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UFC fighter Edmen Shahbazyan says the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has a California connection -- with several of his Armenian friends in Glendale flying back to fight in the war.

... and he's praying they all make it out alive.

FYI, Glendale reportedly has the largest concentration of Armenians outside of Armenia. It's also where Edmen lives and trains.

The 22-year-old prodigy -- who's 11-1 as an MMA pro -- points out the war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region has already claimed many lives. According to reports, between 300 and 500 people have been killed over the past month.

"I'm just praying every day for the best for my Armenian soldiers," Shahbazyan says.

"A lot of young kids, a lot of young soldiers are dying, younger than me. They're like 18, 19 years old! They're going to war and they're not coming back."

Shahbazyan says he's been participating in protests and demonstrations in Glendale -- hoping the world will support his people and help to achieve peace.

Amy Coney Barrett claims she has too much integrity to allow herself to be used as a pawn to get President Trump re-elected ... and she'll consider recusal if an election dispute ends up at SCOTUS.

Judge Barrett just answered some hard-hitting questions from Sen. Chris Coons during Tuesday's confirmation hearing, specifically if she was willing to sit things out if Trump brings a disputed election result to the highest court in the land.

Barrett says she's not being used by Trump -- some say he's rushing her confirmation to get an edge should the election hang in the balance of a Supreme Court ruling -- but she stopped short of a full-on commitment to recuse herself due to appearance of bias.

Judge Barrett would only go as far as to say she would consider all factors relevant to recusal and its statutes... and she even invoked Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name to make her point.

Portland protesters marked the eve of Columbus Day by toppling 2 statues of American presidents, claiming they represent America's racist history.

The statues were on the route of a march titled, Indigenous People's Day of Rage. Some of the signs read, "Stop honoring racist colonizer murderers." A Lewis and Clark mural was also vandalized with red paint.

The toppled statues were spraypainted and unceremoniously left on the ground. The words "stolen land" were painted at the base of Lincoln's statue.

The police tweeted shortly after the statues were taken down, "To those marching downtown: this has been declared a RIOT.” They continued, “All persons must immediately disperse to the NORTH. Failure to adhere to this order may subject you to arrest, citation, or crowd control agents, including, but not limited to tear gas and impact weapons.”

As far as we can tell, no arrests were made for taking the statues down.

The Wanted's Tom Parker has been diagnosed with brain cancer ... and doctors say he has an inoperable tumor.

The boy band singer made the revelation over the weekend, saying doctors confirmed he had a brain tumor known as a grade four glioblastoma -- which is terminal and beyond a cure. He says doctors characterized it as "the worst case scenario."

Parker addressed fans directly -- after breaking the news in an OK interview -- taking to IG to express his dismay, but to also ask for positivity rather than sadness. He writes, "There’s no easy way to say this but I’ve sadly been diagnosed with a Brain Tumour and I’m already undergoing treatment. We decided, after a lot of thought, that rather than hiding away and trying to keep it a secret, we would do one interview where we could lay out all the details and let everyone know the facts in our own way."

TP adds, "We are all absolutely devastated but we are gonna fight this all the way. We don’t want your sadness, we just want love and positivity and together we will raise awareness of this terrible disease and look for all available treatment options. It’s gonna be a tough battle but with everyone’s love and support we are going to beat this. Tom and Kelsey."

Tom and his wife, Kelsey, have a daughter ... and are currently expecting a second child. As for how long doctors estimate he has left, Kelsey says she asked them not to disclose it ... because she feared it would put a clock on things and only depress them.

A protester was killed by a security guard Saturday and now the guard has been arrested.

It went down in Denver, where there were 2 rallies going on at the same time ... a patriots rally and a Black Lives Matter rally. A guy wearing a "Black Guns Matter" t-shirt began arguing with several men, including the man in the camo bucket hat who ended up getting shot.

You see the argument get heated as the man in the camo hat walks out of frame. He encounters a security guard and according to reports, the guy may have maced the guard. That's when you hear a shot and see the man in the hat go down. He later died at a hospital.

It appears the victim was part of the Patriot's group. His t-shirt read, "BLM You're f***ing Right Bikers Lives Matter."

Turns out the guard works for a company that was hired by a local TV station that had been using security to protect its reporters who were covering the various protests.

Kim Kardashian is putting her money where her mouth is on the conflict in Armenia -- she just announced she's dropping a fortune to aid in efforts on the ground ... part of an even larger investment on behalf of the entire family, TMZ has learned.

Kim, Khloe and Kourtney all just posted videos to raise awareness about an org they've partnered with called the Armenia Fund -- which aims to raise money for aid to help innocent people on the ground who are caught in the middle of the recent escalation.

Funds raised go directly to people in need of food, shelter, medical attention and other resources that are hard to come by at the moment. Clearly, the Kardashians are all in on the effort.

While Kim, Khloe and Kourtney's videos were all pretty similar ... Kim's was especially noteworthy because she said she herself was ponying up a million dollars for the fund, encouraging others to donate what they could and to spread the word about the cause in general. Our sources tell us other OG Kardashian siblings -- Kourtney, Khloe and Rob --  also made sizable donations ... so a heck of a lot of money is going to be sent over for aid from them.

Khloe also made mention of the fact even if one feels removed from the conflict going on over there ... it doesn't take much to empathize with families who are suffering. She says now that she's a mother, she feels especially bad for the kids caught up in it.

If you're unfamiliar, Armenia's decades-long dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan over a mountainous territory in between both countries has recently reignited. The conflict dates back to the '80s, and until this past summer ... there had been a ceasefire over the region.

Frickin' raccoons, man ... they're feisty little beasts -- especially the ones in DC -- as CNN reporter Joe Johns learned while trying to report on President Trump's schedule.

The hilarious moment of levity went down early Wednesday morning on one of the White House lawns as a pesky raccoon interrupted Joe setting up for a live shot.

Joe stood his ground and yelled, "Get!!! AHHHHHH!!!!" ... trying to scare off the furry photobomber. He even threw a large object in its direction, but the raccoon kept coming.

JJ inched closer to losing his cool, and had some harsh words ... but we'll give him credit for not cursing while wearing a hot mic.

Apparently, this is an ongoing problem at 1600 Pennsylvania -- Joe later tweeted it's the second time in 2 weeks a raccoon's shown up during his morning show shift. He also dropped an important fact ... "No animals were harmed. I threw something to scare it off."

A peaceful vigil for Jonathan Price -- an unarmed Black man shot to death by a cop in Texas -- erupted in mayhem when an armed white man showed up and clashed with protesters.

The tense confrontation went down late Monday night in Wolfe City, Texas ... where Price was fatally shot Saturday at a gas station by Wolfe City PD officer Shaun David Lucas.

After a prayer vigil, a white man arrived at the site with a large semi-automatic weapon ... and was confronted by people at the vigil, including Black Lives Matter supporters.

Though several of the people tried to separate the armed man from angry crowd, emotions boiled over into shouting and charging at him ... though it doesn't look like he was ever physically attacked. Thankfully, he also never fired his weapon.

Police arrived on the scene minutes later, and despite calls from the crowd to have him arrested for pointing his weapon at them ... the man was allowed to leave after a long talk with officers. As far as we can tell, no arrests were made.

The vigil for Jonathan comes after Texas Rangers say he was shot and killed Saturday night by Officer Lucas who responded to a call for a domestic disturbance.

The Rangers say Price was involved in the disturbance and Lucas tried to detain him, but he “resisted in a non-threatening posture and began walking away.” Lucas then deployed his Taser and fired his gun and shot Price, who was reportedly unarmed. He died at a nearby hospital.

Jonathan's family says he was actually trying to break up a fight between a man and a woman at the gas station, and claim there's video showing Lucus' shooting was unjustified.

The Texas Rangers say a “preliminary investigation indicates that the actions of Officer Lucas were not objectionably reasonable."

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron says he will release a recording of the Breonna Taylor grand jury proceedings -- responding to pressure from Breonna's family and one pissed off grand juror.

Cameron made the announcement just hours after an anonymous grand juror filed a motion demanding a judge allow the grand jurors to go public. The proceedings are normally kept secret, but the juror made the highly unusual request because they felt Cameron hung them out dry when he announced the indictment of ex-cop Brett Hankison.

The grand juror ripped into Cameron and asked to share deets so that "the truth may prevail." Cameron said he'll release the recording Wednesday, but said sharing more information would be inappropriate with a criminal case and separate federal probe ongoing. He added a grand jury is meant to be a secretive body but relented it's "apparent that the public interest in this case isn't going to allow that to happen."

Cameron said, "We have no concerns with grand jurors sharing their thoughts on our presentation because we are confident in the case we presented. Once the public listens to the recording, they will see that over the course of two-and-a-half days, our team presented a thorough and complete case to the Grand Jury."

One of the key issues ... did the grand jury hear from the 12 neighbors who said they did NOT hear police identify themselves before breaking down Breonna's door?

The recording of the proceedings should answer that question ... which is critical because if the cops didn't announce themselves, then Breonna's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, would be justified in firing at people he presumed to be intruders.

Cameron maintained officers Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove fired in self-defense and were, therefore, justified in their use of force.

As you know ... Hankison and the 2 other cops involved were not charged with shooting and killing Breonna. Hankison was indicted for firing his weapon into Breonna's neighbor's apartment.

It pays to be in K-pop ... all 7 members in BTS are now multimillionaires and their longtime producer just joined the ranks of the triple comma club.

Here's the deal ... Big Hit Entertainment, the South Korean record label behind BTS, is raising a ton of money after pricing its initial public offering at the top end of its target range following a ton of interest from investors, and it's paying off big time for the band members and company CEO.

Big Hit is issuing shares at $115 each, raising $822 million and valuing the record label at a whopping $4.1 billion. The deal is South Korea's largest stock market listing in 3 years.

BTS' members -- Kim Tae-hyung, Jung Ho-seok, Kim Nam-joon, Kim Seok-jin, Park Ji-min, Jeon Jung-kook, and Min Yoon-gi -- are benefiting from the IPO price ... they were each given 68,385 shares in Big Hit last month, and their stakes are now worth $7.9 million each.

President Trump's infamously elusive tax returns have reportedly seen the light of day -- and they appear to paint a portrait of Houdini-like tactics that have allegedly allowed DT to avoid paying income taxes for years ... and a grand total of $750 in his first year on the job.

The NYT claims to have obtained tax-return data extending over two decades, including 2016 and 2017 ... years they report Trump paid a paltry $750 in income taxes in each year. Prior to that -- for at least 10 of the previous 15 years -- NYT says Trump paid $0 in income tax.

An attorney for the Trump Organization disputed the Times' findings ... and called them inaccurate ... asserting Trump had paid tens of millions in personal taxes to the feds over the past decade, including millions more since announcing his candidacy is 2015.

The Times says the attorney appears to be conflating "personal taxes" with income taxes -- noting DT has paid taxes for Medicare, Social Security and taxes for household employees.

As for how it's possible that Trump could've avoided paying income taxes for all those years -- as the Times reports -- it's because, based on the filings they've reviewed, he reported losing more money than he made ... in what they characterize as "chronic losses."

As for how rich the dude actually is ... the Times says the returns show he does own hundreds of millions in valuable assets, but they also claim he's hundreds of millions in debt as well, debts they say are coming due soon. So, it's really unclear how much he's worth.

The Times also reports that the returns do not show anything not previously known about Trump and Russia as far as business dealings are concerned. Just a quick glance at how much dough the dude was rolling in back in the 2000s because of "The Apprentice" and the licensing deals that followed -- the NYT says it amounted to upwards of $427 million all in. They also say some of that money was reinvested into other businesses -- including golf courses -- which have hemorrhaged cash.

Now, Trump has already caught wind of the report -- and he's calling it the usual ... fake news.

Trump says he's currently under audit by the IRS -- which the Times confirms, and explains it could cost the Prez a whopping $100M if they find that a $72 mil tax credit he once claimed is illegitimate.

A possible COVID-19 vaccine relies on shark livers, and conservationists are warning it could decimate the shark population.

A British pharmaceutical company called GlaxoSmithKline currently manufactures a flu vaccine, which includes shark squalene, which is a natural oil produced in the liver. It's known to create a strong response from the recipient's immune system.

The company plans to produce A BILLION DOSES of a coronavirus vaccine, which would include shark squalene.

An environmental group called Shark Allies, claims a quarter-of-a-million sharks would have to be killed to produce the necessary amount of squalene for one dose per person. If 2 doses are required -- which may well be the case -- we're talking half a million sharks that would be killed.

Stefanie Brendl, who runs Shark Allies, says, "Harvesting something from a wild animal is never going to be sustainable, especially if it's a top predator that doesn't reproduce in huge numbers."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is making history one final time -- she's now become the first woman to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.

RGB's casket arrived Friday morning for a memorial service at Statuary Hall attended by Presidential candidate Joe Biden, Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other dignitaries.

A military honor guard carried RGB's casket into the Capitol and then Statuary Hall. For perspective, only about 30 Americans -- including 12 U.S. Presidents -- have lain in state at the Capitol since 1852, all men.

It should be noted ... Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks was given a lying in honor tribute at Statuary Hall in 2005, and the Rev. Bill Graham got the same honor in 2018. But, RGB becomes the first woman -- and the first Jewish person -- to receive this honor. It marks the close of 3 days of memorials.

As we reported, President Trump paid respects Thursday while she lied in repose at the Supreme Court, but was greeted with boos and chants of "vote him out". Neither Trump nor Vice President Mike Pence attended Friday's ceremony.

Legendary skater Keith Hufnagel -- one of the most influential skateboarders of all time -- passed away earlier this week at the age of 46.

Hufnagel had been battling brain cancer for the past 2 and a half years ... and fought to beat his original diagnosis.

Hufnagel -- who was born in NYC in 1974 -- had a massive impact on the East Coast skating scene in the '90s ... and beyond.

In addition to being a badass on the board, Hufnagel was also the founder of the immensely popular and important skate shop, HUF Worldwide.

"Keith loved skateboarding and the culture around it," the brand said Thursday. "He did things his way and did them for the right reasons. He inspired so many of us across the globe."

"But above anything else, Keith loved and supported the people around him. He would do anything for his friends, family and children. He passionately wanted to see others succeed. And we all loved him for it."

The skate legend is recognized as a streetwear and sneaker icon.

USA Skateboarding released a statement on KH's death, saying ... "We are devastated to hear that Keith Hufnagel has passed away. His impact on skateboarding, both on his board and off it as a designer, brand owner/founder and friend will live forever. Rest in peace, Keith"

Keith is survived by his wife, Mariellen ... and their children.

It's undeniably good sportsmanship -- a triathlon runner stopped running and let a competitor beat him --  but in the world of sports, is it too much?

British athlete James Teagle was oh-so-close to placing third in the 2020 Santander Triathlon in Spain. Thing is ... about 100 yards before reaching the finish line, Teagle became confused and ran the wrong way, toward the cheering crowd.

Enter Spanish triathlete Diego Mentrida, who had been behind Teagle for much of the race.  Mentrida passed Teagle, but before reaching the finish line, he suddenly stopped and let Teagle -- who regained his bearings -- pass him to place third.

After the race, Mentrida said, "He deserved it. This is something my parents and my club taught me since I was a child. My view is it should be a normal thing to do."

The winner of the race, Javier Gomez Noya, called Mentrida's move "the best in history."

The organizers of the race decided to give Mentrida an honorary third place and he ended up getting 3rd place prize money -- $355.