CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew — no professional astronauts.

It may as well have been a remake of “The Grifters.”

An indie film producer has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for running a scam that took more than $60 million from investors looking to finance movies and Broadway shows and used it to buy fancy cars, designer clothes and flights on private jets.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.

It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew — no professional astronauts.

For generations, Jewish families have enjoyed a weekend spread of bagels with cream cheese, smoked salmon and other accompaniments. It is also the same spread often associated with the breaking of the fast on Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holiday, also known as the Day of Atonement, that concludes this year on Thursday at sundown.

But bagels are now likely to be consumed by Americans of any faith, including those living outside Jewish-centric markets, such as New York. The breadstuff can be found not just at traditional bagel shops, but also at fast-food restaurants and across supermarket aisles. New bagel businesses, from bakeries to eateries, are opening everywhere from Connecticut to Colorado as well.

More than a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns, indoor capacity limits and restricted operating hours might be a distant memory for some. But the economic toll of those COVID-19 restrictions can’t be denied — as many as 200,000 businesses closed permanently due to the pandemic.

Still, Americans think those restrictions were worth it, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. It found that while a majority of Americans believe that coronavirus restrictions have hurt businesses and economic activity, they’ve been worth it in the end.

The “Young People’s Voices” poll talked to people in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Portugal, the U.K. and the U.S. It was paid for by the 14-year-old U.S. activist organization Avaaz. Its findings were also released before peer review, although that process has now begun. The survey was analyzed by seven academic institutions in the U.K., Europe and the U.S., including the University of Bath, the University of East Anglia, and the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The poll builds on previous surveys, which have also found high levels of anxiety about the climate crisis around the world, including fears about having children.

A small, though peer-reviewed, University of Arizona study released last Earth Day showed that slightly older individuals, aged 18 to 35, said extreme weather and climate-change trends do indeed play an important role in deciding whether or not to bring the next generation into the...

Mortgage demand appears to be stabilizing after recent declines, suggesting that home buyers aren’t finished with the nation’s competitive real-estate market just yet.

The volume of applications for mortgages used to purchase homes increased more than 7% on a weekly basis for the week ending Sept. 10, reaching the highest level since April, according to data released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Boston Properties, one of the world’s biggest office landlords, raised $850 million in fresh debt on Wednesday through a 12-year green bond financing.

The company owns and develops iconic real estate in major U.S. cities and beyond, including San Francisco’s Salesforce Tower, and expects to use proceeds from Wednesday’s financing to repay outstanding corporate debt coming due and to fund or refinance eligible U.S. green projects.

One would think that a proposal to limit accumulations in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) would not be very controversial.  The favorable tax provisions accorded retirement saving are designed to encourage rank and file workers to save, not to make the rich richer. 

The website Pro-Publica recently reported that billionaire Peter Thiel has a Roth IRA with a value of more than $5 billion.  The problem is that Peter Thiel and other entrepreneurs are able to buy a large number of shares at a fraction of a penny per share...

and Blue Origin trips in its space dust. 

The Inspiration4 mission is poised to send four civilians into Earth’s orbit on Wednesday night, aiming for a maximum altitude of 357 miles, which is about 80 miles higher than the international Space Station.

The biggest hospital in Alaska has joined hospitals in northern Idaho in starting to ration care, as it has become overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients driven by the highly transmissible delta variant, forcing people with other medical issues to wait for hours for treatment.

Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage is now operating under “crisis standards of care,” the New York Times reported, meaning it is carefully allocating resources that may cause some patients to receive substandard care.

Time released its annual list of the 100 Most Influential People featuring some of the world’s top business leaders, including Tesla’s TSLA Elon Musk and Apple CEO AAPL Tim Cook.

Musk, who launched several projects between his companies Tesla and SpaceX, was in the news a lot in 2021. SpaceX was awarded a $2.9 billion NASA contract to bring astronauts to the moon, and is sending four civilians into Earth’s orbit on Wednesday as part of its latest launch.

The...

“This one is also available,” Javier, the developer, said as he walked us out onto Parcela 25. Felipe and I stopped to take it all in, turned to each other, and smiled. The space, I thought. The gorgeous, open space.

We had been renting a 350-square-foot house (technically a so-called “tiny house” by definition) for nearly a year, and we were over it. We enjoyed living in the small town of La Unión in the Los Rios region of southern Chile, but the tiny house was no longer working for the lifestyle we wanted.

Shares of Dutch Bros., a Grants Pass, Ore.-based purveyor of coffee and other hot and cold drinks, soared 60% soon after they began trading on Wednesday in their first session as a public company.

Shares pulled back just 0.5% to close the first trading day.

Hello and welcome back to MarketWatch’s Extra Credit column, a weekly look at the news through the lens of debt.

Over the past couple of years, the idea of debt forgiveness — whether for student loans, medical, or rent debt — has gone from radical to relatively mainstream. But as many organizations touting broad-based debt relief will tell you, it’s not a new, revolutionary concept. In fact, it dates back (at least) all the way to the Old Testament of the Bible. 

U.S. stocks benchmarks closed solidly higher Wednesday, with the S&P 500 putting in the best daily gain since late August, as shares of energy compaies, information technology and financial climbed. The S&P 500 index SPX,

The third wave of monthly payments for the enhanced child tax credit is hitting bank accounts starting Wednesday, Sept. 15, but if you haven’t received the money yet, it’s not too late to get in on the cash.

From here on out, there are three more payment rounds and each is scheduled for the 15th of the month.

The third wave of monthly payments for the enhanced child tax credit is hitting bank accounts starting Wednesday, Sept. 15, but if you haven’t received the money yet, it’s not too late to get in on the cash.

From here on out, there are three more payment rounds and each is scheduled for the 15th of the month.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley, concerned about actions Trump could take in remainder of lame-duck period, said to have offered reassurances to China and sought oath among U.S. military brass that war-making protocols would be adhered to

It may be a quirk of seasonality or investing folklore. Either way, the investing strategy known unofficially as a “Sell Rosh Hashana, Buy Yom Kippur” often adheres to a common pattern, where markets slump in September, only to gain some traction higher in October, followed by a better seasonal trading period in November.

This year, Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, began at sunset on Sept. 6 and ended at sunset on Sept. 8, while Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, begins at sunset Wednesday and concludes Thursday.

Shares of Dutch Bros., a Grants Pass, Ore.-based purveyor of coffee and other hot and cold drinks, soared 60% soon after they began trading on Wednesday in their first session as a public company.

The stock, which is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “BROS,” opened 41% above the $23 IPO issue price, which was itself above the proposed price range of $18 to $20. The company sold 21.05 million shares in the IPO to raise $484.2 million at a valuation of about $3.7 billion.