Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jul 26, 2017

Sucking the life out of the wire services:

One "Titanic" superfan will get the chance of a lifetime to break bread with LEONARDO DICAPRIO and KATE WINSLET this fall. E! News reports the leading man will be auctioning off a dinner with the duo at his A-list charity event tonight in St. Tropez. The swanky event will reportedly have LENNY KRAVITZ on stage, along with special guests like EMMA STONE, TOM HANKS, JARED LETO, KATE HUDSON and MADONNA and raise money for environmental causes. (Lee)

Fun with science:

An Oregon science museum built what might be the biggest vinegar and baking soda volcano in the world.
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland constructed the 34-foot-tall volcano replica Sunday in an attempt to set a new Guinness Record. A museum spokeswoman says, "It's something really exciting that OMSI has always wanted to do." Three thousand people watched as museum staff poured 50-gallons of liquid baking soda and 66-gallons of vinegar into the mountainous sculpture and red "lava" shot out.
The previous record-setting volcano was 27-feet tall and built in the United Kingdom. (Still)

Football:

A new study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Associationfound chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in the brains of 110 out of 111 former NFL players. All of the brains studied came from a Boston brain bank that studies CTE. Many donors or their families contributed because of the players' repeated concussions and troubling symptoms before death. Still unknown: What role genetics, lifestyle factors like diet or drug use and the game of football itself plays in the development of CTE.
USA Todayreports that it's not just NFL players who are vulnerable, either. The brains of 202 men who played football at the youth level, high school, college, semiprofessional, Canadian Football League and NFL were studied by researchers from Boston University and the VA Boston Healthcare System, and 177 were found to have CTE. That's 87-percent. (Bartha/Lane)

Grace notes from Vinny Marino:

What better way to say you love someone that with a tattoo on their face on your arm. That's what DRAKE did, and the lucky so-and-so is LIL WAYNE. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Drake posted a photo of himself yesterday on Instagram from Houston Appreciation Weekend, sporting the new ink. (Marino)