March 7 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- SpaceX's Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk's Mars rocket program.

- Walgreens Boots Alliance WBA.O will be taken private by Sycamore Partners for $10 billion, the firms said on Thursday, closing out nearly a century of trading on public markets for the U.S. pharmacy giant.

- Insignia Financial IFL.AX has granted access to its books to two key suitors after both Bain Capital and CC Capital raised their respective takeover bids to A$3.34 billion ($2.11 billion).

- U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve and a stockpile for other cryptocurrencies, a day before meeting with executives from the cryptocurrency industry at the White House.

- French shipping magnate Rodolphe Saadé met President Trump at the White House on Thursday and pledged to invest $20 billion in the U.S. over the next four years as the administration pushes to revive the American maritime sector.

- The U.S. partially pulled back tariffs on some goods from Mexico and Canada after markets sank and companies lobbied U.S. President Donald Trump, as the administration's swerving trade policy strained relations with allies and raised recession fears.

($1 = 1.5863 Australian dollars)

(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)

((globalnewsmonitoring@thomsonreuters.com))