Taylor Swift’s blank space; Foot Locker’s plunge; Webster’s fun

Got nothing in her tweets

Taylor Swift emptied her Instagram account and changed her Twitter profile to a blank gray image Friday, fueling speculation that she might soon release her long-awaited sixth album. With more than 9.5 million copies sold, 2014’s “1989” is one of the best-selling albums of the decade, helping juice record-industry sales as they recovered from digital decimation. Another Swift hit wouldn’t hurt — especially if she does another exclusive deal with Apple , Spotify or another streaming service.

Number of the day

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28 percent

That’s how much Foot Locker shares fell Friday — its worst decline since the depths of the recession — after a bleak outlook renewed concerns that the industry’s growth streak has come to an end. Results were weaker than expected by almost every benchmark: profit, sales and margins. Foot Locker also forecast continued sales declines over the rest of 2017, with CEO Dick Johnson citing sluggish demand for top brands, including Nike’s Jordan and Adidas’ Stan Smith.

You can look it up

Merriam-Webster has added a fun online feature called Time Traveler that could appeal to history buffs and wordsmiths. Enter a year, and Time Traveler will list many words that were first used in print that year. For example, 2008 brought us bitcoin and photobomb, 1984 brought us FedEx and vaporware, and 1865 gave us smart aleck and white man’s burden. And when did we get Allah and Madonna? Try 1584.

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