Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jan 19, 2017

What's Poppin':

In Pocatello, Idaho, ANDREW HALL was vaping when an e-cigarette he was using exploded in his mouth, scorching his skin with second degree burns on his cheek and knocking out seven of his teeth. Doctors had to remove chunks of plastic from the 30-year-old's throat and lips as well. In a Facebook post, he said "Also, the explosion downward broke my sink."

Conspiracy Corner:

Snowden asylum extended --CNN reports Russia has extended EDWARD SNOWDEN's asylum through 2020 despite the suggestion by former CIA director MICHAEL MORELL who suggested Snowden be presented as the "perfect inauguration gift" from VLADIMIR PUTIN to DONALD TRUMP.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the former US intelligence contractor can stay "for a couple more years." Snowden's been in Russia since the middle of 2013, after he leaked NSA data to various journalists.

Casting Call:

Now there's a line for your resume --Sir PATRICK STEWART, who's probably more famous for playing Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" or Professor Charles Xavier in the "X-Men" series, will bethe voice ofa pile of poop in the upcoming animated film, "The Emoji Movie," thus answering the question, "does poop talk?"
Yes, apparently it does.
The Hollywood Reportersays the movie will be about an emoji born with multiple expressions who teams up with a code-breaker called "Jailbreak" to go on an adventure through a teenager's phone.
Other voices in the upcoming film include JENNIFER COOLIDGE, MAYA RUDOLPH, JAKE T. AUSTIN, JAMES CORDEN, STEVEN WRIGHT and ROB RIGGLE.

National Popcorn Day

It's National PopcornDay! For your consumption, afew kernels of popcorn trivia:
--Americans consume over 1.12 billion pounds of popcorn a year; about 17 billion quarts of popped popcorn.
--The world's largest popcorn ball was created in Sac City, IA, in Feb 2009. It weighed five-thousand pounds, stood over eight feet tall and measured 288 feet in diameter.
--The oldest ears of popcorn ever found were discovered in the bat cave in West Central New Mexico in 1948 and 1950. They range from smaller than a penny to about two inches long, and are about 4,000 years old.
--Popcorn was reportedly introduced to the English colonists at the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, MA. (Source: Herrs Foods, Inc).