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Simon Rex revealed during the taping of the March 12 Drew Barrymore Show episode how he learned Leonardo DiCaprio is unexpectedly a fan of Jersey Shore

NEED TO KNOW

• Rex explained that he learned of the Oscar winner's interest after DiCaprio asked Rex to introduce him to the cast following Jersey Shore's 2009 debut

• The Jersey Shore cast was "just blown away, like, 'He knows who we are,' " Rex recalled

Leonardo DiCapriois apparently a fan of at least one reality TV show.

The Oscar winner knew all about the MTV classicJersey Shore,Simon RextoldDrew Barrymoreduring the taping of her March 12Drew Barrymore Showepisode.

In a sneak-peek clip, Barrymore, 51, tried to guess whether a group of statements about Rex, also 51, were true or false. The game began with: "I introduced Leonardo DiCaprio to theJersey Shorecast at a club."

Barrymore hesitated before accurately guessing "true," and Rex simply replied, "That happened, yeah." TheE.T.actress then asked him to tell her "about that moment."

The former MTV video jockey obliged and explained that he was out at a club, and that DiCaprio, now 51, was there as well. He clarified they had a friendly dynamic, "I'm not friends with Leo, but I'd say what's up to him."

As theTowstar was greeting DiCaprio at his table, theJersey Shorecast was at a nearby table. "[DiCaprio] goes, 'Is that theJerseyShore guys over there?' " Rex said before asking him, " 'Did you watch that?' "

TheTitanicstar confirmed he did and said, " 'I wanna meet them," " Rex recalled.

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"So I brought him over," Rex said. "They were just blown away like, 'He knows who we are,' and it was just this funny moment where he was talking to them."

"I just sat back, like, I did my work. I'm done here," Rex joked, to which Barrymore added, "Pop culture meets pop culture."

While Rex didn't specify the year this occurred, the hit MTV series first premiered in 2009 and ran for six seasons until its conclusion in 2012. The first cast includedAngelina Pivarnick,DJ Pauly D,Jenni "JWOWW" Farley,Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino,Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi,Ronnie Ortiz-Magro,Sammi "Sweetheart" GiancolaandVinny Guadagnino, with the addition ofDeena Cortesein its third season.

The show became a cultural phenomenon chronicling the summers of a group of 20-somethings living and partying in a Seaside Heights, N.J., beach house. In the years since its initial debut, MTV has expanded theJersey Shoreuniverse into a pop-culture force, creating multiple spinoffs with nearly 300 episodes.

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Over almost two decades of filming, the roommates have grown up on camera, navigating relationships, marriages, sobriety, parenthood, and career reinventions — all while maintaining the chemistry that first made them famous.

The latest iteration,Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, will come to a closewith its eighth season premiering on May 7. MTV announced on March 4 that the upcoming season will be the farewell season and the "last hurrah for a cultural icon."

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The "Prince of Darkness" crown has been passed down to a princess.

On Wednesday, Jack Osbourneannouncedthe birth of his fifth daughter, and the little girl has a big name: Ozzy Matilda Osbourne.

In the first glimpse of the newborn shared by the proud dad, a stuffed animal with special meaning watches over Ozzy Matilda as she slumbers — a bat! GrandpaOzzy Osbournefamously bit off the head of a bat during a concert in 1982, after mistakenly thinking the winged creature was a rubber toy.

Ozzy Matilda is Jack's fifth daughter. With his first wife, actress Lisa Stelly, he welcomed Pearl, 13, Andy, 10, and Minnie, 8. In July 2022, his then-fiancee (now wife) Aree Gearhart gave birth to Maple.

Jack recentlyopened upabout a conversation he had with his father shortly before his July 2025 passing.

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One night, while helping Ozzy prepare for bed, the Black Sabbath rocker looked in the mirror and told his son, "I think I'm going to cut my hair off... I've retired. I'm not a rock star anymore."

In hindsight, Jack now realizes that his father "was done. He was okay with his journey," he said, while recounting the moment on Jamie Kennedy'sHate to Break it to Yapodcast.

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Ozzy's passing on July 22, 2025, was still "a surprise for sure" to the Osbourne family.

"Obviously everyone knew he was sick," Jack said, "but we weren't expecting it to be as quick as it was."

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Terrence Howard opens up about how he allegedly had the chance to date Beyoncé years ago

NEED TO KNOW

• "That was very, very long ago," he said, noting that it was before Beyoncé's now-husband Jay-Z was in the picture

• The Empire alum also said he decided to date a different Destiny's Child member

Before there wasBeyoncéandJay-Z, there could have been Beyoncé andTerrence Howard, according to the actor.

While speaking to Patrick Bet-David on a recent episode of thePBD Podcast, the 57-year-oldEmpirealum claimed he could have dated the "Irreplaceable" singer earlier in her career, but chose to go with a different Destiny's Child member instead.

"You know, I had a chance to date Beyoncé early on," Howard said after Bet-David commented on power couples in Hollywood and mentioned the 35-time Grammy winner and her spouse, 56.

"We had a conversation, you know, and I ended up talking to the other girl inside of, you know, Destiny ['s Child]. The girl with the blue eyes," he continued, never naming which member.

Destiny's Child rose to fame after forming in Houston with Beyoncé, now 44,Kelly Rowland,LeToya LuckettandLaTavia Roberson.

After Luckett and Roberson's exit,Michelle WilliamsandFarrah Franklinjoined. Not long after the switch, Franklin also parted ways with the "Survivor" singers, who continued as a trio.

PEOPLE reached out to reps for Beyoncé and Howard for comment.

As the conversation continued, Howard recalled a moment at the 2005 BET Awards when he was paired with Beyoncé for a sultry on-stage performance of Destiny's Child's "Cater 2 U," which was released that same year.

For the live show, the grouppicked three famous menfrom the audience to come onstage and serenade them — Williams withMagic Johnson, Rowland withNelly, and Beyoncé with Howard.

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"I remember Beyoncé looking over at me, and I think that's why she picked me to do that dance, when she did the kind of strip tease dance that we did at BET or whatever, to show me what I had lost," theBest Manstar said.

Howard admitted "there was a moment" where he was "attracted" to and "felt something" for the "Dance for You" singer before she was with Jay-Z.

She and the rapper tied the knot in 2008, and sharethree children: daughterBlue Ivy, 14, and twinsRumiandSir, 8.

Howard has been married four times and isa father to five kids.

"That was very, very long ago," theIron Manactor said of his alleged opportunity to date the superstar.

Beyoncé previously opened up toOprah Winfreyin an OWN interviewabout how she and Jay-Z began dating when she was 19.

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"We were friends first for a year and a half before we went on any dates," the singer said. "We were on the phone for a year and a half, and that foundation is so important for a relationship. Just to have someone who you just like is so important, and someone who] is honest."

In more recent years, the couple has remained private about their personal lives.

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Like many school systems facingteacher shortages, South Carolina's Allendale County has looked overseas for help. A quarter of the teachers in the rural, high-poverty district come from other countries.

The superintendent praises theinternational educators— mostly from Jamaica and the Philippines — for their skill and dedication, but she is preparing to lose some of them as the Trump administration reshapes visa programs.

Facing higher visa sponsorship costs and uncertain immigration policies, Superintendent Vallerie Cave said it feels too risky to extend some international teachers whose contracts are up or bring on others.

"Some of my very best teachers are having to return to their countries," Cave said.

For rural schools especially, President Donald Trump'simmigration crackdownis pinching a pipeline used widely to fill staffing shortages that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rural districts can struggle to attract American teachers to remote areas that lack plentiful housing, shopping and services such as health care, especially for lower salaries than some bigger districts offer.

Cave is hoping to hire local teachers to fill the gaps left by several teachers' impending departures. If she can't, she may expand the district's use of online teachers. Elsewhere, districts are consideringhiring uncertified instructors, combining classes or dropping course offerings.

In September, the White House announced a$100,000 feeon H-1B visas, which allow highly skilled foreign workers to be employed in the U.S. The Trump administration argued American employees were being replaced, particularly in highly paid roles at tech companies. Critics have argued the fee will worsen labor shortages outside of tech.

More than 2,300 people with H-1B visas work as educators across 500 school districts, according to an analysis by the National Education Association teachers union. In a December lawsuit challenging the fee, a coalition of 20 states argued that the fees would effectively prevent school districts from hiring international teachers.

The Trump administration has provided a form to request exemptions on the fee, and educators and advocacy groups have argued it's in the public's interest for teachers to be exempted. Teachers also can come to the U.S. on the more common J-1 visa, which allows short-term stays for cultural exchange programs and is not subject to the new fee.

In rural Oregon, the Umatilla School District recruited two teachers from Spain for math and science instruction. The teachers were "phenomenal," Superintendent Heidi Sipe said, but they returned home in the summer.

"Unfortunately, due to some things at home and then the stress of the unknown, they did choose to go back," Sipe said.

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The district did not look for international candidates to replace them because of the cost and uncertainty, but it was able to advertise early and found local candidates for the openings, Sipe said. Other school leaders are not optimistic they will have the same success.

In Allendale County, the international teachers — on a mix of H-1B and J-1 visas — have taught subjects including math, science and language arts, plus special education. Even before the hike in fees, it would cost between $15,000 to $20,000 to sponsor a single teacher every year, Cave said.

School leaders agree hiring in-person, certified staff is the best option — teachers who can sit with students to explain a concept and build closer relationships throughout the school day. When that option fails, they weigh tradeoffs.

Cave said she will look to introduce more virtual teachers through Fullmind, a company the district already is using to provide three state-certified instructors. Students meet in a classroom, and their teacher joins them via video chat. Fullmind announced Thursday it had acquired Elevate K-12 and now provides the remote instruction for more than 225 school systems.

South Carolina lets districts hire non-certified teachers to meet staffing needs, but Cave said she would bring in more online teachers before pursuing that option. Her challenges with teacher shortages, she said, have not let up since the pandemic, when many school districts used federal relief money to post new positions, then had difficulty finding enough teachers.

"I can't really do competitive pay," she said. "For rural America, impoverished America, it is still a problem recruiting teachers."

At Halifax County Schools in rural North Carolina, 103 of the 159 teachers are from other countries. For the longer term, the district is pursuing ways to recruit future educators as early as their junior and senior years in high school.

More immediately, the district is hoping to hire international teachers coming from other districts who want to have their J-1 visas changed to H-1B visas, which could allow the school system to avoid the $100,000 fee, said Carolyn Mitchell, the district's executive director of human resources.

"You have to try to figure out every alternative way when you know that you may need people," Mitchell said.

The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP'sstandardsfor working with philanthropies, alistof supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — For more than a century, Utah has kept gambling almost entirely out of the state. There are no casinos, no lotteries and no racetracks that allow bets, a prohibition rooted in the conservative ideals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views gambling as a vice that leads to selfishness and addiction.

Governors Summit

But now, the state is fighting a new, more challenging battle to keep gambling outside its borders. It's on the verge of enacting a law intended to undercutprediction marketslike Kalshi and Polymarket, which allow anyone with a smartphone to wager on anything from whether it will rain in Los Angeles to whether the United States will go to war.

While regulators and other states are still debating whether those markets constitute finance or gambling, Utah has already made up its mind.

"We are putting a casino in the pocket of every single American, and they are targeting especially young people," said Gov. Spencer Cox. "It is really awful what they are doing, and we are going to make sure this doesn't happen in our state."

Cox said he will sign the legislation, putting conservative Utahat odds with the federal government. Kalshi has already sued the state, and the company is backed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency responsible for regulating financial markets.

The conflict puts Utah, a place that's not known for picking fights, on the frontlines of a cultural, political and economic battle sweeping the country. On one side is a state heavily influenced by what is widely known as theMormonchurch, where both politicians and faith leaders have treated the issue as a moral crusade. On the other is a growing industry — Kalshi and Polymarket are estimated to be worth $20 billion each after their last fundraising rounds — with connections in Washington that may offer some regulatory protection.

President Donald Trump's eldest son is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket and an investor in the latter. Trump's social media platform Truth Social is also launching its own cryptocurrency-based prediction market called Truth Predict.

Whoever wins this round could shape how other states handle the issue in the future.

"What's at stake here is whether states will be able to regulate gambling or if gambling is going to be subsumed into finance and ultimately regulated by Congress," said Todd Phillips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written extensively on the issue of regulating prediction markets.

Utah takes aim at prop betting

Polymarket and Kalshi allow participants to buy and sell contracts tied to the probable outcome of an event. Contracts are typically priced between one cent and 99 cents, which roughly translates to the percentage of customers who believe that event will happen.

The companies argue they offer products that allow customers to manage risk, like how farmers can buy corn futures to lock in the price of their crops ahead of time. And derivative markets like the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange have long offered what are known as binary options to investors, which bet on whether an event will or will not happen.

But unlike those derivative markets, the bulk of Kalshi's trading volume and roughly half of Polymarket's arenow tied to sports. Kalshi said it saw more than $1 billion in volume traded on the Super Bowl alone.

Utah is seeking to limit prediction markets from doing business in the state by taking aim at proposition betting in sports, which can be a significant source of their revenue.

The bill that Cox plans to sign would expand the state's gambling ban to include wagers on certain events happening in a game rather than the game's outcome. An example of these "prop bets" would be how well a particular player performs, or a team hitting a specific threshold like rebounds or other metrics.

The legislation also aims to stop sportsbooks companies like FanDuel and DraftKings that have set up their own prediction markets, which analysts say could allow the companies to get around state gambling prohibitions.

Because of the vocal opposition of Utah officials, Kalshi preemptively sued the state in late February, asking a judge to stop Utah from enforcing its gambling restrictions on the platform. A federal judge has yet to rule on Kalshi's request. Other judges in Nevada and Massachusetts have issued early rulings in favor of states looking to ban Kalshi and Polymarket from offering sports betting in their states, while judges in New Jersey in Tennessee have ruled in favor of Kalshi.

Kalshi argues its product is different from sportsbooks companies or casinos because customers are betting against each other instead of against the "house," spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission under Trump has agreed with Kalshi and has asserted that it has exclusive regulatory oversight of prediction markets. The agency argues states cannot ban the products from operating in their jurisdiction just because they are morally opposed to them.

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"To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear, we will see you in court," chairman Michael Selig said recently in a video posted to social media.

A moral crusade with religious roots

It's the first major issue in which Cox has clashed with Trump in the year and a half since the Republican governorworked his way into Trump's good gracesafter not voting for him in 2016 and 2020.

Patrick Mason, the chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, said he is not surprised to see Cox and other Utah Republicans take a stand against prediction markets, even if it means going against their own party's leadership in Washington. In the state, where about half of the 3.5 million residents are Latter-day Saints, even a simple game of church bingo is a rare sight.

"Maybe they play for M&Ms, but never money," he said.

All the state's major politicians, including the governor, lieutenant governor and its entire congressional delegation are members of the church headquartered in Salt Lake City. When they view an issue as moral rather than political, the faith's teachings often take precedence over appeasing the party, Mason explained.

Church doctrine prohibits gambling in any form, saying it is motivated by "a desire to get something for nothing" and is destructive to individuals and families.

"The idea that it goes against a sense of work ethic, a kind of fair exchange, has always been at the heart of the way a lot of people think about themselves in terms of Utah identity, and certainly Latter-day Saint identity and ethics," Mason said.

Because of Utah's religious roots, the state has prohibited gambling since it was admitted to the Union in 1895. Along with Hawaii, it has the strictest gambling prohibitions in the country. Utah doesn't even allow broad multi-state lotteries like Powerball or Mega Millions.

Utah leads on both state and federal fronts

Phillips, the professor focused on industry regulation, said if Congress does not step in to clarify whether these new prediction markets are legal, the issue will be left to the courts.

"The line between gambling and finance is very, very fine," Phillips said. "There's a reason why Congress has, over and over again, stepped in to define and regulate financial markets when the products skew too close to gambling."

There is already some movement on Capitol Hill, led in part by another Utah Republican.

Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah and Democrat Rep. Salud Carbajal of California introduced bipartisan legislation this week to more aggressively regulate prediction markets. The bill would ban prediction markets from allowing bets on war, assassinations, terrorist attacks or election outcomes, as well as allow states to ban sports-related betting.

"We, as a society, should not be taking bets on whether we are going to invade Cuba," Moore said.

Democratic senators have also said they will introduce legislation to ban wagers on violence.

"It's insane this is legal," Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on social media.

In court filings, Kalshi has tried to argue that its sports prediction market has economic utility and usefulness. It uses an example of an insurance company that underwrites the careers of college athletes using prediction markets to hedge the risk. Kalshi also argues that hotels, travel agencies and stadium management companies may be able to use prediction markets to hedge their risk against underperforming sports.

Moore said he is not swayed by Kalshi and Polymarket's economic arguments.

"Utah's economic outlook has been strong for many years," he said. "I see no need why we need to embrace these as an economic tool."