Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jul 11, 2011

What's the Buzz:

Don't be surprised if PRINCE WILLIAM and/or his mom, QUEEN ELIZABETH, remind the new Duchess of Cambridge --KATE MIDDLETON-- that a thin, summer-weight dress might not be the best thing to wear the next time she walks across a flat, windy airport. Let's just say that in Calgary last Thursday, Kate had her own "MARILYN MONROE" moment trying to battle a stiff wind.
Photos surfaced over the weekend. They're here. You're welcome.
Rule Brittania! (Pacelli)

Space: the final frontier:

NASA is keeping its collective eyes on some space junk that could pose a hazard to the International Space Station. Their paths are due to cross sometime tomorrow, but there's no word yet on whether the station's orbit will have to be adjusted, or if the station's crew will be ordered into the attached Soyuz escape craft.
Just a few days ago, a piece of space debris came within about 11-hundred feet of the ISS, forcing the crew into to their rescue craft. And to complicate matters, there's a spacewalk scheduled tomorow by two U-S astronauts. (Pacelli)

Guilty Pleasures:

Bring on the Brain Freeze!! Today is the unofficial birthday for 7-11 convenience stores (which opened on this date in 1927!), so most locations will be offering free Slurpees all day from --you guessed it-- 7 am to 11 pm. (Pacelli)

Broadcast, cable and video news:

Will OPRAH WINFREY host this year's Academy Awards?
Chicago Sun-Times columnist BILL ZWECKER says Oprah is at the top of the list of potential hosts for the Oscars next February. And since she already knows most of the audience --in the theatre and at home-- the folks at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences believe she might just be the perfect choice to bring a whole new (and much bigger) audience to the awards show.
This year's audience was the smallest in recent history, and it keeps eroding --especially with the choice of JAMES FRANCO and ANNE HATHAWAY, apparently. This might well reverse that erosion.
However, Academy president TOM SHERAK told the Hollywood Reporter yesterday the rumor was "not true, and I don’t know where that story even came from.”
He went on to say that the Academy hasn't even hired a producer, who ultimately hires the emcee for the event.

Keep Your Underwear On:

A new study out of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex claims that it's the boys who are hoping for cuddle time, not the girls. The study also claims that sexual gratification is more important to women than men.
Researchers found that men who reported frequent kissing, hugging, and caressing were three times happier than those who didn't. Conversely, all of that barely had an effect on women. Turns out that the fairer sex just wants sex.
The study surveyed 1,009 heterosexual couples from the U-S, Brazil, Japan, Germany, and Spain. All of the couples had been been in a relationship for at least one year and were between the ages of 25 and 76. (AB)

Baseball:

Gotta love the NY Yankee's DEREK JETER, who became the first Yankee to ever to get three-thousand hits on Saturday game with his girlfriend, actress MINKA KELLY, cheering him on from a luxury box with family and friends. He went five-for-five in Saturday's game, the first and second making numbers 2,999 and three-thousand.
Derek got manager JOE GIRARDI's lineup card and the bat and ball were put aside for the Baseball Hall of Fame, although Derek said he hadn't been contacted by them, yet. The fan who caught Jeter's home run for his 3,000th hit, CHRISTIAN LOPEZ, was posing for pictures at the ballpark on Sunday. Even though the baseball he caught was estimated to be worth up to a quarter-million bucks, he handed it over to Derek without payment. Look for the Yanks to pony up big time with freebies for him, though.
Derek had one hit in four at-bats yesterday in the Yankee's 1-0 shutout of the Tampa Bay Rays.
NBC Sports says Steiner Sports, the firm that handles Derek's memorabilia, was so flooded with calls after the game that its phone system crashed.
Derek isn't ready to kick back on his haunches just yet --he admitted to GQ magazine last January that beating PETE ROSE's amazing record is "on my mind." That'll take some doing --Derek is currently 27th on the list and --at 37 years old-- has a way to go to top Pete's record of 4256 hits.