This edition of Chicago Public Square is brought to you by the letter S—and by people whose last names begin with that letter: J.J. Sedelmaier—yes, that J.J. Sedelmaier—Ralph Sherman, Judy Sherr, Patricia Skaja and the Skubish Family. Join them in supporting Square for just pennies a day. It takes less than a minute here (if you have your credit card handy). And now the news:
■ Vox: Democrats’ “blue wave” was much larger than reported early on.
■ After a long Arizona vote count, a Senate seat has flipped to Democrats.
■ In Illinois and across the country, momentum is building for fairer legislative maps.
■ The president’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general faces a legal challenge …
■ … as the president’s reportedly considering axing other top officials of his administration.
Thanks for playing, Chicago. Amazon’s passing up the city in its corporate HQ quest …
■ … but the company still employs more than 12,000 people in Illinois.
■ A judge has ordered Amazon to hand over Echo recordings made at a home where two women were murdered.
‘Target has failed.’ Accusing the chain of “ghettoizing” the Chicago stores it’s planning to close, Congressman Bobby Rush is calling for a Black Friday boycott of Target’s State Street store.
■ Tribune columnist Kristen McQueary: Target has chosen to “cut ties with an entire swath of a big city to focus on more affluent parts of the same big city.”
■ Pepperidge Farm has laid off dozens of workers at its Downers Grove bakery.
■ By the way: The radio company whose website filed the report linked above is advertising e-cigs on-air and online.
■ The latest of 18 candidates to declare for the Chicago mayor’s job: A West Side state lawmaker.
■ PolitiFact’s issues to watch in the mayor’s race.
Swastika arrest. Police have arrested a student accused of blasting a Nazi symbol to students’ phones during an Oak Park and River Forest High School rally last week.
■ A British couple who named their son “Adolf” have been found guilty of membership in a banned Nazi group.
■ In what was billed as his last pop-culture convention appearance in Chicago, Lee last year declared “Nerdism is the highest state of mankind.”
■ Lee had filmed at least one more of his trademark cameos for a Marvel movie set to be released next year.
■ As he died, Lee faced a civil lawsuit in Chicago, accused of a lewd assault.
■ The Onion: “Stan Lee, Creator Of Beloved Marvel Character Stan Lee, Dead At 95.”
‘This isn’t just my lane. It’s my f__king highway.’ A forensic pathologist who fired back at the National Rifle Association for its complaint about doctors working to prevent gun deaths shares her perspective in a first-person essay.
■ Vox: One state offers a model for dealing with gun violence.
‘Throughout history, women have been … silenced.’ In an essay for Vanity Fair, Monica Lewinsky explains why she participated in a new documentary series, The Clinton Affair.
■ Chicago bookstores are bracing for a Michelle Obama wave.
Corrections.
■ Friday’s Square misspelled the name of Tribune columnist Heidi Keibler Stevens. Apologies to Heidi and thanks to reader Christine Badowski Koenig for the catch.
■ Friday’s issue also was missing a closing quotation mark, as flagged by the inestimable Mike Braden.
■ New to Square: A formal statement of this site’s corrections policy. (Link corrected.)