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■ The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale explains that his mission— to “fact-check every word Donald Trump utters as president”—is “like fact-checking one of those talking dolls programmed to say the same phrases for eternity, except if none of those phrases were true.”
■ As Barack Obama predicted, Trump stopped talking about “the caravan” after the election.
■ A senior Republican tells Politico White House insiders are “preparing for the worst” from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (Cartoon: Keith Taylor.)
Trapped in an elevator. After hours stuck 11 stories up at The Building Formerly Known as the Hancock, six people—including a pregnant woman—were rescued early today.
■ A convicted sex offender who worked at the Hancock observatory has been arrested on child-porn charges—after applying to work at an Oregon outpost of Ronald McDonald House, which works with the families of children undergoing medical treatment.
Be on gourd. Indiana State Police are hunting whoever’s been tossing pumpkins from an overpass along the I-80/90 Toll Road in LaPorte County—one of which hurt a 64-year-old woman.
■ Chicago mayoral wannabe Bill Daley says he’d deploy thousands of additional surveillance cameras and drones to fight crime in Chicago.
■ The Tribune runs down some of the many questions that remain unanswered in a white suburban cop’s killing of a black armed security guard who was trying to subdue a shooting suspect.
■ A new shortcut for the iPhone’s Siri assistant can begin recording automatically when you’re pulled over by the cops.
■ Your text messages probably aren’t as secure as you think.
■ Want one of Sony’s robotic dogs? The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg says the state’s privacy laws mean you can’t buy it.
‘Throw the bastard out through a window about six floors up.’ Commenters on a Democratic Illinois state representative-elect’s Facebook page have been threatening Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan—but she tells Politico “it’s illegal” for her to delete the remarks.
■ A Downstate woman has been charged with threatening Illinois’ two Democratic U.S. senators.
■ The Washington Post: Right-wing extremists are threatening violence over a Democratic U.S. House.
■ A Republican Mississippi senator said she thinks making voting “just a little more difficult” for “a lot of liberal folks” is “a great idea.”
■ A white Leavenworth County, Kansas, commissioner addressing an African-American urban planner referred to himself as a part of “the master race.”
‘I don’t mean to be heartless …’ But the president of an Old Town neighborhood association is opposing a family’s plans to overhaul a historic home to include a garage accessible for a teenager who uses a wheelchair.
■ Developers of Chicago’s emerging Near South Side community, The 78, are raising the bar on hiring diversity.
■ The Sun-Times’ Mark Brown: Time to rein in aldermen’s power to veto zoning and development decisions in their wards.
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Fantastic Beasts reviews. Rivet’s Rob LaFrentz on the new Harry Potter prequel: “If you’re not a follower of the boy wizard, you might be in the dark for a lot of this.”
■ Kurt Loder in Reason: “Since Fantastic Beasts is hard-wired to be a five-picture franchise, it’s possible the filmmakers … have assumed they can waste as much of our time as they please.”
■ Screenwriter William Goldman (Princess Bride, Butch Cassidy, All the President’s Men) is dead.
CTA holiday train. The Chicago Transit Authority’s thoroughly festive cars take to the tracks beginning next Friday. Here’s the schedule.
■ Want to know where your turkey grew up? You may be able to find out.
■ Consumer Reports is updating its Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping guide daily.
■ As Target holds firm on plans to close two Chicago stores, Rep. Bobby Rush promises “busloads” of protesters next Friday at the chain’s downtown flagship store.
Correction. Eagle-eyed reader Mike Braden noted that one of yesterday’s corrections ended with a comma instead of a period. Is it Friday yet?