U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday criticized China’s actions against democracy protesters in Hong Kong. On Friday, China hit back, calling the speech “lies” and chiding him for ignoring widespread racism and income inequality across America. The trade war, meanwhile, rages on, despite some recent progress. Nevertheless, Wall Street remained content, with the S&P 500 hovering near its closing record. —Josh Petri

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French President Emmanuel Macron blocked the EU’s attempt to delay Brexit for three months, raising the prospect that the U.K. won’t know whether it will get an extension until hours before it is scheduled to be ejected Oct. 31, even without a deal. It’s all part of an interesting dynamic between U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the French leader.

Even as winds subside in Northern California and PG&E restores electricity to customers, blackouts are spreading south in a massive effort to keep falling power lines from igniting wildfires. More than 500,000 people have lost power so far. There may be more to come.

Blasting water, sand and chemicals into shale rock formations deep underground has unlocked vast hydrocarbon reserves previously considered almost impossible to exploit. Fracking has transformed the U.S. economy, yet we know little about how it actually works. Now, for the first time, we have a clear picture of what it looks like underground.

The Trump Organization is exploring a sale of its Washington hotel, which has raised questions about whether President Donald Trump is effectively profiting off people who spend money at the property to curry favor with him. Trump has been the target of lawsuits and congressional scrutiny over whether he’s violating the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clauses. On Capitol Hill Friday, his accelerating impeachment investigation received a powerful boost from the federal courts.

Google on Friday announced massive changes to its search engine. The new system relies on an artificial intelligence tool designed to parse long, complicated sentences, rather than just strings of key words.

More than 17 years after developers began boasting about world-class retail and entertainment just eight miles west of Manhattan, parts of the American Dream mega-mall opened Friday in New Jersey’s Meadowlands. But the retail and dining side still isn’t ready. Nothing about this complex has worked according to plan.

What’s Luke Kawa thinking about? The Bloomberg cross-asset reporter says there’s good news in the bond market. None of the recent negative indicators—whether instances of soft U.S. economic data or earnings reports—are being seen as a portent of imminent doom that fosters a flight to safety.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

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