Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Jul 2, 2021

Tube talk: Former “Star Trek” actor WILLIAM SHATNER will be the host of a brand-new show called “I Don’t Understand” on the RT America cable channel. RT was formerly known as Russia Today, and is a Russian state-run TV network. They claim that Shatner's show will handle “questions that pique the natural interest of everyone, but that the establishment media all too often hesitates to tackle.” Shatner, who's now 90 years old, claims he's not gonna be a mouthpiece for Russia, tweeting “How am I a mouthpiece when they have no input into the content, guests, filming or editing?” The first episode airs on RT America on Monday, July 12th.

ELIZABETH BANKS is doing a new movie called “Cocaine Bear.” The plot is about the true story of a 175-pound black bear who ate more than 70 pounds of cocaine inside a duffle bag which had been dropped from an airplane by a local drug smuggler back in 1985. KERI RUSSELL, RAY LIOTTA, ALDEN EHRENREICH, O’SHEA JACKSON and JESSE TYLER FERGUSON will co-star in the flick. Not to spoil the ending, but the bear was later found dead of an apparent drug overdose. We'll see whether the plot will stay faithful to the real-life story.

Are you one of those folks who do TikTok videos? The company, which up until now has specified a one-minute time limit on their videos, is about to change the limit to three minutes, in order to help filmmakers who often have to break up their videos into multiple parts before posting.

See ya: MEGHAN McCAIN will be leaving ABC's “The View.” Her last day will be the season-ending show in July. She’s the second longest-running conservative co-host on the show after ELISABETH HASSLEBECK, who was on for ten years. Name the other hosts of the show? WHOOPI GOLDBERG, JOY BEHAR, SUNNY HOSTIN and SARA HAINES.