You Might Want to Rethink

The U.S. Capitol is in lockdown mode after someone in a car tried ramming a security barrier ... and hit 2 U.S. Capitol Police Officers.

Capitol Police issued an alert Friday telling people inside the complex to remain indoors due to an "external security threat" that required a massive police presence ... including the landing of a helicopter on the east side of the Capitol.

USCP said it responded to the north barricade vehicle access point along Independence Ave. "for reports someone rammed a vehicle into two USCP officers." The suspect is in custody. The officers, along with the suspect, were transported to a hospital.

Neither the House nor the Senate was in session at the time of the incident and President Biden had left Washington earlier in the day for Camp David. The alert instructed people inside the Capitol to "stay away from exterior windows, doors" and "if outside, seek cover."

According to reports ... Capitol Police opened fire when the suspect attempted to ram the car through the barriers. It's unclear if the suspect was hit but one of the officers is reportedly in critical condition.

Story developing ...

WNBA star Angel McCoughtry is insulted by Draymond Green's claim that female athletes have only "complained" about the pay gap and haven't taken any real meaningful action ... and she's ready to educate him.

The 5-time WNBA All-Star says she's personally been in the trenches trying to get powerful sports leagues, production companies and sponsors to spotlight more women's sports ... but she keeps getting shut down.

McCoughtry even called out Lebron James and Steph Curry -- saying she's brought female athlete-centric projects to their production companies, but no one is pulling the trigger.

The 34-year-old -- 2-time Olympic gold medalist -- even invested in the PlayersTV network with the hopes of bringing more female athlete stories to the masses.

So, when she saw Draymond saying he's "really tired of seeing [female athletes] complain about the lack of pay" and suggesting they take more action ... it really rubbed her the wrong way.

"Draymond, have you done your research?! Have you asked us questions," Angel said Thursday during a USA Basketball training camp news conference.

"Don't you think we've tried to do that kind of stuff?! No, he hasn't done his research! That's my only thing with Draymond!"

Angel continued, "We want to get our stories out. I created a TV show about these kinds of issues, its a dramatic comedy called 'Fair Game.' I've gone to Springhill Entertainment, I've gone to Sony where Steph Curry's people are. We got turned down! 'Oh, we don't want a show about the WNBA.'"

McCoughtry says she's happy Draymond is keeping the women's pay issue in the headlines -- but suggests he "talk more to the women before just thinking he had a bright idea."

One of the TikTok dance creators who didn't get credit last week in a controversial 'Tonight Show' bit has mixed feelings about what went down ... and her mom does too.

Mya Johnson tells TMZ ... she was initially excited to see her "Up" challenge -- which she choreographed with her friend Chris Cotter back in February -- made it all the way to Jimmy Fallon's show.

But, Mya says she also couldn't help but wish she and Chris would have been invited on TV to perform their dance ... instead of Addison Rae.

As we told you ... Fallon and Addison are catching flak for their segment where she taught Jimmy how to do 8 popular TikTok dances, none of which she created.

People are upset 'The Tonight Show' didn't give proper attribution to the Black creators of the dances. Addison told us they definitely deserve the credit and she supports them, but her response has left people unsatisfied as well.

One of those people is Mya's mother, Candice Rangel, who says Addison's comments came off a bit insincere. However, she also doesn't believe Addison had bad intentions ... and offers suggestions for how she can make things right.

Draymond Green says he's "really tired of seeing [female athletes] complain about the lack of pay" -- insisting the time for griping is over, and there needs to be more action.

Maybe not the best choice of words -- but ultimately, Green is arguing that women DESERVE better pay, and need to change their PR strategy in order to achieve their goal.

Draymond explained during a Wednesday interview why he believes female athletes -- specifically WNBA players -- are "doing themselves a disservice by just complaining."

NBC Sports Bay Area reporter Kerith Burke pushed back and told Green "the women are doing more" than voicing their displeasure ... and that's when the Golden State Warriors star explained his position.

"They’re not laying out steps that they can take to change [the pay disparity]," Draymond explained ... "So, it’s coming off as a complaint."

"Because the people that can change it, they’re just going to continue to say, 'Well, the revenue isn’t there. The revenue isn’t there. So, if you don’t bring in the revenue, we can’t up your pay.' They’re going keep using that."

Green argued that female athletes need to band together to hold sports leagues, advertisers and other influential organizations responsible for effectively marketing women's sports -- including putting real time, energy and money into promoting talented superstars like WNBA legend Diana Taurasi.

A sheriff's deputy in Texas is under investigation after he was captured on camera threatening to beat the crap out of a teen ... and then actually did punch him in the face.

The disturbing incident went down last Friday in Harris County where a 16-year-old named Carlos and his buddy had just pulled into a gas station on their ATVs. The deputy beelined it for Carlos and asked him for ID, and things went south real quick.

You can see in the video, shot by Carlos' friend, the deputy initially tells Carlos to turn around put his hands behind his back. He started to do that, but took one step away, prompting the deputy to grab him and yell, "Don't run from me boy, I will beat your (expletive) right here."

Carlos appears to panic at that point and the deputy barks out, "Turn around and put your hands behind your back before I beat the (expletive) out of you. Don't be (expletive) stupid."

And, then ... bam, the deputy squarely punches Carlos in the head, knocking him to the ground. The deputy didn't let up either ... you can see him unload a few more punches while they're both on the ground. He eventually arrested Carlos for evading arrest.

Carlos told KTRK-TV he and his friends may have previously driven away from deputies -- you hear the cop reference that -- but adds, he didn't think getting gas would lead to a violent encounter with law enforcement.

Even Snoop Dogg could learn a thing or 2 about marijuana from Greg Kelly -- that is IF you buy the Newsmax host's "don't do drugs" story ... but almost no one does.

Kelly is telling what he views as a cautionary tale about pot, claiming "SMOKING WEED (aka GRASS) is NOT a good idea." Okay, get past his use of the term "grass" ... he's a man of a certain age, after all.

Anyway, Kelly claims he "toked up" back in the day with some friends in Kentucky "and woke up 4 days later in Nairobi, Kenya. With no idea what happened." Say whaaaat, Greg???

Based on Twitter's response, the news anchor's marijuana warning went up in smoke. Very few people believe this actually happened, or ... if it did happen we've got a newsflash for Greg -- that wasn't weed you were smoking, bro!!!

Kelly even claims his alleged half-baked experience was worse than anything that President Biden's son, Hunter, went through. ICYMI ... Hunter just opened up about his crack addiction in a new memoir.

As for what the hell Greg "Smokey" Kelly might have really been puff puff passing? Well, he might wanna re-watch "Friday."

Now when friends ask, "how high?" ... just say Greg Kelly high. Thanks for the warning, Smoke Dog!

Britney Spears fans are coming for her social media manager's head because they think Brit's reaction to the new doc wasn't authentic ... but they have it all wrong.

Here's the deal ... the pop star broke her silence on 'Framing Britney Spears' Tuesday, criticizing the documentary ... saying she was embarrassed by the portrayal and cried for weeks, but some folks think Britney's social media manager, Cassie Petrey, is the post's real author.

However, sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ ... Cassie did NOT craft Britney's statement about the Hulu documentary, and she wasn't even aware of Brit's plan to express herself until the IG post was published.

As you see, Cassie's catching lots of online heat ... with keyboard warriors calling for her to resign from Britney's team.

Our sources are adamant ... Britney wrote the caption herself and it was posted the day she wrote it. We're told Brit does indeed feel deeply embarrassed by the documentary, which she's made clear to those closest to her.

Our sources tell us no one on Britney's team prompted her to break her silence, and it was all her decision.

Utah Jazz star Jordan Clarkson is opening up about the terrifying mid-air emergency on the team plane this week -- admitting several players were thinking, "This might be over for us."

As we previously reported, the Jazz team plane was forced to make an emergency landing Tuesday after striking a flock of birds -- which caused one of the engines to catch fire.

The plane landed safely -- and the Jazz eventually caught another plane to get to Memphis to take on the Grizzlies on Wednesday. After the game (the Jazz won), Clarkson talked about the plane incident and described a scary scene inside the aircraft where several players and staffers were pondering their own fate.

"I just remember walking back to my seat and as I got to my seat, I just hear a loud bang. Me and [Mike Conley] looked at each other and he was like 'Oooooh! Those are the birds!'"

"Then I turn and looked out the window and see the whole engine shaking and everything and then you see everybody in the back kinda like reacting to what's going on."

"A lot of people in the back that was sitting behind the engine, they seen a burst of flames so immediately they're probably thinking the plane is fully caught on fire and I see everybody kinda reacting towards that."

Clarkson says the "whole plane started shaking" -- and "a lot of us really came to like a point, at least 30 seconds in that flight, everybody came to the point where it was like, 'Man this might be over for us.'"

"It's sad to say that. I don't play with death or anything like that and it's something that we gotta push through and come together and keep going."

Clarkson said some players were so concerned "this might be really the end" -- and sent text messages to family and other loved ones.

Jazz star Donovan Mitchell did not make the trip to Memphis. The team cited "personal reasons" -- but Clarkson insinuated Mitchell was still shaken up from Tuesday's flight incident.

President Joe Biden just blasted the Texas Rangers for not limiting capacity at their stadium this year ... saying the decision could lead to a big spread of the coronavirus.

"I think it's a mistake," Biden told ESPN on Wednesday night. "They should listen to Dr. Fauci, the scientists and the experts. But, I think it's not responsible."

While Texas will require its fans to wear face coverings when in the stands at Rangers games this season ... the team says there won't be attempts to put a cap on the number of people that can attend.

And, with Globe Life Field having a capacity of more than 40,000 ... Biden clearly has concerns it could become a COVID-19 breeding ground.

For their part, the Rangers -- whose home-opener is scheduled for Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays -- have insisted protocols will prevent the games from being super-spreader events.

Texas is currently the only team in the MLB without a fan limit ... most of the rest of the league is at less than 50% capacity, with Boston and Washington limiting their seating to just 12% of the stadium.

As for MLB and the vaccine ... Biden sent a strong message to players, coaches, staffers and fans Wednesday -- urging everyone to get the shot.

"I would say I'm President of the United States and I got vaccinated," Biden said. "I don't have an unimportant job. Would I take the vaccine if I thought it was going to hurt me?"

There's more ... Biden also said he would support MLB execs if they chose to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia this year in wake of the state's governor's decision to sign a polarizing voting bill.

The prospective new law would put several tight restrictions on voters ... and opponents to it have argued it could hurt the voting opportunities for minorities.

"This is Jim Crow on steroids what they're doing in Georgia and 40 other states," Biden said. "What's it all about? Imagine passing a law saying you cannot provide water or food for someone standing in line to vote. Can't do that? Come on."

"Or you're going to close the polling place at 5 o'clock when people just get off? This is all about keeping working folks that I grew up with from being able to vote."

Biden also, once again, threw his support behind closing the pay gap between men and women in sports ... reiterating, "I just don't think it's right. I don't think it's fair."

YouTube stars Alan and Alex Stokes are gonna dodge jail time for faking, and recording, a series of bank robberies in SoCal ... now that they've both entered guilty pleas.

The twin brothers pled Wednesday to false imprisonment and reporting false emergencies, both misdemeanors, in their fake bank robberies case. In exchange for the guilty plea, the Orange County judge reduced their original felony false imprisonment charges to a misdemeanor.

The 24-year-old twins, who had been facing a maximum of 5 years in jail if convicted, were each sentenced to one year probation and 160 hours of community service.

As we reported ... the YouTube stars were charged in August for staging the 2019 heists in Irvine, CA in order to produce a prank vid for their YouTube channel. One of the pranks led to cops holding an unsuspecting Uber driver at gunpoint.

Ice Cube is about to melt -- the dude is heated because he says Robinhood used his face to plug their services without his permission ... so now he's taking them to court over it.

The rapper just filed suit against the financial services company -- which a lot of people use to buy and trade stocks -- for allegedly using a photo of him in an ad featured in their news service, Robinhood Snacks, just this past month.

According to the docs, obtained by TMZ, Cube claims Robinhood took an image of him from another project he'd worked on ... and slapped it into a newsletter update talking about stock/market corrections -- and captioned it with a riff on a famous lyric from one of his songs.

The quote ... "Correct yourself, before you wreck yourself" -- which is obviously a play on his famous track "Check Yo Self." Cube says that by the company inserting his image and likeness into their Snacks service, they falsely associated him with their brand ... making it seem like he endorses them, which he makes more than clear here -- he does NOT.

Cube goes so far as to say Robinhood is the "antithesis of everything that Ice Cube stands for" and refers to their products and services as "horrible." He goes on to claim Robinhood has a habit of doing this ... namely, linking celebs and other rappers -- like Jay-Z and Nas -- to endorse its products and services ... but Cube makes it clear he wants no part of that.

IC's also got a theory on why he believes Robinhood roped him in here -- he says his biz partner, Jeff Kwatinetz, has been railing on the company (both in public and in his own lawsuit against them) ... and suggests this is Robinhood's way of sticking it to both of 'em.

Hailey Bieber is learning how to unplug from social media, while silencing online trolls at the same time ... a process she says her hubby, Justin, is guiding her through.

Hailey was talking to Dr. Jessica Clemons -- a world-renowned psychiatrist -- about mental health and social media when she dished on how she navigates Instagram, Twitter and other apps these days ... while also processing vile comments from complete strangers.

For starters, Mrs. Bieber explained how she's actually come to limit her Instagram use ... swearing it off Monday through Friday and only hopping in on weekends. That's apparently helped drown out a lot of noise ... and so has completely nixing Twitter from her rotation.

Check it out ... she describes it as very toxic, and is realizing what a lot of users have about the bird platform in 2021.

There's more Hailey does to filter out unnecessary negativity on IG -- she explains how she limits her comments to just people she follows, from whom she knows she won't get any out-of-pocket/mean-spirited remarks just 'cause. She also says good old-fashioned therapy has helped her deal with relentless bullying.

Hailey also heaped praise on Justin for giving her great advice and much-needed perspective on how to look at these sorts of things ... seeing how he's been through this on the biggest stage.

The coronavirus pandemic's actually helping Baltimore curb violent crimes, thanks to a change in policy ... according to the city's top prosecutor.

Marilyn Mosby, the State's Attorney for the city of Baltimore, joined us on "TMZ Live" Wednesday and told us how an experimental approach to limiting the spread of the virus is paying big dividends.

Under Mosby, Baltimore stopped prosecuting low-level offenses like drug possession and prostitution when the pandemic first hit ... and ever since, she says violent crime is down a whopping 20 percent.

Marilyn tells us there are other benefits, like fewer folks entering the criminal justice system and less crowded jails, and that's why Baltimore is making the changes permanent.

Now, the city's blazing a new trail ... Baltimore's partnering with a local behavioral health service to help folks in need seek treatment, instead of placing them in handcuffs.

Cops are on the hunt for a woman who pulled a gun on a skateboarder during an argument in Maryland ... and the video is terrifying.

The Montgomery County Police Dept. claims it has obtained cell phone footage of the Jan. 16 incident which shows the suspect pointing a handgun right into the chest of an underage boy.

Cops say the "male juvenile victim" was skating around with friends around 2:25 PM "when he became involved in a verbal dispute with a passing motorist."

The female driver got out of her car and began arguing with the skateboarder, according to witnesses ... and a crowd began to form.

This is where things get crazy ...

Cops say two RANDOM women who just happened to be walking down the street at the time of the incident decided to get involved.

"One of the female suspects approached the juvenile victim and interjected herself in the dispute," cops say.

"The second female suspect went to a red Volvo that was parked in the area and drove it close to the dispute. She then gave a handgun to the first suspect, who used it to threaten the victim. Witnesses captured the incident on their cell phones."

In other words, the woman with the gun is NOT the same woman from the initial argument.

Fortunately, the woman did NOT fire the weapon and no one was injured,

Now, officials say they're looking for the gun-wielding suspect as part of an investigation into a possible 1st-degree assault with a handgun.

Cops are asking the public to help identify the suspects.

How did UCLA students celebrate their first Final Four berth in over a decade???

COUCH FIRE NEAR CAMPUS, BABY!!!

Dozens of Bruins supporters hit Westwood streets Tuesday night just minutes after UCLA secured a 51-49 win over Michigan ... and a massive blaze in a roadway quickly ensued.

Video from the scene showed people burnt a couch, a bookshelf and much more ... and then everyone danced around the inferno with glee!!

Don't worry ... the fire department showed up quickly to douse the flames -- and law enforcement said no arrests were made and no injuries were reported.

Of course, the night was a long-awaited one for UCLA fans ... the once-storied program had been in a lull since its last Final 4 appearance in 2008.

In the 12 seasons that followed that run ... the Bruins had only advanced to the Sweet 16 three times, and had been largely mediocre or worse.

But, Mick Cronin's clearly got the guys rollin' this year ... and they'll try to beat Gonzaga on Saturday for a spot in the National Championship game.

Here's a comically awful take from Baylor women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey ...

The 58-year-old said Monday night she thinks the NCAA should STOP coronavirus testing at both the men's and women's Final 4s this month ... all to ensure players' availability.

Yeah, it's bad.

Mulkey dropped the terrible opinion unprompted following her team's 69-67 loss to UConn ... explaining she believes players playing in the championship games is more important than the idea of preventing the spread of COVID.

"I don't think my words will matter," said Mulkey, who's an NCAA coaching legend. "But after the games today and tomorrow, there's four teams left, I think, on the men's side and the women's side."

"They need to dump the COVID testing. Wouldn't it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you got kids that test positive or something and they don't get to play in the Final Four?"

Players, coaches and staffers at both the men's and women's tournaments this year have been COVID tested daily ... with only one tournament game -- the men's VCU vs. Oregon game -- canceled over the testing.

But, Mulkey believes the NCAA shouldn't even risk the chance of a positive test affecting the final games of the tournaments ... continuing, "You just need to forget the COVID tests and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out."

The craziest part about the statement ... Mulkey actually contracted coronavirus last year and seemed to clearly understand the dangers of it, telling reporters a short time after she recovered, "COVID is real. I've had it -- come talk to me some time."

The men's Final 4 action is set to begin Saturday. The women's meanwhile is slated to tip-off on Friday.