abortion while dating Justin Timberlake

Kuwait says it executed five prisoners including an inmate convicted over an Islamic State group-claimed mosque bombing in 2015 that killed 27 people

There's one stamp you never want to get on your boarding pass - SSSS. If you have ever been pulled to one side at the airport, it may be because you have the letters SSSS scrawled in marker pen over your boarding pass. The letters, used by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) stand for 'Secondary Security Screening Selection' or else 'Secondary Security Screening Selectee'. The code came to light in 2009 when the TSA handbook was accidentally leaked online by the government, without being redacted or edited in the usual way. Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Passengers who are selectees are prohibited from printing their boarding pass at home or using a machine to check-in. They will need to check-in at the desk, where they will be asked more thorough questions than other passengers, and undergo less cursory perfunctory identity checks. The boarding pass issued to the passenger will have the letters 'SSSS' written on it, and this means airport staff will be scrutinising the passenger at every checkpoint. TSA agents will also conduct full-body scans, a pat-down, and go through the passenger's luggage, asking them to turn on all electronic devices. The process can take over 30 minutes, so passengers who find they are unable to print their boarding pass at home, should factor in the extra half-hour in their journey to the gate, just in case they undergo secondary screening. Criteria for being selected for secondary security screening can include: Paying for your ticket in cash. Flying to a 'high risk' destination. The random selection also takes place, but some passengers will be selected repeatedly. In April 2010, the New York Times found several children who were repeatedly selected for secondary screening, possibly because their names were similar to persons on the 'No Fly' list. Passengers who feel they are regularly and unfairly targeted can apply to the Department of Homeland Security to find out if they have incorrectly been put on a watch list. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

"DeSantisland" was likely not the happiest place on Earth on Thursday.

NOVI, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 12, 2023--

Jussie Smollett was found guilty of lying to police over an alleged incident two Trump supporters attacked him and strangled him

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