News

Cedric the Entertainer doesn't like all the jokes being made about food stamps over the weekend ... unless they were really good.

We caught up with one of the Original Kings Of Comedy in NYC, where our cameraperson brought up people making jokes about the U.S. government's impending halt to the country's largest anti-hunger program.

Cedric had a more serious response than we were expecting, saying, "No, that's not a joke. There's so many people living with food insecurity in the United States."

Kenneth Leland Morgan -- the man who allegedly dressed in a Nazi costume before striking a University of Georgia student with a beer stein -- was denied entrance into the college bar, Cutters, because of the Gestapo uniform, TMZ has learned.

According to a police report, obtained by TMZ ... customers at Cutters say they met Morgan outside the bar, along with bar staff, and told him "he couldn't come in while dressed as a Nazi."

As the argument grew heated, Morgan's alleged victim -- identified as Alexandra Lang -- apparently swiped at his Nazi armband to remove it. According to police, Alexandra moved away from Morgan but witnesses say he responded by pulling her towards him and striking her in the face with "a large glass beer stein."

Sebastian Van Stockum -- the Connecticut man accused of killing his mom -- once took a high school Forensic class that had the trappings of a Jeffrey Dahmer crime scene with simulated blood spatter, dead bodies, and human skeletons, according to a former classmate.

The ex-classmate tells TMZ she was in the same Forensics class with Stockum back at New Canaan High -- where the lessons included blood-spatter experiments in which students would stand on tables with a ruler and squirt fake blood to study blood patterns.

Students also learned how to zero in on someone's time of death based on body temperature, as well as studying skeletons and bones, and even watching a documentary about human corpses. Other projects included breaking down fabric under a microscope, learning about DNA, and solving mock crime scenes.

Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica and Cuba a couple of hours ago ... and the Category 5 storm was immediately wreaking havoc on the island.

The massive storm is causing roads to flood -- in some areas, flash flooding pushed water high enough to engulf a car -- and major power outages across the country are occurring ... with CNN reporting nearly 250,000 are impacted.

In harrowing videos shared by local radio news station Nationwide90FM ... Melissa's winds were so furious, reaching 185 MPH ... they ripped a portion of the roof off Savanna La Mar Hospital. Another hospital was also damaged, per the station.

The Pentagon is cherry picking data when it tries to shoot down a popular new movie's portrayal of America's $50 billion nuclear missile defenses ... at least according to national security analyst Joseph Cirincione, who says 'House of Dynamite' has it right!

Check out our chat with Joseph Tuesday on TMZ Live, where he said the government can only declare our anti-ICBM system 100 percent effective if it limits available test results to the last 10 years.

However, he insists the Netflix movie "A House of Dynamite" is far more accurate with the 60 percent success rate in its script.

It's day 28 of the federal government shutdown ... and Harvey Levin is reminding viewers of his 'OWTA' movement, AKA Out With Their Asses!

TMZ's founder and executive producer is at his wit's end with the shutdown and reminding viewers that they have the power to decide who's in Congress ... and if they can't do their job and compromise, we just vote 'em out!

You can see he particularly takes issue with the fact that air traffic controllers are going without paychecks ... an essential job that ensures the safety of all fliers. But, Harvey says we're going to see a midair collision because controllers are stressed, tired, and stretched beyond their limits.

We caught up with a pair of air traffic controllers today at LAX ... and they stressed that they want elected officials to do their job and open up the government.

The frightening trio in Halloween costumes who showed up on a Virginia family's doorstep were all just actors playing a role with their relatives getting in on the gag, according to the police.

The Alexandria PD released a statement on Facebook, saying they put in over 100 investigative hours looking into what they originally thought was a real-life horror movie that unraveled on the night of October 14 outside the house in Alexandria, VA.

But it turns out ... the incident was just a prank with three teens dressed in spooky costumes standing at the front door making threats to their relatives inside their abode. Doorbell video captured every harrowing moment — even when one of the masked characters furiously banged on the door, threatening to kill the homeowners if they didn't come out.

President Trump's ad lib's are already, umm ... legendary, and his latest has him tossing some tongue-in-cheek shade at attractive people -- which would be quite the 180 for him.

DT told U.S. troops Tuesday in Japan, "I don't like good-looking people. I never liked good-looking people. I'll be honest with you. I've never admitted that before. But see, I'm allowed to -- we won at the Supreme Court thing based on merit. You know about that, right?"

POTUS then went on to talk about how everything in America is now based on merit and nothing else ... seemingly lumping good-looking people in with his fave acronym, DEI hires.

The improv moment made zero sense since it came after he said he saw so many good-looking people among the troops, but also said, "I look at you and I see nothing but merit."

Go figure!

The Pentagon has called BS on Netflix's "A House of Dynamite," saying its depiction of America's capability to strike down a nuclear attack is wildly inaccurate ... but a national security expert is raising red flags.

Fred Kaplan, a political journalist and former defense-policy adviser, joined CNN on Tuesday and said Kathryn Bigelow's war thriller is actually quite accurate, with its line stating America's $50 billion nuclear missile defense is accurate half the time.

He also slammed the Pentagon for the "dangerous" act of purposefully misleading top officials in a mid-month internal memorandum obtained by Bloomberg that claims the pricey system of interceptors has 100% accuracy.

Ben Bader's family is speaking out ... after the Miami-based content creator tragically died at just 25 years old.

In a statement to TMZ ... the Upham and Bader family remember him as a "visionary who led with love, lived with intention, and turned his passions into helping others."

Ben's family goes on to say ... "He made a profound impact on everyone who knew him through his wisdom, humor, and compassion. Ben lived each day to the fullest, inspiring those around him to seek meaning, connection, and purpose in their own lives."

A monster storm is barreling towards Jamaica ... and dramatic video from a hurricane hunter shows the eye of Hurricane Melissa ... and it looks like it's going to be a big one.

Check out this clip from the inside of Melissa ... meteorologist Jeremy DeHart shared it on social media today and he says it's from a Teal 74 mission into the heart of the storm.

The video shows walls of clouds forming a cylinder as the plane flies through the eye ... and DeHart says, "As clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin."

Kenneth Leland Morgan -- the man who allegedly dressed in a Nazi costume before striking a University of Georgia student with a beer stein -- posed for his mugshot in an orange jumpsuit after being stripped of his now infamous Gestapo costume.

TMZ has obtained a booking photo of Morgan, and based on his expression ... he doesn't look too thrilled to be locked up in the Athens-Clarke County slammer while wearing scrubs issued by the jail. It's unclear what exactly happened to his neatly pressed Gestapo uniform, but we imagine the jail took custody of it for the time being.

According to legal docs -- obtained by TMZ -- Morgan's been charged with felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor simple battery.

It looks like John Dickerson's going to be looking for a new role to fill ... because he's going to be leaving CBS News at the end of the year.

The journalist revealed the big news on his Instagram account, and he wrote he was "extremely grateful" for the experiences he had at CBS over the past sixteen years.

Dickerson first began working with CBS News back in 2009, and he's worn several hats during his time with CBS, as he's served as a moderator on "Face The Nation" and had a stint on "CBS This Morning."

World-renowned artist Jackie Ferrara has passed away at 95 -- choosing to end her life through medical aid.

Jackie -- whose work is featured in collections at the Museum of Modern Art -- died last Wednesday, her estate and legacy adviser Tina Hejtmanek confirmed. She had traveled to Basel, Switzerland, where she chose to end her life at Pegasos, a nonprofit clinic for assisted dying.

Jackie was based in NYC, where Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) isn’t legal -- and in the U.S. states where it is legal, patients have to be terminally ill, which she wasn’t. That’s why she traveled to Switzerland, where the law doesn’t require someone to be terminally ill.

The third death on Walt Disney World property in 10 days has been ruled a suicide, and two of the people took their lives at Disney's most prominent hotel ... TMZ has learned.

A rep for the Medical Examiner's Office tells TMZ, the third person was identified as 28-year-old Matthew Cohn, who died from multiple traumatic injuries after he jumped to his death from a height at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Florida

This is the third death at Walt Disney World in just over a week. As we reported, a 31-year-old woman died by suicide on October 14 -- also at the Contemporary. Then, on October 21, a man in his 60s died after suffering a medical episode at Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground.

NYPD detective Alicia Stone died a week after undergoing a Brazilian butt lift and liposuction in Colombia ... leaving her husband searching for answers.

Detective Stone, a 13-year NYPD veteran in the department's Internal Affairs Bureau, was reportedly rushed to Fundación Valle del Lili Hospital in Cali, Colombia, after she was discovered unresponsive in her hotel room Thursday. According to the Daily News, she was pronounced dead about an hour later from an "unspecified cardiac arrest."

The late detective's husband, Michael Stone, told the Daily News, “The doctor who called me from Colombia just called me and told me my wife had just passed away. She didn’t have any information to tell me when I was asking her ... Something just doesn’t add up.”