FRANKEN TIME. Updating story: Amid rumors he’ll quit after accusations of sexual harassment, Democratic Sen. Al Franken has scheduled a statement on the Senate floor at 10:45 a.m. Central.
■ Analysis: Women in Congress are displaying their clout. (2016 photo: Lorie Shaull.)
■ Ana Marie Cox in The Washington Post: “Al Franken isn’t being denied due process. None of these famous men are.”
■ MSNBC has reversed its decision to dismiss a contributor because of a satirical tweet eight years ago.
WILD, WILD FIRES. Updating coverage: The flames ravaging Southern California have pushed the region’s color-coded threat assessment system past its top level—red—into uncharted territory: Purple, for extreme.
■ Thousands of Federal Emergency Management Agency workers who put in long hours and days to help save lives after the summer’s storms may have to pay back some of their overtime.
SHOULD CHICAGO’S SCHOOLS BOSS BE FIRED? The Chicago Public Schools inspector general says Forrest Claypool should lose his job for lying during an ethics investigation‚but Mayor Emanuel says not so fast.
■ Think Stephen Colbert will ask Emanuel about it on Monday’s Late Show?
RICH GUY vs. RICH GUY. Illinois Democratic gubernatorial candidates Chris Kennedy and J.B. Pritzker have agreed to a series of debates—excluding the non-gazillionaires in the running.
■ Republican Gov. Rauner’s challenger, Jeanne Ives, is out to overturn his signature on a law protecting people in the state illegally from being detained by police simply because of their immigration status.
ASSESSING FAILURE. A joint ProPublica-Chicago Tribune investigation finds that, between 2009 and 2012, when Cook County real estate suffered its most tumultuous shifts since the Great Depression, County Assessor Joseph Berrios left the valuation of thousands of properties unchanged even by a single dollar.
■ In a rare direct shot at a competitor, the Sun-Times editorial board slams the Tribune for an editorial in which it cheered the Republican tax overhaul.
■ NPR: What the Republican plan could mean for students and schools.
■ Mother Jones: It’s a disaster for addiction treatment.
■ Vox: Obamacare sign-ups defy Trump’s sabotage campaign.
WELCOME TO CHICAGO. Police say a couple of out-of-towners whose GPS led them to Lower Wacker Drive just before 2 this morning were robbed at knifepoint of a $12,000 engagement ring and other items worth thousands of dollars. (Update, Dec. 9: The couple has been charged with making up that story.)
■ Ch. 11 tonight debuts a new Chicago River tour documentary that critic Steve Johnson says delivers “a lot of new knowledge, and a fair amount of vague old knowledge turned specific.”
■ That time in 1971 when comedian Steve Martin played Chicago for two weeks—as an opener for the little-remembered singer Oliver.
‘BLUE LIGHTS? REALLY? BLUE LIGHTS? C’MON!’ The Tribune’s Rex Huppke finds fault with your Christmas decorations.
■ A guide to reviving broken Christmas lights.
WHAT YOU CLICKED MOST IN YESTERDAY’S CHICAGO PUBLIC SQUARE. Astonishingly, it was this.
■ Correction: A story linked from Tuesday’s Square has been updated and corrected to clarify the nature of a subpoena to President Trump’s biggest creditor.