Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Aug 3, 2011

Guilty Pleasures:

No winner in Saturday night's drawing for the Powerball Lottery. That means tonight's drawing is valued at $160 million ($85.2 million cash value). Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington DC and the U-S Virgin Islands. Chances of winning the grand prize (all five numbers plus the powerball) are 1 in 195.2 million.

Auto World /Gas Guzzlin' Update:

The Detroit News reports that parents will be able to track, in real-time, the location of their teenage drivers under a pilot program by General Motors’ OnStar. It lets parents monitor the location of others by logging on to a GM website to view a map with the vehicle's exact location at any time or by getting text messages and email alerts.
Comment from Marketing Daily: “The company presumably will not be touting this to teens.” (Kaye)

Trash talk and satellite dish:

Being an A-lister's right hand may sound glamorous, but be warned --it comes with some interesting duties. One of ELIZABETH HURLEY's former interns whined to CINDY ADAMS of the NY Post that one of her responsibilities was to walk around in her shoes to break them in. (Lee)

Extreme spending from Star magazine:
--SEAN "DIDDY" COMBS spent $840 thousand dollars a week to rent a yacht that was synced to an iPad - he could dim lights, turn on the TV and even order a drink by tapping an icon
--JERRY SEINFELD owns 47 Porsches and spent $1.4 million on a garage for them
--VICTORIA BECKHAM owns two million dollars worth of Birkin bags by Hermes (pr AIR-may)
--BONO flew his favorite hat first class after he forgot to bring it on tour. Price $17 hundred
--JOHNNY DEPP spent $3.6 million on a Caribbean island
--MILEY CYRUS owns half of a private jet. She paid a half million for it (Myers)

Face time with the judge:

LINDA EVANGELISTA wants $46-thousand dollars a month in child support for her four-year-old son.
The supermodel was back in Manhattan Family Court Monday to demand that her baby-daddy pay up. He’s FRANCOIS-HENRI PINAULT, the C-E-O of a French multinational holding company. He’s also married to actress SALMA HAYAK.
The NY Post says the majority of the 46-grand is to cover nannies and armed drivers 24/7. A decision on what the judge in the case called "would probably be the largest support order in the history of the Family Court," is expected next month. (Bartha)

Reality Round-Up:

NBC's "The Sing-Off" will have a new judge this fall. SARA BAREILLES replaces former Pussycat Doll NICOLE SCHERZINGER, who has defected to the U-S version of SIMON COWELL's "The X Factor." The Hollywood Reporter says Sara was the only person the show's producers were looking at once Nicole gave her notice. Sara will sit at the judge's table with BEN FOLDS, and SHAWN STOCKMAN from BOYZ II MEN when "The Sing-Off" begins its new season on Monday, September 19th. (Marino)

Animal Stories:

Your tax dollars at work: An 11-year-old kid in Fredericksburg, VA, was fined by the Fish and Wildlife Service because he saved a baby woodpecker from being eaten by a cat.
The kid brought the helpless bird to his mother and decided to take it home for safekeeping with the intention of letting it go. On the way, they stopped at a store to buy a cage. Because of the heat, they brought the woodpecker into the store with them. They were confronted by a fellow shopper who turned out to be a Fish and Wildlife officer.
The problem: Woodpeckers are a protected species and it's illegal to take or transport them. The family had no idea. So as soon as they got home, they say they opened the cage, the bird flew away, and they reported it to the Fish and Wildlife, which was happy to hear the family had freed the bird.
Two weeks later, the same woman from Fish and Wildlife showed up at family home accompanied by a state trooper with a summons to appear in court for violating a protected species law. They also hit her with a $535 fine. A conviction could've gotten the mom a year in jail.
The fine would've stuck were it not for the story making it to local media, forcing the embarrassed agency to cancel the citation and drop the fine. (Maiman)