‘FIREBALL COMING TOWARDS ME.’ A witness describes an explosion on a rush-hour subway train in London.
■ President Trump’s tweeted response: “Loser terrorists must be dealt with in a much tougher manner.The internet is their main recruitment tool which we must cut off & use better!”
TRUMP’S DEMOCRAT DANCE. NBC News aims to make some sense of the president’s renewed ties to what once was the opposition.
■ Ex-White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer to Fox: “It shouldn’t be any kind of a surprise” Trump’s making deals with Democrats.
■ Washington Post analysis: “Trump may still … emerge as the magnanimous bipartisan dealmaker.”
■ A White House source tells Politico: “Schumer just talks to him.”
■ Seth Meyers: Trump “might be the worst negotiator since Daffy Duck.”
‘FOR FIRST TIME IN 300 YEARS, THERE’S NOT A SINGLE LIVING PERSON ON THE ISLAND OF BARBUDA.’ The U.S. ambassador there says Hurricane Irma’s devastation means “a civilization … has now been extinguished.”
■ Energy Secretary and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry says Hurricane Harvey shows a need for the emergency oil stockpile Trump wants to cut.
■ Cassini’s final image—and 100 more from its mission to Saturn.
■ Cassini’s own discoveries forced NASA to destroy it.
OBAMA HIMSELF. By conference call, the president took questions last night at a public meeting in Chicago about his presidential center.
■ He rejected protesters’ call for a “benefits agreement” to neighbors of the development.
■ After high-profile Washington figures objected, Harvard has withdrawn a fellowship invitation to Chelsea Manning, whose sentence for leaking classified information was commuted by Obama.
HISPANICS ON THE RISE. A new Census report shows they’ve passed blacks to become Chicago’s second-largest ethnic or racial group.
■ Chicago schools CEO Claypool frustrated some aldermen in closed-door budget meetings Thursday.
■ Suburban Lincoln-Way schools superintendent Lawrence Wyllie has been indicted, accused of spending district money on personal projects, including a dog-training school he ordered built.
■ A Tribune editorial: Where was the Lincoln-Way school board?
JOURNALISM CUTS. Tronc—owner of the Chicago Tribune and the Pioneer Press chain of suburban papers—says it’s eliminating jobs at Pioneer.
■ Google is adding more community information sources to its Google News pages.
■ Facebook is testing a “snooze” function, to let you temporarily shush friends, Pages or Groups.
■ Amazon is defending its decision to remove “suspicious” reviews critical of Hillary Clinton’s new book.
WANT A NEW iPHONE? The Equifax fiasco (Equifiasco) could complicate some people’s purchase efforts.
■ Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going after Equifax.
COULD HAVE USED SOME REAL INTELLIGENCE HERE. Uncompromisingly attentive reader Mike Braden noted a goof in Thursday’s emailed edition of Square: “Artificial intelligent” should have been (and now is, on the Square website) “artificial intelligence.”
■ Be first to spot a goof in Square, email GetSmarter@ChicagoPublicSquare.com and see your name here.
RHYME CRIME. Your Square proprietor’s sister Julie found Thursday’s Square couplet about Illinois’ departing poet laureate wanting:
A limerick could have been done.
They’re easy and very much fun.
When your email was clicked
We’d not have felt dicked
If you’d spent time before you’d begun.