LONDON—Barclays PLC added two prominent names from the investment world to its board at a time when the bank is buffeted by Brexit, a depressed stock price and the agitations of an activist investor.

Mohamed El-Erian, one of the best-known names in global fund management, is set to join Barclays as a nonexecutive director. Mr. El-Erian served as chief executive of bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. until 2014. He left after he clashed with Pimco’s top bond manager at the time, Bill Gross.

PARIS—Jacques Chirac, the former French president who defiantly mounted international opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Thursday, according to an official at the Elysee Palace. He was 86.

During Mr. Chirac’s two terms in power from 1995 to 2007, he cultivated a paternal, discrete and dutiful presidential image that many traditional French conservatives still consider a benchmark.

At...

The House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday to protect financial institutions that serve marijuana businesses in states where the substance is legal.

Federally insured depository institutions are prohibited from offering financial services to such businesses because pot is illegal under federal law, forcing the companies to deal primarily in cash.

Recreational...

Discovery Inc. is looking to generate more revenue from its stable of celebrity chefs-—and help Amazon.com Inc. sell more groceries in the process.

The cable-TV network is launching a new video-streaming app called Food Network Kitchen in partnership with Amazon that will let subscribers attend up to 25 live cooking classes a week given by the likes of Martha Stewart, Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay. The chefs will also answer user questions on the service, which will cost $6.99 a month or $59.99 annually.

CAIRO—Egypt’s security forces have arrested some 1,400 people in recent days in one of the largest crackdowns on political opponents in years, rights groups said, amid protests calling for President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s removal.

The protests began this past weekend in Cairo and other cities, representing one of the most serious challenges to Mr. Sisi’s autocratic rule since the former military chief came to power following a coup in 2013.

The average total cost of employer-provided health coverage passed $20,000 for a family plan this year, according to a new survey, a landmark that will likely resonate politically as health care has become an early focus of the presidential campaign.

Annual premiums rose 5% to hit $20,576 for an employer-provided family plan in 2019, according to the yearly poll of employers by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. On average, employers bore 71% of that cost, while employees paid the rest.

“It’s a milestone,” said Drew Altman, chief executive of the foundation. “It’s the cost of buying an economy car, just buying it every year.”

As the United Auto Workers strike at General Motors Co. extends to a second week, many customers taking their cars to GM dealerships for servicing are having to wait longer than usual.

The problem: a lack of replacement parts.

The strike, already the auto maker’s longest nationwide walkout since 1970, has halted production at more than 30...

The city of Austin is caught in a political and legal feud with Texas Republicans over what constitutes public support for abortion, in the latest clash between the state’s conservative leaders and its overwhelmingly liberal capital.

The current fracas began when the GOP-led state legislature earlier this year banned cities from making “any transaction” with an abortion provider.

The...

Vox Media’s acquisition of New York Media values the New York magazine-parent at about $105 million, according to people familiar with the situation, and is aimed at creating a more well-rounded player in digital media.

The companies announced their all-stock deal on Tuesday without disclosing financial terms. The deal would give New York Media about 12% ownership of the combined company, the people said, with Vox Media’s other shareholders owning the rest.

Vox Media was valued at about $750 million in the deal, the people said. The company was valued at roughly $1 billion in its latest funding round in 2015.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia—The attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities delivered a shock to the kingdom at a moment of economic fragility, with its attempts to jump-start nonoil industries struggling and foreign investment down.

Even before the Sept. 14 attacks took out half the country’s oil production, nonoil exports were trending down in almost every month this year, according to Saudi bank Jadwa Investment.

Meanwhile,...

TEL AVIV—Israeli President Reuven Rivlin tapped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form the next government, setting off a round of political jockeying as the incumbent tries to maintain his hold on power.

Mr. Rivlin’s announcement came as talks between Mr. Netanyahu and rival Benny Gantz to form a broad unity government after last week’s inconclusive election have failed to make progress. The president met again with Messrs. Gantz and Netanyahu on Wednesday to try to pressure them into reaching a power-sharing pact.

UNITED NATIONS—Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country would engage in no new negotiations with the U.S. until Washington lifted its punishing economic sanctions, while signaling that Tehran was open to a new, broader deal if that condition were met.

“Stop the sanctions so as to open the way for the start of negotiations,” Mr. Rouhani said in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly.

“If...

LONDON—British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned defiantly to a reconvened Parliament Wednesday following a momentous court decision that he had suspended it illegally, urging opposition parties to pass a no-confidence motion in his own government and spur an election.

Mr. Johnson’s unusual appeal to his opponents is a sign that he sees his political future as hanging on winning an election on the basis that he alone will deliver on the 2016 referendum decision to leave the European Union.

BUENOS AIRES—It was a familiar scene for Argentines. As a financial crisis engulfing the country entered its fourth week in early September, residents were lining up at banks to withdraw dollars from their accounts, hoping to keep their savings safe.

They had yanked close to $6 billion when President Mauricio Macri’s government took emergency measures. After implementing currency controls, it tapped the central bank’s dollar deposits at the U.S. Federal Reserve, airlifting some $4 billion in cash packed in compressed, heat-sealed...

KAMPALA, Uganda—More than a year into a deadly Ebola epidemic in Congo, international public-health officials suspect the government of neighboring Tanzania is hiding a spate of cases of the virus.

Tanzania, a tourist destination that is East Africa’s third-largest economy after Kenya and Ethiopia, says there is no Ebola in the country and all patients suspected of suffering from the viral hemorrhagic fever tested negative.

The White House is set to release a transcript of a July phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s leader on Wednesday and is preparing to turn over a whistleblower complaint to Congress by the end of the week, a person familiar with the matter said.

Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. sent a letter to Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s board proposing again that Marathon split into three different companies.

Elliott’s letter asked Marathon to separate its Speedway gas-station chain and its MPLX business, or its midstream operations, into their own companies and then leave Marathon’s refining business as the new Marathon.

“There...

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. said Devin Wenig has stepped down as president, chief executive and a member of the board.

The San Jose company said Chief Financial Officer Scott Schenkel has stepped in as interim CEO while it conducts a search for a successor, adding that it will consider internal and external candidates.

In a statement, Chairman...

U.S. stocks’ September assault on record levels is prompting many investors to shift toward assets that have lagged behind in recent years, the latest bet that value strategies will regain favor.

Assets under management for one of the biggest value-focused exchange-traded funds tracked by FactSet hit a record $50.3 billion in September. The ETF has advanced 5.1% over the past month.

Value...

A scientific panel under the auspices of the United Nations has concluded after reviewing thousands of research studies that oceans are warming and ice sheets are shrinking because of heat-trapping greenhouse gas-emissions.

A report released Wednesday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sums up existing research on global warming to provide a technical baseline for governments taking action to fight climate change.

The...

BERLIN— Thyssenkrupp AG ’s directors moved to oust the company’s chief executive 14 months after he took the job, in the latest effort to shake the company out of years of slowing sales, shrinking profits and hesitations over strategy.

Thyssenkrupp—a former crown jewel of German industry, with products ranging from high-grade steel to submarines and elevators—said late Tuesday that its supervisory board’s personnel committee recommended that Guido Kerkhoff be replaced by Chairwoman Martina Merz until a long-term successor could be named. Ms. Merz would be Thyssenkrupp’s first female CEO and one of only two women running Germany’s largest listed companies.