'You did it' / Holy theft / Hosts' ghosts

[Chicago Public Square will take Friday off. The explanation’s below.]

‘You did it.’ On Instagram, actor and comedian Patton Oswalt credits the investigative work of his late wife, Oak Park-raised Michelle McNamara, for the arrest of a suspect in California’s “Golden State Killer” serial murders.
■ Oswalt helped complete her posthumously published bestselling investigative book about the case.
■ The suspect is an ex-cop. (Instagram screenshot of Oswalt.)

Trump’s Justice threat. In a frenetic interview that seemed to leave Fox News hosts “shellshocked,” the president suggested he may assume more direct control of the Justice Department’s investigation of his campaign.
■ Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, says he’ll decline to testify in adult film actor Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit against him and the president … and he cites the Fifth Amendment—you know, the one that deals with “a capital, or otherwise infamous crime.”
■ Contending stories of his misconduct on the job weren’t true, Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson nevertheless has withdrawn his name from consideration to head the Department of Veterans Affairs.
■ Updating coverage: Environmental Protection Agency chief and staunch anti-environmentalist Scott Pruitt was testifying today before two House subcommittees about a rash of ethical scandals that have … oh, let’s say polluted … his administration.

What’s on Mayor Emanuel’s phone? Pressed by a Tribune lawsuit, the mayor’s agreed to let a third-party firm collect and preserve the contents of his personal phone—on which he’s conceded he’s conducted the public’s business.
■ The Tribune’s John Kass: As Emanuel courts Latino votes, “What about black Chicago?”

They shouldn’t have guns, but they do. Chicago’s inspector general says the city’s police department hasn’t been following a law requiring it to report to state police the names of people who shouldn’t possess firearms.
■ Illinois Democrats are backing down from their attempt to overturn Gov. Rauner’s veto of a law requiring the licensing of firearms dealers.
■ The state Senate is sending the House a plan to raise to 21 the minimum age for buying cigarettes, vaping devices and tobacco products.

‘We did not sign up to work at a strip club.’ Former servers at a suburban “breastauraunt” tell the Tribune why they’re suing their former employer over practices like a pre-shift regimen in which they were lined up and graded on their bodies’ tautness.
■ Illinois lawmakers have advanced a bill that would put prisoners who masturbate more than twice in front of staff members on the state’s sex offender registry.

Holy theft. Security guards at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral are under investigation for a missing $100,000 in collection plate donations.
■ A Tribune editorial on the extraordinary diversion of three months’ worth of mail from UPS headquarters to a small Rogers Park apartment: “It looks like some postal employees are mailing it in.”
■ After a fire in the Mallers Building on Chicago’s Wabash Avenue Jewelers Row, merchants and customers were awaiting word on whether—and how much—merchandise survived.

Hosts’ ghosts.
■ The discovery of decade-old homophobic blog posts have has forced Joy Reid off MSNBC and prompted The Daily Beast to suspend her column.
■ NBC’s bet that former Fox News star Megyn Kelly could resonate with a mainstream audience seems to have failed.
■ Disgraced PBS host Charlie Rose reportedly is planning a show where he interviews other disgraced men.

Announcements.
■ Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square omitted key words in an item about a man’s fatal attack with a van in Toronto: “Before he allegedly killed 10 people with a van in Toronto, the suspect praised a man who vowed to destroy ‘all of those beautiful girls I’ve desired so much in my life.’” Thanks to reader Robert O’Connor, first to report the error.
■ Mercilessly helpful reader Mike Braden weighed in with a report of an extra “to” and a better spelling for “Trumpophiliac.”
■ Are you getting this newsletter’s li’l sibling, the Chicago Public Square Annex—10 items delivered afternoons via the Nuzzel app? It, too, is free.
■ No Chicago Public Square Friday morning, so your publisher can make a guest appearance on WBEZ-FM’s Morning Shift at 9 a.m. Listen live here or catch the podcast later here.