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Their eyes were watching. Some knew something was wrong. Others were slow to realize. Soon everyone came to grief.

Forty years ago Space Shuttle Challenger climbed into the clear amid blue skies over Cape Canaveral. The nation’s youth watched on TVs across the nation and from school playgrounds across Central Florida.

Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in space.

But the streak of the rocket’s plume did not look right.

“We definitely didn’t know what happened at the time, but you could feel the energy of the teachers,” said Elizabeth Wisner Stroz, now 51, then an 11-year-old in sixth grade at Brookshire Elementary in Winter Park on Jan. 28, 1986. “I remember them scurrying us in a classroom, and just the energy of the teachers was off.”

She was one of several students interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel on the day Challenger exploded, killing all seven of its crew 73 seconds after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center on the 25th mission of the Space Shuttle Program. The crew included commander Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, pilot Michael J. Smith, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, Judith Resnick and McAuliffe. read more

The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.

We are in the midst of the Great Wealth Transfer, experts say — a predicted titanic pass-down of assets from older generations to Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. According to financial research firm Cerulli Associates, $124 trillion will change generational hands through 2048.

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That said, not everyone is going to get a staggering amount of money — or any inheritance at all, frankly. (Much of this wealth is concentrated in a small pocket of the population.) read more

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and ROB GILLIES

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with its China trade deal, intensifying a feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney, a rising voice in the West’s pushback to Trump new world order.

Trump said in a social media post that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”

While Trump has waged a trade war over the past year, Canada this month negotiated a deal to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower import taxes on Canadian farm products.

Trump initially had said that agreement was what Carney “should be doing and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal.”

Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance. Trump had commented while in Davos, Switzerland, this week that “Canada lives because of the United States.” Carney shot back that his nation can be an example that the world does not have to bend toward autocratic tendencies. “Canada doesn’t live because of the United States. Canada thrives because we are Canadian,” he said. read more

A plan to put a Walmart and a Sam’s Club in a new Minneola shopping district is sparking backlash from neighbors who say they were promised a walkable town center — not big-box stores — near their homes.

Minneola Marketplace is one of two proposed commercial town centers within Lake County’s Hills of Minneola master-planned community. The planned stores and their surroundings have been redesigned significantly since their inclusion in the project drew controversy last year, but area residents are still worried about traffic and safety.
“We know Walmart has a purpose and a place, we just don’t feel it’s close to where we live,” said Minneola resident Paul Steen, who lives only a few hundred feet away from the proposed Minneola Marketplace development site and just moved there in the last year or so. “We’ve made a substantial investment in our home, and we feel that the congestion that is going to happen from this development, and also the potential crime because Walmart is a little bit of a crime magnet, turns us off. We would like them to go back to the drawing board.” read more

By THOMAS PEIPERT, JEFF AMY and DAVE COLLINS

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Thousands of flights across the U.S. set to take off over the weekend were canceled as a monster storm started to wreak havoc Saturday across much of the country, knocking out power and snarling major roadways with dangerous ice.

Widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people — more than half the U.S. population — in a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England, the National Weather Service said Saturday night. It warned people to brace for a string of frigid days.

“The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said. read more