You Might Want to Rethink

The United Airlines passenger who appears to have died from COVID-19 complications was laid out in the middle of the floor and getting CPR in a compact area -- which is now seen on video.

TMZ has obtained footage of the moment fellow passengers stepped in to do chest compressions on the man -- who fell unconscious earlier this week while United Flight 591 was up in the air and on its way to L.A. from Orlando.

As we reported, passengers say the man's wife said, during the emergency, her husband had various symptoms, including a loss of taste and smell and shortness of breath, yet he did not disclose this before boarding.

As you can see, it was a tense scene as passengers in surrounding rows looked on while one of three trained professionals administered CPR for almost an hour before the plane could land in New Orleans and get the man to a hospital, where he ultimately died.

One of those people who was rotating in to help was EMT Tony Aldapa, who gave us his first-hand account ... and it sounds like he was willing to risk potential exposure to help save the man's life.

No one knows for certain if the man had the virus -- but some of the passengers believe he did ... and also fear they may have been infected.  Tony tells us they took the man's mask off but replaced it with an oxygen mask. Still, it creates lots of worry for those on board.

It's a huge problem that has mostly gone unaddressed until now ... the fact that there's virtually no way of weeding someone out who might have COVID from getting on a plane and putting everyone else's life at risk. The honor system is only as good as the honesty of the passengers, and that's clearly a problem.

A woman suspected of shoplifting at a grocery store in central California got dragged out by security -- and by that, we mean she was literally yanked across the tile floor like a mop.

This wild incident went down Wednesday at a WinCo in Visalia, CA -- where this woman and a male friend were allegedly caught red-handed trying to make off with some pricey tequila.

What happened next was brutal, according to eyewitnesses who captured some of the mayhem on camera. The woman, 27-year-old Victoria Vargas, was manhandled by the security personnel and literally pulled by the arms out of the store ... all while she screamed.

You can hear the guy recording say it's illegal for them to do that, but the fellas doing the dragging didn't seem to care. The action then went outside, where things got chippy with folks who didn't appreciate how Vargas was being dealt with.

It looks like a couple guys try to jump in and help her fight off the security guards, but security held their ground and kept the woman pinned until cops eventually arrived.

Vargas and her alleged male accomplice were arrested and booked for robbery, conspiracy to commit a crime and a slew of other charges. Unclear if they've posted bond yet.

COVID has ravaged communities across the country, but we haven't heard much about the struggles of the good folks in Beverly Hills and Malibu ... that is until now.

Adam Carolla joked about the 2 upscale towns, but there was a message in his sarcasm ... he thinks many of the COVID restrictions are absurd, nonsensical and impossible to unearth the logic behind them.

Adam was on his way to Mastro's Saturday night to outdoor dine, despite the fact that most parts of L.A. County are now prohibiting dining at restaurants, period.

He's railed on this before, but this time Adam really leans in and makes his case. Adam, who has 14-year-old twins, is head-scratching over school closures despite what he says is a lack of evidence that keeping them open would be COVID unsafe.

London is in COVID free fall, as thousands of travelers crammed into train stations for the Xmas holiday ... this as a new, more virulent mutation of the virus rips across the country.

The size of these crowds is alarming, as this new form of the virus infects the population. The mutant virus spreads 70% faster than the original. Scientists think the vaccine will still work on the mutation, but they're not sure.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was in mortal danger himself after contracting the virus earlier this year, was pushing to relax COVID restrictions, but he's abandoned that effort.

As for the new strain, it accounted for 28% of the COVID cases in London back in November, but this month it accounts for 62% of the cases.

The government imposed travel bans Saturday, but apparently, thousands of travelers didn't get the memo, because the train stations throughout London were jammed.

The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany have suspended flights to England because of the COVID mutation.

The Game and Blueface's manager, Wack 100, squared up against two white men and held his own ... this after they allegedly hurled an epithet, which Wack says sparked the brawl.

Sources tell TMZ ... Wack was at Primo Burgers in Lancaster, CA Saturday when he encountered a couple of guys whom we're told were burning rubber behind him.

We're told Wack asked them to stop, as he feared they'd lose control of the car. The response we're told he allegedly got from them in return -- "Mind your f****** business [epithet]." Our Wack sources say the men proceeded to get out of their vehicle, at which point Wack got out too ... ready to defend himself.

It's important to note ... the video does not contain any epithets. You see the two guys swing on Wack, who fends off their blows and strikes back ... actually connecting with one guy and making him fall back on his ass and bleed a bit.

The other guy tries to come at him with a little rooster step, and Wack prepares to trade fists with him too -- but it looks like the fight stops there as more people show up to see what all the commotion is about. They say they're gonna get his plates, and Wack encourages it.

We're told Wack ended up leaving without further incident. Wack himself tells TMZ ... "It's fine," so it sounds like the fellas let things be on the street, sans any police involvement.

Helen Keller -- the first deafblind person to get a college degree -- is being skewered by an activist who calls her yet another privileged white lady who gets the hero's story in America.

Anita Cameron -- a Black disability rights activist -- was quoted calling Keller "just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person" who gets all the shine when discussing famous disabled people in history, while failing to mention achievements by her Black counterparts.

Anita's quote was included in a recent TIME magazine piece analyzing the way Helen's life is taught in schools -- which often excludes pivotal chapters of her adult life ... in which she proved, in some folks' eyes, to be pretty progressive and "radical" for her day.

Of course, people sunk their teeth into the quote calling her privileged -- including several big shots from the right, courtesy of Donald Trump Jr., Mary Vought, Ted Cruz and more ... who say the idea of criticizing Keller for being white and achieving what she did is bonkers.

Sen. Cruz writes, "This is INSANE. Woke Lefties are now attacking Helen Keller?? As 'just another, despite disabilities, privileged white person'?? There are many adjectives one can use to describe the extraordinary Helen Keller. 'Privileged' is not one of them."

While the remark on its face might sound a little out there, Anita's point might be lost on some folks -- and perhaps even on TIME itself, as it went on to note critics of Keller's point out she flirted with the eugenics movement ... almost tying Anita's outrage to just that.

It sounds like Anita feels like part of the reason we know about Helen Keller -- and how she was able to succeed as much as she did to begin with -- might be in large part due to the fact she was white and wealthy, which went a long way back late 1800s and early 1900s. HK's family had deep ties in the South, and her dad was even a captain in the Confederate Army. And yes, they were chummy with the former slaveholding crowd.

Now, Keller is unique because she was first deafblind person to achieve incredible things -- but that, too, might also be because she was white. Take, for example, Geraldine Lawhorn, who was the first deafblind African American to get a college degree.

She was born in 1916, and was alive during Helen's own lifetime ... but wasn't able to get her degree until 1983 at age 67. Helen, by contrast, got it at age 24 in 1904. Another deafblind POC of note is Haben Girma, who was the first to graduate from Harvard Law School in 2010.

A teenager who died from COVID-19 this year passed in a much more graphic manner than initially thought ... because the walls of his hospital room were drenched in blood.

13-year-old Peyton Baumgarth's coronavirus death in late October was well-documented, but photos recently shared by his mother, Stephanie Franek, show just how gruesome his final moments were as doctors and hospital staff tried life-saving measures that ultimately failed.

The kid had been put on a ventilator after going to a St. Louis hospital. Sure enough, he'd contracted the virus ... but his condition went from bad to worse in just days -- leaving him in need of a therapy called ECMO to level out his plummeting oxygen levels.

For some reason, after the treatment, Peyton started to hemorrhage in his chest, at which point he started having terrible coughing episodes that required emergency surgery. As docs tried replacing the ECMO tubes in his neck, the blood that had pooled there began spraying everywhere as they attempted to resuscitate him and get him breathing.

Peyton ultimately died, and his mother captured photos of the aftermath -- which included blood spatter all over the walls and machinery around his bed.

Stephanie's story serves as a cautionary tale -- she says she never thought she'd lose her son, despite underlying conditions he had that put him more at risk for respiratory issues. Friends and family of Peyton's have started a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses.

A Florida congresswoman's dog appears to be just as pissed as she is that the Senate and House can't seem to pass a stimulus package -- 'cause the pooch wouldn't shut up during a live interview over the hotly-debated issue.

Rep. Donna Shalala appeared Saturday morning on CNN, where anchor Fredricka Whitfield was asking her about the stalled stimulus bill that is once again facing a logjam in the Senate ... and risks not being approved at all if Dems and Republicans can't strike a deal.

The Florida Democrat was voicing her frustration over the fact her colleagues from the other side appear to once again be holding up negotiations ... when, all of a sudden, her pup started yapping like crazy off-camera -- forcing her to go grab it to keep it quiet.

Whitfield handled the interruption like a pro ... noting this is what happens on live TV, especially when we're in a pandemic and a lot of people are working from home.

Funny enough, Rep. Shalala's dog -- whom she rescued from a shelter back in the summer, and named it Fauci -- was NOT done barking and fussing. As the congresswoman held him in her lap, he fidgeted and yelped ... at a few different points, she actually had to try and hold his snout closed, but the dog wouldn't let up.

A UPS driver is now out of a job after a customer claimed she caught him spitting on a package on her doorstep -- but whether he actually hocked one or not is up for debate.

This incident went down last Thursday at the home of Ann Patton in Ocala, FL -- where the homeowner says she saw something on a surveillance camera that led her to believe a bitter UPS driver got petty revenge by spitting on one of her packages.

UPS was apparently scheduled to come by that day and pick up a separate package that was supposed to be ready for the driver ... but wasn't. Patton tells us she was never notified of any UPS pickup, so that's why nothing was left out.

Anyway, Patton claims when the driver arrived and realized what he'd been sent there to get was nowhere to be found ... he tried getting back at them by picking up an Amazon package that'd been left earlier in the day and spitting on it ... at least that's what happened in Patton's eyes, who caught the alleged spitting on video.

Of course, the Pattons freaked and called up UPS in a rage ... saying they were told the driver would be canned, but claim the company refused to replace their Amazon package. Naturally, there's a lot to be concerned about if it spat on ... COVID comes to mind.

Now, as for UPS ... they have a slightly different version of events. The company tells us that, yes, they did fire the guy -- who was a temporary holiday driver -- but only did so out of an abundance of caution, because in their eyes ... it's not clear if he spit or not.

Decide for yourself ... UPS said it looked like their dude mistakenly thought it was the package he was there to pick up and was simply following protocol by blowing on the label to clean it off so he could apply the UPS label. They think when he realized it was the wrong package, he just left.

People are losing it 9 months into the pandemic -- no other way to look at it when folks are tearing up food displays in grocery stores, and rollerblading on the interstates in the buff.

Ya gotta sees these videos of COVID cabin fever to the max ... we'll start in Medford, Oregon, where a man threw a bunch of food and drinks all over a supermarket before storming out the front door.

The guy started slinging 2 liters of soda before tossing chips, and then getting more efficient by just toppling the whole display. His strut afterward shows he's pretty proud he made his point ... whatever the hell it was.

Meanwhile, commuters in Columbus, Ohio drove past a strange sight on the interstate ... a rollerblader wearing nothing more than some panda headgear.

The naked rollerblader's giving the cars behind him a full moon, and it appears he's wielding a golf club. That's not a euphemism ... we mean an actual club.

Adam Carolla's got another option the next time he wants to stick it to Gov. Gavin Newsom by sitting down at an L.A. restaurant to dine-in ... and this one's got ocean views.

Mastro's Ocean Club Malibu, one of L.A.'s biggest celeb hot-spots, is still very much open for business despite L.A. County's ban on indoor and outdoor dining ... and it's pretty easy to defy the law and snag a table.

A source tells TMZ ... Mastro's is still operating as "underground open" with patrons wining and dining underneath a big, white tent set up outside the fancy restaurant.

Folks hankering to dine-out during the pandemic can make reservations by phone ... we're told there's no password or anything like that ... and there are plenty of reservations available every day this month on OpenTable.

The video we got was shot Tuesday night inside the makeshift dining room, and it shows all staffers wearing face coverings ... adhering to the same regulations established when outdoor dining returned earlier this year.

As you know ... outdoor and indoor dining was suspended in L.A. County -- and all of SoCal under Newsom's order -- at the end of November when ICU capacity at local hospitals dipped below 15 percent.

The change has pissed off a lot of people who don't understand what's changed to suddenly make outdoor dining less safe.

We reached out to Mastro's multiple times for comment, as well as the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and the L.A. County Health Department ... so far, no word back.

The decision to stay open certainly is a risky one, with Governor Newsom stating some places could lose their liquor license for violating the rules.

As we told you ... Adam's supporting the recall effort against Newsom, saying the shutdowns are ridiculous and folks going along with it are sheep.

Word to the wise ... intentionally coughing into a crowded elevator can result in bodily harm -- as proven in this surveillance footage of said cougher catching an ass-whooping.

This video's crazy ... the pandemonium started when a man tried to get into an elevator car that already had 3 passengers. Someone inside appeared to signal to the fourth guy to wait for another ride ... 'cause in a pandemic, three's definitely a crowd.

He initially seemed okay with waiting, but as the doors began to close ... he hopped onboard, and tempers started to flare. The 4th wheel guy started getting the business, verbally, from another passenger -- but decided to respond by pulling down his face mask and intentionally coughing.

That's what ya call the last straw, and as soon as the elevator doors opened again ... the brawl was on!!! The cougher got beat down, and dragged out of the elevator ... where he was forced to wait for another one to arrive.

Probably what he should have done in the first place.

Adam Carolla supports the recall effort gaining steam against Gov. Gavin Newsom -- because he says the guy's a tyrant, and that Californians should snap out of his BS spell.

We talked to the comedian Tuesday in Burbank, CA, where he was about to head into a restaurant his friend owns for a little sit-down meal ... almost out of protest, it seems. It's pretty clear ... Adam thinks the new shutdown orders are ridiculous, and he explains why.

In his eyes, there's just no proof to connect outdoor dining to massive outbreaks of coronavirus cases -- he thinks Newsom's just throwing crap at a wall and doing what he wants ... behavior of an unhinged king, which Adam says Newsom is not.

He also speaks to Californians, telling them to stop acting like sheep by blindly taking orders ... without thinking about the logic, or lack thereof, behind them.

Adam then pivots to a recall effort that's been picking steam in recent days. It's a grassroots movement started by people who are furious with Newsom over his closing of small businesses -- especially restaurants -- as well as what many call hypocritical behavior, as he was recently spotted maskless at a ritzy indoor shindig in Napa.

Might sound crazy, but the petition already has more than half the necessary signatures needed to get the issue on a ballot soon -- and word is Newsom's camp is nervous.

A Denny's employee is fed up with having to deal with anti-maskers -- 2 of them pushed her to the point, she threw down her metaphorical apron and quit on the spot.

This apparently went down at an Illinois Denny's ... a hostess at the front counter greets a couple of dudes looking to be seated. Only problem is they weren't wearing face coverings and refused to do so.

The guys claimed to have a legit exemption, but the hostess tells them they have to put masks on no matter what in their establishment.

That's where things get testy ... the guys invoke the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and cite their religion -- and that's when the hostess slams her menus down and declares she can't deal with this and starts storming out.

She tells the guys she doesn't wanna have to deal with anti-maskers anymore, and her manager tries to calm her down ... before laying down the law with the customers.

Tom Cruise takes COVID protocols very seriously on the set of the new 'Mission Impossible,' and tore into crew members for breaking the rules ... telling them they'd be "f**king gone" if it happens again.

Tom was on the U.K. set of 'MI 7' when someone recorded his expletive-laced tirade ... sparked by seeing 2 crew members standing within 6 feet of each other around a monitor ... according to The Sun, which first posted the audio.

It might sound like a minor infraction, but Tom makes it clear he and the entire production can't afford ANY slip ups when it comes to COVID safety. He raged at them, saying the cast and crew need to be the "gold standard" when it comes to filming safely.

With a ton of f-bombs -- and even one instance of calling the culprits "motherf**kers" -- Tom let it be known, in no uncertain terms, everyone he was pissed off at. The rant is reminiscent of Christian Bale's on a 'Terminator' flick -- but the root of Tom's anger is much different.

He explained the 'MI' production is under pressure from Hollywood -- specifically the studios and insurance companies backing his movie ... which, no doubt, want to avoid a COVID-19 outbreak. As Tom puts it, all of Hollywood is watching to see if they can safely pull off filming a blockbuster in multiple countries.

After basically yelling it's my way or the highway, Cruise summed up what's at stake -- "That’s it! No apologies. You can tell it to the people that are losing their f**king homes because our industry is shut down. It’s not going to put food on their table or pay for their college education."

Word is Tom has taken it upon himself to do safety inspections on the set, and literally goes around making sure everything is up to snuff as far safety and approved protocols.

If you're looking for a Christmas miracle, look no further than this German Shepherd ... which survived an horrific incident of animal cruelty at a Florida motel.

The pooch has, appropriately, been named "Miracle" by the Volusia County Sheriff's deputies who showed up Monday at a Daytona Beach motel ... responding to calls about a suicidal woman.

The deputies went to her 2nd floor room and knocked on the door, but got no reply from the woman for a few minutes. When she finally opened the door she quickly stepped out with the dog, immediately picked it up and threw it over the railing as deputies yelled and tried to stop her.

Cops pounced on Allison Murphy and arrested her on the spot. During the arrest, you hear them asking other deputies outside the room if the dog is okay.

Amazingly, she is! Miracle didn't even break anything, and cops were able to recover her as she tried to run away after the fall.

Miracle is now in the custody of Animal Services.

As for Murphy ... she was booked for felony animal cruelty and resisting an officer without violence. She's still in custody.