'A frequent ... heavy drinker' / We're No. 1 / 'Everything must go'

‘A frequent ... heavy drinker.’ Updating coverage: One of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates says (CORRECTION:) he Kavanaugh has been “deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale” …
■ … and he’s offering to give FBI investigators a statement detailing Kavanaugh’s “violent drunken behavior.”
■ Wonkette’s Evan Hurst: “It would appear the … investigation into … Kavanaugh’s alleged sex crimes is a bunch of ass-covering horses__t.”
■ Vox’s Ezra Klein on the Republican strategy to save the Kavanaugh nomination: “A vote for Kavanaugh … isn’t a vote against Ford’s testimony, but a vote against Democrats, against what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.”
■ Neil Steinberg in the Sun-Times: Ford “might ultimately wield more influence over history than Kavanaugh.”
■ At the Supreme Court today, justices rejected a longshot appeal by murder convict and ex-Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson.

‘Judge Animal House.’ That was John Oliver’s nickname last night for Kavanaugh, whose testimony Oliver says took “the tone of someone who … frankly can’t believe that you’re being such a dick about this.”
■ Vulture’s Mark Harris says Saturday Night Live’s opening-segment satire of the Kavanaugh hearing wasn’t as good as a mashup of Kavanaugh’s testimony with scenes from Pulp Fiction.
■ Kanye West ended his SNL guest shot with a pro-Trump rant that got boos and didn’t air.

‘We’ve decided to get into the election-hacking game.’ In the latest in a series of “flagrantly left-leaning” marketing stunts, Cards Against Humanity—the Chicago-born “party game for horrible people”—is “putting a bounty on voters in six swing districts. Refer a friend, get a free pack” …
■ … and two of those races are in Illinois.
■ A “knowledgeable source” tells Crain’s Gov. Rauner has “made his peace” with the prospect of losing his seat.

We’re No. 1. Chicago’s murder rate for 2018 is the highest among U.S. cities with more than a million residents—but the city’s drop since 2017 accounts for more than a half the decline for the nation overall.
■ In Rogers Park, police are hunting a masked gunman who killed an elderly man walking his dogs.
■ Mayoral candidate Lori Lightfoot pledges to improve Chicago’s homicide clearance rate with more on-scene evidence collection and investment of $300,000 in a mobile crime lab.
■ A Sun-Times editorial finds a growing split between suburban Republicans and the National Rifle Association.

‘Everything must go.’ That’s the word from the Chicago area’s venerable Treasure Island Foods grocery chain, which is closing all its stores within two weeks.
■ At Whole Foods, workers fear the chain’s new Amazon owners “want us to become robots.”

Choose-your-own-ending … TV. The next season of Netflix’s future-tech anthology series Black Mirror will let viewers decide how at least one episode concludes.
■ The birthplace of modern astronomy, about 75 miles northwest of Chicago, closes today.

Announcements.
■ This issue of Square is being retransmitted because of a typo in the lead item. Also an extraneous a in the Chicago murder item above. And Wednesday’s Square omitted the word is from the phrase “is already at a record level.” Thanks to reader Mike Braden for spotting all three mistakes.
■ If you’re reading this by email—as you should—you’ll note some characters in recent editions have been garbled, like this: —. It’s a MailChimp problem the company says it’s working to address.