• A four-alarm fire in the Bronx wiped out five wood-frame houses and left close to 25 firefighters hospitalized; yesterday’s brutal wind helped the blaze along. “Scores” are reported homeless. [amNY]
• The tabs diverge on what’s the tragedy of the day: The Post has a gruesome SUV crash in Harlem — a speeding Explorer overstuffed with eight teen passengers, one dead; the News goes with the murder-suicide on a Brooklyn sidewalk, featuring an estranged Greek husband, a sawed-off shotgun, and horrified onlookers. [NYP, NYDN]
• The NYPD will require the city’s cops to cover up all visible ink (“to promote uniformity,” but really to avoid embarrassments like last year’s flap over a recruit with a “jihad” tattoo). But what about piercings? The article doesn’t say. [NY1]
• First was talk of a trans-fat ban, and now the Board of Health is threatening to visit another indignity on our restaurateurs: “the nation’s most rigorous system of calorie disclosure.” Yes, hard numbers, right on the menu. (Most likely to be heard at Per Se and Masa next year: “No, sweetie, that’s the price.”) [NYT]
• Finally, the Post (where headline writers appear to be under the impression “Kazakh” rhymes with “rock” and “block”) gets in on the Borat-wagon in the most yawnsome way possible, letting Cohen pen an NYC visitor’s guide in character. Did we mention the movie is a 20th Century Fox — which is to say, News Corp. — release? [NYP]
