Officer Aaron Hess, the Pleasantville, N.Y. police officer who shot and killed 20-year-old Pace University student Danroy Henry following an altercation at a local bar last year, has been named "Officer of the Year." Now, now—he's not getting the award because he killed Danroy Henry, though, gosh, we can see why it seems that way! No, he's receiving it "for his dignity and professionalism since the October shooting and throughout his career." In fairness, Hess was cleared of criminal wrongdoing by a grand jury, despite accusations that the shooting wasn't justified; on the other hand, the Pleasantville Police Benevolent Association might not want to, at this particular moment in time, run headfirst into the Henry family's accusations of insensitivity and arrogance. [Boston Globe]

The key question with dinosaurs, as with so many things, is "How can I have sex with them?" With the help of Slate's Explainer column, we've constructed a step-by-step guide.

A 20-year-old Oklahoma woman killed and mutilated her family's cat, apparently so she could use its blood for an outfit to wear to a Lady Gaga concert. Talk about a "little monster"! But seriously, she killed a cat.

Vice President Biden appeared to fall asleep during President Obama's deficit reduction speech (so did the woman behind him). Not that we blame him! Numbers are hard, and the speech came right in that mid-afternoon sweet spot for naps.

Two days ago, we reported on the Church of Scientology's junk science relief efforts in Japan, through its Volunteer Ministry program. Now we have materials the church uses to recruit members for the ministry, which is "an effective way of getting Scientology applied on a broad, grass-roots level through the society."

Barack Obama's major deficit reduction speech this afternoon was certainly better than expected.

Though he once said he'd "quit acting," that was all a hoax, and Joaquin Phoenix really hasn't quit acting at all. Also today: the return of the return of musicals, Jessica Lange makes a TV project even more exciting, and Bradley Cooper is seriously miscast.

Pouty fathead Donald Trump is a tailor-made character for the New York Observer, which purports to monitor Manhattan's smug oligarchy with a gimlet-eyed detachment. And his semi-coherent presidential grumblings, which count as news just about everywhere else, make ideal grist for the Observer's mill. Too bad he's the owner's father-in-law.

Every morning, schoolchildren in China have to do synchronized morning exercises. Usually these are boring calisthenics performed to a soundtrack of communist anthems.

A new study shows that Americans work 8.5 hours a day. The eight-hour work day is a fiction!

After dinner in New York last night, Tom Cruise was photographed doing which of the following? a) Quelling a tantrum in daughter Suri; b) Committing infanticide; c) Removing his daughter from a brass rod shish kebab (far left) so he can eat her for dessert; or d) Asking if he could borrow her pink Uggs tomorrow. [Radar, Dlisted, Images via Splash]

Sure, Danielle Staub may be out, but that doesn't mean anything has to change with the Real Househarpies of New Jersey. It appears that this season is just like any other, in which the ladies screech for male strippers, someone's husband dresses up like a lady, and they get in a huge fight on vacation.

Being a cold-hearted snake (look into my eyes) I'm usually not a huge fan of cat pictures on the internet, but these have a bit of cruelty and unbelievability to them. These aren't cat pictures— these are a healthy cat with an arrow through its head pictures!

Gustave Courbet's 1886 oil painting of a naked woman's lower half, The Origin of the World, hangs in Paris' Musee d'Orsay. But it is not welcome on the hallowed walls of Facebook. Facebook has abruptly canceled at least three accounts after users posted the painting, and art connoisseurs are fuming.

Delirious old coot Sen. Jim Inhofe has a flying license! Who knew? What's even more amazing is that he was able to keep this license after choosing to land his Cessna on a closed runway last year, even though there were "men and equipment on the runway," over whom he "sky hopped" after the first touch down. Wow. And yet, so in-character for Jim Inhofe! It's pathetic that this doesn't even surprise us.

The New York Times pressed Wikileaks to publish classified Pentagon documents to avoid charges of conspiring to commit espionage, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claimed. The Times was too scared to scoop, in other words.

The framework for deficit reduction President Obama will lay out Wednesday is a mixed bag for members of his party. It borrows heavily in some areas from the conservative-leaning Bowles-Simpson recommendation, but commits elsewhere to enhancing the cost-cutting programs in the health care law and rejects Republican proposals to privatize entitlements, or maintain or reduce the tax burden on the upper class.

After weathering husband Michael Douglas' battle with cancer, Catherine Zeta-Jones has checked into a mental hospital to treat her bipolar disorder. Says her publicist:

Okay, banksters, let's call a temporary truce: We'll stop calling you sociopathic bloodsucking hell monsters for a few weeks, if you can just get Speaker John Boehner to stop using the impending debt ceiling vote as leverage to cut basically every entitlement program. We're all in this together against the dingbats who don't understand that failing to raise the debt ceiling means Global Apocalypse, not "tightening our belts" or whatever other homey metaphor that doesn't apply to macroeconomic reality.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's "bunga bunga" orgy parties are completely notorious at this point, but today Italy's biggest newspaper published new graphic accounts of what goes on inside. The problem is, we can't read them!