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Here's a verrrry good girl with a little extra pep in her steps ... she was born with 6 legs but veterinarians say the pooch is miraculously beating the odds.

This newborn Aussie-border collie mix named Miracle but who also goes by Skipper was born in Oklahoma City and taken to a vet after she was rejected by her mom. Vets at Neel Veterinary Hospital say she's nothing short of a miracle because she's survived longer than expected. The pup was 4 days old at the time the pic was taken.

And get this ... the vets say Skipper has duplicate organs basically from her waist down, and they're all functioning. There's no published research showing another dog with this condition born alive.

Skipper has congenital conjoining disorders called ... monocephalus dipygus and monocephalus rachipagus dibrachius tetrapus ... that's science talk for 1 head and chest cavity but 2 pelvic regions, 2 lower urinary tracts, 2 reproductive systems, 2 tails and 6 legs, among other things.

All things considered ... Skipper does have some positive signs going for her. The vets say her organs appear to be in great condition and she's peeing and pooping like a normal doggy, She's also very strong and growing appropriately so far.

The mariachi band that made Ted Cruz's stoop a stage performed at a discount, saying the Senator's actions were so despicable, they would've played it for free if they could.

TMZ spoke to Jose Antonio Solis of Mariachi Mi Mexico -- the group that brought their song and dance to Cruz's front door Sunday -- and he says they took nearly $100 less than normal for the gig in Ted's well-to-do Houston neighborhood.

Normally, Solis says their hourly rate runs $475, but they agreed to $400 flat. Solis says he understands Ted and the fam wanting to get away from the cold, but not when the people Ted represents are dying.

Solis says they would've played the gig for free, but lost out on recent money because of the storm.

Mariachi Mi Mexico was hired by a fella named Bryan Hlavinka ... whom Solis says told them there was a GoFundMe account set up specifically to pay them to play.

'Jeopardy!' was short on guest hosts after Ken Jennings' stint expired -- so a chief showrunner had to lace up himself and get on the field ... which turned out to be a beaut of a decision.

Executive producer Mike Richards stepped in Monday to serve as host of the quiz program -- kicking off the broadcast by introducing himself and explaining to viewers at home why there wasn't a more well-known face on their TV sets ... like a celeb, or a 'Jeopardy!' alum.

Long story short ... the team behind the scenes had a hard time booking someone -- which he explains was, in part, due to COVID fears -- so he decided to take up the mantle himself and present answers to this week's contestants. He says it best ... the show must go on.

As the rest of the half-hour played out ... it became clear Richards was a natural, and the reviews online were stellar. People loved him -- his style, his wit and humor ... all very reminiscent of the late, great Alex Trebek.

The show went off without a hitch -- and Richards says he'll be doing hosting duty for the next 2 weeks.

As we reported, the show's already announced a slew of celeb guest hosts in coming months, but folks seem to really like Mike!

If Sen. Ted Cruz swung by his crib at any point Sunday, he would've seen the brigade of standing musicians in sombreros ... reminding him what he was missing in Mexico.

Somebody hired a mariachi band to swing by Ted's Houston home yesterday, where the fellas were cranking out Mexican tunes from the sidewalk, quite loudly -- with a crowd of neighbors and spectators forming around them and enjoying the vibes.

Unclear if Ted was around to take in the show himself -- we know he'd been out and about, helping distribute supplies to Texans devastated by the winter storm ... albeit, several days after first going to Cancun with his family.

As we reported, Cruz did a quick U-turn after touching down last week -- and, at first, tried blaming the whole thing on the will of his daughters, and his desire to be a good dad. He eventually just copped to it ... calling the whole thing a mistake in hindsight.

Janet Jackson was so impressed with a UCLA gymnastics star who busted out a floor routine inspired by her music, JANET FACETIMED HER!!

The athlete behind the routine is Margzetta Frazier -- who busted out some of Ms. Jackson's legendary dance moves to songs like "Nasty" and "If" during a competition against BYU earlier this month.

Footage of the routine went viral -- because it's awesome -- and got all the way to Janet, who DEMANDED she talk to Frazier face-to-face (virtually, of course).

The two connected on Friday -- and Jackson gushed about Frazier's routine, talent and raw athleticism.

"I just want too say thank you," Janet said to Margzetta ... "Thank you for sharing your talent. It's so beautiful to see you tumble. Really inspiring."

"It just inspired me to want to do more, and do better and be stronger. I loved it. Absolutely loved it."

Frazier was so touched, she choked back tears and told her idol how much Janet and her music meant to her.

COVID-19 has claimed an astonishing number of American lives -- surpassing half a million Sunday -- more than we lost on the battlefield in three combined wars.

Compare the numbers .... there were 291,000 American deaths in WWII. There were 47,434 American battle deaths during the Vietnam War. There were 33,739 American battle deaths in the Korean War.

Compare those numbers to COVID ... as of this post 502,000 Americans have died, and the numbers keep going up. Despite the vaccines, some doctors and scientists believe there could still be a new, devastating wave of deaths because of highly-transmissible variants.

The good news, of course -- the vaccines are going into arms at a rapid pace .... lately around 1.5 million per day. Still, we are nowhere close to vaccinating enough people to achieve herd immunity. Around 70% of Americans -- possibly even more -- must be vaccinated to achieve that goal.

As you know ... there's a lot of skepticism over the vaccine for various reasons. Some people think it was rushed, and others -- especially African-Americans who endured shocking abuse in the disgraceful Tuskegee experiment -- just don't trust it or the government when it comes to vaccines.

There has been a slew of stories about the vaccines, suggesting they may not be effective as variants arise ... and lots of people resistant to the vaccines seem to be saying, what's the point?

In any case, we've lost more than half a million Americans to COVID.

The sick George Floyd Valentine's Day gag in L.A. found legs and went on over to Nevada, where a high school student used a twisted line as a Sadie Hawkins dance invite.

This photo was captured recently on a sports field at Foothill High School in Henderson, NV -- not too far outside of Vegas. It depicts what appears to be a female high school student holding up a poster with a request that someone be her date to the Sadie's dance.

The poster features a hand-written message and a crude drawing of Floyd. The writing reads, "If you went to SADIES w/ me it would take my BREATH away! George Floyd."

Yeah ... nothing subtle about that at all.

The Clark County School District says it's investigating the matter, and Foothill also posted this message on its site -- "Foothill and CCSD will not tolerate racially insensitive behaviors that contradict an inclusive community and impact the school culture of our students."

This is in the same vein as a Valentine with George Floyd's photo that was being shared among LAPD officers -- which captioned, "You take my breath away." Someone reported it to higher-ups and it too is now being investigated. LAPD also said it had a zero tolerance for such behavior.

Ted Cruz may have come up with a bright idea on his flight back from Cancun -- if no one else gives him props, he'll do it himself.

Cruz posted pics Saturday of him delivering water to his desperate constituents. You see Cruz carrying a case of H2O ... shaking hands with a fellow Texan.

And, speaking of cases ... this may be one of too little, too late. As you know, while Texans were freezing and dying, the Senator from Texas and his family jetted down to Cancun for some fun in the sun. He blamed his daughters for the trip and even suggested he was merely escorting them down and flying right back. That was a lie, although he did fly back the next day after being almost universally shamed.

What's super interesting ... AOC flew to Texas this week to help the folks and raised millions for relief efforts, and it ain't even her state! BTW, the Congresswoman, who's way more liberal than most of the state, was received warmly and enthusiastically.

So, regarding Ted ... is it true -- better late than never?

Huge pieces of a plane started raining down from the sky and onto the front yards of a handful of Colorado residents, but luckily ... everyone seems to be okay.

Check out these photos that were captured and posted out in Broomfield, where police shared images of massive chunks of debris from what appears to be the turbine engine and other parts of the plane laid scattered about on the lawns of folks in neighborhoods below.

It's pretty freaky ... but it sounds like, for now, nobody was struck by any of this stuff falling from the sky -- which appears to have broken off from the wings and other parts of the aircraft.

Broomfield PD is instructing folks not to touch the debris and to leave it where it landed, so that the National Transportation Safety Board -- the federal agency that investigates situations like this -- can come out to take a look, and determine what's what.

BPD posted more photos of other parts of the plane, which seem to have landed at a park ... on a turf field, no less. Again, it's a miracle no one was hit by any of it -- just about anything falling from that high of an altitude could easily kill someone who wasn't paying attention.

It sounds like if you were in the area and outside, you couldn't have missed this ... because people captured footage of the plane when it first started going up in flames -- and it apparently made a loud boom noise. You can see a huge cloud of black smoke it left behind in the air too -- and it certainly disrupted neighbors in the area.

BTW, people on the flight itself caught some of the malfunction live ... and it looks terrifying. Imagine being on board and having to wait for this to be resolved ... not being able to do a thing about it.

This story has a happy ending ... the plane -- a United flight -- is said to have landed safely at Denver International Airport -- where it had departed on its way to Honolulu. Investigators are looking into what caused the engine failure.

Jim Henson's sense of humor is getting a shout-out on the heels of his beloved series hitting Disney+ -- but as we look back, it's clear his puppets weren't always made just for kids.

The 'Muppets' creator used to work on TV commercials for Wilkins Coffee back in the day (from the late '50s through the early '60s) in which he used early versions of puppets he had to peddle java for the food brand. Millennials are just discovering them ... and are in awe.

One guy wrote, "can't stop laughing at these early jim henson commercials where one guy just kills another for not liking wilkins coffee." Yep, that's the gist of these throwback spots -- it's basically one Henson puppet murking another puppet who refuses to drink the Wilkins.

Some of the pranks are harmless, like kicking the puppet off a tree they're both resting on -- but as you watch on ... you'll see some of the sketches become increasingly violent.

In some of the ads, the stockier puppet gets shot at with a gun, bonked over the head, cut with a razor, electrocuted, boiled alive, tossed off buildings and hot air balloons ... and a lot more. It's all in good fun -- but many are pointing out just how graphic they seem to be. Somebody uploaded a full 14-minute clip of all the Henson Wilkins ads, and it's eye-opening.

Henson also had a stint of doing ads with Claussen's Bread -- in which Kermit himself appeared -- and they too are pretty damn dark ... albeit somewhat watered down.

Of course, "The Muppets" is laced with a ton of adult humor too -- so it's no surprise, really, that some of Henson's material with his prized creations pushed the envelope. Just check out this early 'Muppets' toy commercial, where the dolls threaten violence onto the viewers if they don't buy them.

A lot of this stuff aired in the '50s, '60s and '70s ('Muppets' have been around a long time) ... so something tells us Henson and co. could get away with edgy scripts back then. By the time the '90s rolled around, though, 'Muppets' underwent major rebranding ... to be more kid-friendly.

Anyway, most episodes of "The Muppet Show" are now available to stream -- and folks are remembering the genius who brought it all to life. Henson died of pneumonia in 1990.

He was 53.

Metallica tried rocking out in front of millions of viewers watching their virtual concert -- but the platform hosting their set got cold feet ... and muzzled them to cover their own ass.

This is pretty hilarious (and educational) ... James Hetfield and co. were performing earlier Friday for BlizzCon -- a gaming convention put on by Blizzard Entertainment ... which often uses Twitch to host its festivities. Metallica was booked for a pandemic-friendly gig.

When it was their time to shred ... it appears the admin team at Twitch played it safe, and muted their set for a bunch of people who were streaming it from their website. Instead of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' ... a lot of people heard some cheesy, generic 8-bit folk music ... which had the exact opposite vibe Metallica was trying to communicate -- low key and chill.

Based on different users who were monitoring the set live, it appears the concert was heard just fine as is through Blizzard's official YouTube and Twitch page, but on Twitch's homepage ... you only heard Zelda-esque tunes. Twitch reportedly dubbed over Metallica's entire performance ... and what's being speculated is they did it over copyright concerns.

In case you hadn't heard, A LOT of Twitch gamers and streamers have been getting hit with DMCA takedown requests ... because they were playing parts of songs they didn't own the rights to, or the whole thing. It's been a big Twitch issue throughout 2020.

The irony is ... Metallica was instrumental in forming the current DMCA laws in this country ... due to lawsuits they spearheaded against Napster and other file-sharing services from the early 2000s. It was a big thing back then.

A man who allegedly attacked and injured several New York Transit officers was wrestled to the ground and pummeled ... and the takedown was captured on video.

The incident went down Tuesday in a subway station. Cops say Alex Lowery was smoking a cigarette which is a violation of MTA rules. They approached him and escorted him out of the station, but as they walked up a flight of stairs to the exit, Lowery allegedly spat in an officer's face.

Lowery began to struggle with the cops, and allegedly punched one of them in the face and head-butted another officer. Cops say Lowery and one of the officers tumbled down the stairs and Lowery again punched a cop in the face.

The Transit cops subdued Lowery, and when he was on the ground an officer threw 11 punches at his head.

Several officers were injured. One had lacerations to his head and injured his knee. Another officer injured his elbow in the struggle.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump went on the attack, saying, "What we're seeing all over America is EXCESSIVE abuse of power by police! Regardless of what happened, NOWHERE in police procedures does it say to punch a suspect in the face multiple times! Police need to be held accountable for their actions, not just when someone is killed!"

The first super clear images from NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover are in, and ... wow!

You can see it's going to be a rocky road -- literally -- for the Rover when it gets going and cruises around the red planet. NASA had a little fun with these images when the spacecraft's Twitter account (yes, it's got its own) tweeted the images ... saying, "I love rocks. Look at these right next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story do they tell? Can’t wait to find out." Same, TBH.

NASA also showed a clear image of the open horizon. The pics come one Earth day after the Mars Rover stuck the landing Thursday ... the tail end of an incredible 293 million mile journey.

As we reported ... Perseverance blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral back in July and touched down at exactly 12:56 PM PT on Thursday. Pretty cool moment when the folks over at NASA's mission control celebrated the landing and fist-bumped from California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It's going to be fun seeing more images rolling in soon. As we told you ... the SUV-sized spacecraft also brought along a small helicopter along for the first time ever.

Hillary Clinton is piling on Sen. Ted Cruz for leaving his poor pup behind in his "freezing" Houston home during his infamous trip to Cancun ... she says it's a huge red flag for voters.

The former Secretary of State took a not-so-thinly veiled shot Friday at Cancun Cruz, tweeting ... "Don't vote for anyone you wouldn't trust with your dog." Zing!!!

HC has clearly seen the sad New York Magazine photo of the Texas Senator's pooch, Snowflake, who was left behind in the same home Cruz's wife said was "freezing" after a lengthy power outage from the deadly winter storm.

Cruz quickly hightailed it back to Texas after tons of backlash, and now admits he made a huge mistake by flying south during the Texas crisis back home ... but he's been mum on Snowflake.

The man who allegedly assaulted the 52-year-old Chinese mother of Olivia Munn's friend has been arrested ... and the actress is thanking the Internet for helping cops nab the guy.

According to the NYPD ... Patrick Mateo from Queens was arrested Thursday and booked on charges of assault and harassment.

Cops say they responded to a 911 call Tuesday for an assault outside a bakery. According to police ... the suspect got into a verbal dispute with the 52-year-old woman, then pushed her and caused her to hit her head. The incident was captured on surveillance cam before the guy fled the scene.

Munn put the word out on social media Wednesday that her friend's 5'3" Asian mother had been attacked, and shared a photo of the suspect in order to try to generate tips leading to his arrest.

Olivia's tweeting out praise, saying ... "F**k this guy. The internet is undefeated. Thank you thank you thank you." She added the hashtags #StopAsianHate and #ProtectOurElders.

Law enforcement sources tell us the alleged victim told cops she was waiting in line at the bakery when her attacker approached and began yelling at her. The woman was transported to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.

Tessica Brown's Gorilla Glue ordeal is NOT over ... her attempt to pay it forward is getting blocked because too many people think she's a fraud.

TMZ broke the story ... Tessica's planning to donate $20k -- the lion's share of the money in her GoFundMe account -- to a charitable org that provides reconstructive surgery ... but now she can't withdraw the cash.

Tessica says GoFundMe has frozen the account after it got flooded with claims she's pulled a fast one. As you probably know, there's a conspiracy theory out there that Tessica didn't really Gorilla Glue her hair, and she cooked this all up to milk the Internet for sympathy dough.

Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... GoFundMe has asked Tessica for an update on where the $23,000 in the account will be donated. We're told she's provided that info, and is now waiting for a response.

When she first set up the fundraiser -- to cover medical costs -- she only asked for $1500, but as the saga dragged on for more than a month, the money kept coming.

Tessica's donation is going to the Restore Foundation. As we first reported, Dr. Michael Obeng -- who got the glue out of Tessica's hair for free -- is also reaping benefits. His Bev Hills practice has been flooded with new customers ... for regular plastic surgery, not glue removal.