• The City Council has approved — 49-0 — a symbolic ban on the N-word; the ban carries no penalties but already seems to be in effect, seeing that not a single publication covering it can bring itself to print the slur. [Newsday]
• And on the same day, a man pleaded guilty to scrawling “anti-Semitic slurs” — also unspecified — on cars parked near a Queens synagogue. City Council, get bannin’! [amNY]
• The Splasher, an anonymous culprit who defaces street art with violent handfuls of paint, has earned a chin-scratching Times profile. As expected, at issue is the line between “respectable” graffiti (Banksy, Swoon) and Splasher’s vandalism. Or is it art? [NYT]
• OMG Madonna’s collection at H&M! We’re more than a little perplexed why this is front-page material to the Daily News, so feel free to point out some sort of Mort-Madonna link we’ve accidentally missed. [NYDN]
• And in a particularly bizarre round of Mad Libs, a 46-year-old dominatrix … was busted for weapons possession … in a $3 million Bedford Hills mansion … owned by an Orthodox rabbinical school. [NYP]
