• Newly retired from The Tonight Show, Jay Leno is now being awarded the nation's top humor prize for following in the tradition of satire and social commentary of Mark Twain, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Wednesday. Leno will be honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in a performance by his fellow comedians Oct. 19 in Washington. The show will be broadcast nationally Nov. 23 on PBS stations. "Like Mark Twain, Jay Leno has offered us a lifetime's worth of humorous commentary on American daily life," said Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein in announcing the award. "For both men, no one was too high or too low to escape their wit, and we are all the better for it." After learning about the prize, Leno said in a statement that he's honored and is a big fan of Twain's. He said A Tale of Two Cities is one of his favorite books. But apparently no one told Leno that novel was written by Charles Dickens. For years, Leno has maintained a busy schedule of stand-up comedy appearances, testing his humor in nightclubs and theaters with more than 100 performances a year. He passed the Tonight Show mantle to Jimmy Fallon in February. Recent winners of the Mark Twain humor prize include Carol Burnett, Ellen DeGeneres, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey and Bill Cosby.

• It was gym, tan, jail for The Situation as he was arrested Tuesday after a fight at a New Jersey tanning salon. The former Jersey Shore cast member, whose real name is Mike Sorrentino, was charged with simple assault after the afternoon confrontation at the Boca salon in Middletown Township, which he and his family own and operate. He posted a $500 bond and was released; a court date hasn't been scheduled. Officers went to the salon around 2 p.m. on a report of a fight, said police detective Lt. Stephen Dollinger. He didn't have details on what prompted the fight or who else was involved. Sorrentino is due to return to reality television this summer in the TV Guide Network's The Sorrentinos, which will follow family members as they try to open their own tanning salon. Messages left for Sorrentino's publicist and for a California attorney who has previously represented him weren't returned. The cast members of the MTV reality show Jersey Shore, filmed in Seaside Heights, were known for their love of tanning and the motto GTL -- or gym, tan, laundry.

A Section on 06/19/2014