Celebrity Health

A 7-year-old battling cancer got the surprise of a lifetime Sunday ... John Cena visited the boy for an epic early birthday present -- coronavirus pandemic be damned.

The WWE superstar flew out to Odessa, FL to see the child ... with Cena wearing a mask and gloves to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 while there.

The trip turned out to be an awesome pick-me-up for David Castle, who's battling Wilms tumor, a type of cancer that attacks the kidneys -- because his mom tells WFLA Cena's presence brought the child to tears.

FYI -- Castle's family says the boy's been through A TON since his diagnosis in Oct. 2019, saying, David's "undergone very painful tests, surgery, and long days and nights at the hospital."

But, Cena did his best to take the boy's mind away from his fight ... gifting David with his own personal WWE belt and a bunch of other swag, including autographed T-shirts and armbands.

By the way, Castle's birthday is next week ... which makes Cena's trip an even sweeter one!!

Of course, John's been doing cool visits like this for YEARS ... the guy holds the record for most wishes granted to Make-A-Wish -- with more than 600 total!!!

Atlanta PD tells TMZ ... their officers actually ended up responding to two massive street gatherings this weekend, and it sounds like one of them was what we're seeing here on video.

We're told that cops responded to a noise complaint just before midnight Saturday, and found a large party had moved outside, where at least 100 people were gathered and parking violations were aplenty. The police started to disperse the crowd, and eventually started issuing tickets ... which we're told really got people moving and outta there.

Crazy enough, APD says a lot of those people from that block party went to another location -- and the cops then had to respond to that and break it up as well! Now, as for these speed racers in the clip Tigger posted -- APD wouldn't confirm if their officers specifically dealt with it ... but they do say cops DID intervene in what was described as a "gathering of vehicles and people," which the cops then proceeded to disperse too.

We're told officers saw a lot of people driving recklessly, and once they started directing traffic and doling out citations ... the group eventually began to leave accordingly. We might not have seen them on video, but yes ... the 5-0 was out there doing their thing.

Chicago was not the only city to hit the streets and rage this weekend -- a lot of folks down in Atlanta did the exact same thing (with motorcycles and other whips to boot), which was all posted by BET's Big Tigger ... who was sorely disappointed in what he saw.

Check out the video BT put up, showing a massive amount of people congregating outside at night to watch what sounds like a bunch of race cars, quads and dirt bikes do donuts and put on a good old-fashioned sideshow. Looks like a scene out of "The Fast & Furious."

He wrote of the scene, "Good Morning and Happy Sunday... this is alarming and disappointing on so many levels..." going on to say that we gotta do better together.

One person who does NOT see it that way is one Waka Flocka -- who posted a pretty eyebrow-raising message on his own social media page that seems to side with the quarantine quitters. The rapper wrote, "Why people mad at others for going outside 🤷🏽‍♂️" He added a caption to that too, saying ... "Shut TF up." Okay then, thanks Waka!

As if it didn't get crazy enough with the party, a fight erupted right on the street, and it was the opposite of social distancing.

Their defiance defies logic, but here it is ... another super-unsafe party in Chicago in the midst of a still untamed pandemic.

A throng of folks hit the streets of West Chi-Town Saturday night for a rager. A woman twerked on the hood of a car as the crowd roared its approval.

Chicago has been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, and Mayor Lightfoot pled with Chicago residents Saturday not to defy the doctors and scientists. It's one thing to go out and get exercise, adhering to social distancing ... it's another to pack in like sardines, which is a surefire way to spread the virus.

The Mayor has cause for deep concern. Late last month there was a shocking scene at a Chicago house party where it seemed impossible to cram one more person inside. As you know by now, high concentrations of people -- like at funerals or celebrations -- can cause an explosion of COVID-19 cases.

The Mayor has also echoed what is now a known fact ... the virus is hitting minority communities disproportionally hard.

Mark Cuban is challenging the federal government to rejigger the economy NOW ... by hiring some of the millions of people who are out of work and retraining them to become useful in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuban demanded answers ... "Explain to me why in the midst of 50m people unemployed or underemployed, the gov isn't hiring and training MILLIONS to do Tracking/Tracing, Caring/Supporting at risk populations and sanitization work? And now is the time to train/pay stay at home parents/caregivers as well."

It's an idea that was obliquely hatched during the Democratic presidential debates, by folks like Andrew Yang and others ... to scramble the economy and find new ways of supporting an increasingly struggling workforce.

We talked to California Governor Gavin Newsom on "TMZ Live" a couple weeks ago about his new program -- Californians For All -- encouraging young people to volunteer to help.  We asked if this could be the start of something like FDR's New Deal, where programs like the Work Progress Administration put out-of-work Americans to work to help the country.  Newsom seemed all about it.

Georgia's Governor lifted restaurant restrictions almost a week ago, but most popular ATL spots are instead heeding Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms ... refusing to open for dine-in service.

Many of Atlanta's most famous and popular restaurants are telling TMZ ... despite Gov. Brian Kemp's green light, they feel it's not safe enough to return to business as usual. However, some of them are still embracing crowds of customers ... for take-out.

Check out the gallery ... mouth-watering restaurants like Hattie Marie’s BBQ, The Original Hot Dog Factory, Nouveau Bar & Grill, Slutty Vegan and Bon Ton Atlanta are sticking with the status quo, only offering takeout and delivery options while dine-in tables sit empty.

Copper Cove Buckhead is taking a more extreme approach -- it's staying completely closed until Mayor Bottoms gives the all-clear. We're told ownership is using this time to sanitize the whole building.

Tons of celebs frequent Copper Cove ... Diddy, Fabolous, Offset, Pusha T, Toya Wright and Jermaine Dupri to name a few ... but they're just gonna have to wait.

As we reported ... the mayor's encouraging her citizens to listen to data coming from health officials in the middle of the crisis ... instead of what President Trump and Gov. Kemp are pushing.

Lamont D. Johnson, the PR rep for The Original Hot Dog Factory and CRU Hemp Lounge, tells TMZ ... the restaurants are pairing up with hospitals to donate food to medical workers.

And, Slutty Vegan owner Pinky Cole tells us she's paying rent for other small businesses in Atlanta, while providing free food to frontline workers.

Heather Locklear's ready to make nice. And, the feeling's mutual with cops 2 years after she went on the attack against them.

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... Heather's recently been working to repair her relationship with law enforcement, starting with simple acts like stopping Sheriff's deputies around town and saying hello. She's also bought a few cops coffee and chatted.

Then there's this ... in recent months we're told the "Spin City" star attended a Ventura County Sheriff's "Tip-A-Cop" event -- where cops serve as waiters at a local restaurant -- for lunch and returned for dinner.

As for the tip ... we're told she left a super impressive $1,500, which went to a Special Olympics charity. That Heather's taken the steps to bridge the gap with law enforcement has not gone unnoticed with cops. It's a stark contrast to what went down beginning in March 2018.

TMZ broke the story ... police hit up her Thousand Oaks home armed with a search warrant to go look for a gun, this after she told cops "If you ever come back to my house I will shoot you" following her felony domestic violence arrest.

But, things really turned for the worse 3 months later. As we first reported ... Heather was busted after allegedly punching a deputy and kicking an EMT. Heather ultimately pled no contest to 8 misdemeanors and was ordered to 30 days in a residential mental health facility.

Just when it seemed Heather was putting the whole episode behind her ... the EMT -- a single mother of 3 -- wound up suing Heather in November 2018 claiming Heather wished death by AIDS on her children. The suit was ultimately dismissed.

We saw Heather out a month after the EMT filed the lawsuit and she couldn't look any better. She was smiling, being chatty with our photog and enjoying time with her family. She looked just as happy out celebrating her daughter Ava's 22nd birthday.

Heather's incredible turnaround, we're told, has cops beaming. Sources tell us they never took her actions personally and understood she needed help. Now that she's gotten it, we're told cops are ecstatic to see her overcome life obstacles ... especially because they know sobriety is no small feat.

Utah is ramping up to reopen safely -- like lots of other states -- but these happy campers are ready to take a leap of faith into their regular routines ... including trips to state parks with waterfalls.

Check out the scene from Gunlock State Park Saturday, where we're told at least 1,000 people congregated to freefall dive into the pools of water covering most of the grounds. It's surreal -- both gorgeous for the scenery, but horrifying 'cause of how packed it is.

Eyewitnesses say a majority of these waterfall jumpers were young people -- you can probably tell as much by watching the videos and seeing them up close and afar-- but we're also told some families were out there too. No matter what ... none of them were social distancing anyway.

BTW, local reports say at least two other state parks -- Sand Hollow and Quail Creek -- ended up getting packed to capacity on Friday ... this after the state announced it was ready to start navigating the reopening of several businesses, to the chagrin of many ... including Salt Lake City's mayor, who warned her own residents to remain vigilant.

The official Utah State Park Twitter page has been advising visitors to practice #ResponsibleRecreation ... but it's pretty obvious, responsibility is out the window.

North Korea's state-run media is apparently good enough for President Trump -- he's taking their word that Kim Jong-un has a clean bill of health ahead of him at face value ... congratulating the guy on his alleged bounce-back.

POTUS tweeted Saturday -- a day after photos surfaced of Kim at some ribbon-cutting ceremony at a factory there, which the media (that he and his regime control) claims were taken this weekend as proof that KJU is still kicking -- and didn't question the authenticity.

He wrote, "I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!" His words came in the form of a retweet from a user who put up the photos and a caption that reads ... "KimJongUn cut the tape at the ceremony marking the completion of Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory in Sunchon. #NorthKorea." That same user also attached video that purportedly shows Kim walking around the factory grounds on his own two feet, smiling and taking it all in.

Of course, if the photos show what N. Korea says they show, it would be the first public appearance Kim's made since early April -- after which rumors swirled about his health. Some reports from overseas claimed he was actually dead at one point, while others hedged more, claiming he was either on his death bed, in "grave danger" or in a vegetative state.

Considering Kim and co. run a brutal dictatorship and control all the information that seeps out to the world, we, for one, are inclined to take their media's reporting with a grain of salt. Fact is ... we don't know for sure when this visit took place. And, we doubt many outside North Korea do either.

Kim Jong-un proved to everyone that the stories about his death were greatly exaggerated ... that is, if you believe the state-run media in N. Korea.

A government-run newspaper published photos of the dictator at a factory opening in North Korea ... the paper claims the photos were taken Saturday in Korea.

Kim had not been seen in public for nearly 3 weeks, and there were reports in Japan and China he was dead. Other media outlets claimed he was gravely ill.

Various United States government departments are investigating. It appears so far, the U.S. hasn't been able to nail down the location of the factory or the date the photos were taken.