Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check

Guilty Pleasures:

No winner in Saturday night's drawing for the Powerball Lottery. That means Wednesday night's drawing is valued at $94 million ($51.5 million cash value). Powerball is played in 41 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.

Sucking the life out of the wire services:

Congrats to all-pro eater JOEY "Jaws" CHESTNUT, who picked up another title over the weekend by downing 47 burritos in 10 minutes at the Garcia's World Burrito Eating Championship at the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque. That tops the previous world record of 33.
   Each four-ounce burrito added up to more than eleven pounds of beef, beans, and New Mexico green chiles. But, of course, it was no problem for a guy who won the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest for the fourth year in a row this past Fourth of July.
   Joey picked up $15-hundred bucks for his win, and undoubtedly had to stop later on for some Pepto Bismol. The event was sanctioned by the Major-League Eating and the International Federation of Competitive Eating, the world body that oversees all international professional eating contests.

Idle gossip & unconfirmed rumors:

MILEY CYRUS has decided to give love another shot. Sources tell Us Weekly the teen super star has reunited with LIAM HEMSWORTH just weeks after they broke up. Seems the actress may have had a change of heart after spending some time on her own --word is the two got back together right after she returned from Paris where she was working on a new flick called "LOL." (Lee)

Being a former Mouseketeer has it's privileges. Photographers for TMZ.com spotted BRITNEY SPEARS taking her two little boys to Disneyland last week with her boyfriend, JASON TRAWICK. The cast members shut down the "Dumbo" ride so the foursome could enjoy it in solitude and her sons might have a new stepdad soon --mom has been wearing a nice, shiny new rock on that finger. (Lee)

Fighting the Good Fight:

This week the Harrisburg (PA) University of Science and Technology is instituting a social media blackout on its campus, cutting off every campus Internet connection from popular sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
   Surprise! The Washington Post reports only a handful of people on campus knew about the plan until the Web site Inside Higher Ed reported on it last Thursday.
   Associate professor CHARLES PALMER at the college says students won't be the only ones irked: "The students will be upset, but I believe a number of faculty will be upset, too, even knowing what type of experiment we're running," Palmer says. "I know we're going to get people saying, 'I know that you're going to excuse this thing I'm doing, right? Like the grant I'm working on, that's at a crucial moment?' "
   The social media blackout is the brainchild of university provost ERIC DARR, who was inspired by the sight of his 16-year-old daughter simultaneously immersed in Facebook and several iPhone conversations. According to Inside Higher Ed, this spectacle of electronically inundated adolescence got Darr thinking: "What if all this wasn't there?" Roughly 570 students and 65 faculty members are finding out. (Kaye)

Grace notes from Vinny Marino:

The LIBERACE Museum in Las Vegas is closing down next month. The Review Journal says the recession hit all of Nevada really hard, but Sin City has really been suffering. The museum opened in 1970 and contains thousands of artifacts form the late pianist and entertainer who ruled Las Vegas for decades. Some of the more impressive items may go on tour, but the Liberace Museum itself, which is about three miles west of the famous Strip, just could no longer survive in this economy. (Marino)