Apple Inc. on Wednesday joined U.S. companies including Deere & Co. and Walt Disney Co. in a recent sprint to issue new bonds, taking advantage of the steep decline in benchmark interest rates and a surge in investor demand.

Apple launched its first bond deal since 2017, selling $7 billion of debt, according to Bank of America Corp., which led the sale. All three companies issued 30-year bonds with yields below 3%, a first for the corporate debt market.

Embattled lab-testing startup uBiome Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday and put its assets up for sale after suspending testing of its clinical products.

The San Francisco-based company filed for chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., and said it has lined up an $8 million bankruptcy loan to keep its business open while it looks for a buyer.

The...

Facebook Inc. has promised regulators that it will protect users’ privacy and give them the right to take their data where they choose. Now the company is trying to figure out how it can do both.

In a white paper issued Wednesday, the social-media giant outlines how those two big mandates are potentially in conflict. The company said it is seeking outside input on how to deliver on both objectives and get a consensus on how the industry will handle such matters going forward.

WASHINGTON—Former White House counsel Greg Craig was acquitted by a federal jury on Wednesday on a felony false-statement charge, a major vindication for one of the most prominent lawyers in Washington.

The jury acquitted Mr. Craig, who served as a top counselor to two Democratic presidents and a secretary of state, after less than five hours of closed-door deliberations at a courthouse in downtown Washington, D.C.

The...

HEBRON, West Bank—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his re-election campaign to a small Jewish enclave in the West Bank, a contentious move to a flashpoint area aimed at wooing support from right-wing settlers ahead of a close vote this month.

Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday attended a ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of the 1929 massacre of 69 Jews by local Palestinians at the shared and contested holy site in Hebron.

The...

ROME—Italy’s new governing coalition named its key officials on Wednesday, including ministers whose appointments signal a less combative stance toward the European Union over fiscal discipline and immigration.

The officials, from an incoming coalition between the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, will soon face the country’s most pressing challenges: how to fix the budget, jump-start the stagnant economy and tackle Mediterranean migration.

MOSCOW—Alarmed by Russia’s growing partnership with China, Beijing’s Asian neighbors are increasingly looking for ways to court Moscow away.

That is exactly what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aim to do at the annual Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this week. Chinese leader Xi Jinping will be notably absent from the event, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s showcase for investment opportunities in his country’s Far East.

BERLIN—Bayer AG’s efforts to fend off thousands of lawsuits against its Roundup herbicide were dealt a symbolic blow Wednesday when Germany, the company’s home country, said it would ban the product’s key ingredient.

The move is unlikely to directly impact the chemicals and pharmaceuticals group’s bottom line, because Germany is a negligibly small market for Roundup. While the decision was motivated by environmental considerations rather than glyphosate’s alleged potential to cause cancer, which is at the center of the lawsuits,...

The ethanol industry is suffering from weaker prices and oversupply as that pillar of the farm economy has been hurt by regulatory changes and the trade dispute with China.

Producers of the corn-based fuel additive, including Green Plains Inc. and Poet LLC, have closed plants over the past year in Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and other states. Companies such as the grain giant Archer Daniels Midland Co. are scaling back their ethanol business.

Less than two weeks after a gunman killed more than 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, law-enforcement officials found a disturbing piece of graffiti outside a San Diego County mosque that had been set on fire. “For Brenton Tarrant -t./pol/,” it read.

The cryptic message, which paid homage to the alleged New Zealand shooter and a dark corner of the internet where such shootings are celebrated, foreshadowed a string of violence.

The handbag company that combined the Coach and Kate Spade brands ousted its chief executive a little over two years after a merger that was supposed to create a U.S. fashion powerhouse.

Tapestry Inc. said Victor Luis, who has been CEO for five years, is leaving immediately and will be succeeded by board Chairman Jide Zeitlin. Mr. Zeitlin is a former Goldman Sachs executive who has been on the board since 2006.

Coach...

Christine Lagarde, the likely next president of the European Central Bank, held out an olive branch to the bank’s German critics at a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, promising to review the costs and benefits of controversial ECB policy tools such as negative interest rates and large-scale bond purchases, even as she signaled she would leave them in place.

Addressing European Union lawmakers in Brussels, Ms. Lagarde said that while the impact of the ECB’s unconventional tools on Europe’s economy “continues to be positive,...

YouTube agreed to provide new protections for children on its platform and pay a $170 million fine, in a settlement that divided federal authorities over how to rein in technology giants.

The Federal Trade Commission and the New York state attorney general announced the penalty for YouTube following a yearlong investigation in response to complaints from consumer groups that the video platform illegally collected data on children in order to sell ads for products such as Barbie dolls and Play-Doh. The FTC said YouTube tracked...

LONDON—U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks set to face further setbacks in two critical votes in the House of Commons, a day after suffering a serious blow to his Brexit plans at the hands of lawmakers.

The first vote on Wednesday would require the government to seek a further delay to Brexit if it can’t agree on a deal for the U.K.’s exit from the EU, a direct challenge to Mr. Johnson’s signature pledge to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 whether or not there is a deal.

BOSTON—An unusual legal dispute brewing in the nationwide college-admissions cheating scandal could lead to lighter punishments than prosecutors want for parents who have pleaded guilty.

A U.S. district judge here proposed to delay the sentencings of the first two of those 15 parents this month in order to hold a hearing on a crucial question: Did the parents cause anyone financial harm?

Penalties...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. trade gap narrowed in July as factory weakness held down imports of manufacturing-related products.

The trade deficit in goods and services decreased 2.7% from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted $53.99 billion in July, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected...

DUBAI—Iran warned it would take further steps to breach the 2015 nuclear accord later this week, heaping more pressure on European countries scrambling to provide Tehran with relief from U.S. economic sanctions and avert the deal’s collapse.

France is leading efforts on a possible $15 billion economic lifeline for Tehran in return for its full compliance with the multilateral nuclear accord. Iran began to break some deal limits in July as it pushed back against sanctions that the U.S. imposed on it after pulling out of the...

CHARLESTON, S.C.—Slow-moving Hurricane Dorian churned northward off Florida’s east coast Wednesday morning, continuing its erratic path that demolished parts of the Bahamas and caused anxiety among millions of Americans living in its potential path.

The Category 2 hurricane, which packed winds of 105 miles an hour, weakened slightly overnight. The storm’s center was located about 135 miles southeast of Jacksonville, Fla., Wednesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane-force winds extended 60 miles out from...

Three more Democratic presidential candidates have rolled out plans to address climate change through trillions of dollars in government investment and a fundamental overhaul of the American energy economy.

Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—all of whom had previously endorsed the Green New Deal, a sweeping proposal aimed at weaning the U.S. economy off fossil fuels—unveiled detailed plans ahead of a seven-hour marathon CNN town hall event on climate change on...

Lego A/S reported a sharp drop in half-year profit as it plowed money into new stores and rolling out products and digital initiatives in a bid to stay ahead of fast-changing consumer behavior.

The world’s No. 1 toy maker by sales said it is investing to ensure continued growth as it competes for children’s attention against videogames, YouTube and other digital distractions. Lego Chief Executive Niels Christiansen described kids as increasingly squeezed for time.

MEXICO CITY—A prominent ally of Mexico’s president who is one of the country’s richest businessmen has deep ties to companies that owned significant shares in a fertilizer maker at the center of a burgeoning national corruption scandal.

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who heads a business empire with assets in banking, broadcasting and retail, is linked to Europe-based entities that held large shares of Grupo Fertinal, according to people familiar with the matter and internal corporate documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

When two of Europe’s corporate titans sat down to negotiate a merger this year, they called American banks.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its lead adviser. France’s Renault SA hired a boutique bank stacked with Goldman alumni. In a deal that would reshape Europe’s auto industry, the continental banks that had sustained Fiat and Renault for more than a century were muscled aside by a pair of Wall Street deal makers.

A pair of U.S. senators are probing an energy company that wants to export ethane from a riverfront facility in Texas to China.

West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who also sits on the committee, have asked American Ethane Co. to submit for review by federal regulators its contracts with Chinese buyers, which the firm says are worth $72 billion.

Companies and universities around the country are building cybersecurity training centers that simulate real-world networks and breaches to train staff and test theories about how to guard against and respond to attacks.

At these so-called cyber ranges, companies can assess how their cybersecurity staff react to real-world scenarios, such as malware infections and data breaches, said Ron Green, chief security officer at Mastercard Inc.