Jennifer Lopez gives birth to twins

Jennifer Lopez gave birth to twins - a boy and a girl - on Friday morning after one of pop music's most closely-watched pregnancies.

The boy and girl, delivered in a Long Island, New York, hospital, were the first for the 38-year-old actress and singer, whose efforts to become pregnant have filled tabloid pages in the past few years.

Anthony, a 39-year-old salsa singer, has a daughter and two sons from two previous relationships.

Lopez did not confirm her much-rumoured pregnancy until early November, when she announced the news to a Miami audience while on a concert tour with her husband.

The babies were born at 12.45am local time (5.45am UK time) on Long Island, New York State. Lopez, 39, and husband Marc Anthony, 38, married in 2004. The twins are her first children, and his third and fourth.

Lopez's publicist Simon Fields said: "Jennifer and Marc are delighted, thrilled and over the moon."

Her father, David Lopez, told a TV station earlier this month that she was expecting twins.