When Larry Culp gathered top General Electric Co. officers for a summit north of New York City last month, the chief executive had a message for them. He wasn’t going to dismantle their company.

They could be forgiven for suspecting otherwise. The industrial giant had been through tumult, including the pressured departure of a 16-year CEO, the aborted 14-month stint of his successor, a long slide in the stock and a gutting of the dividend. A finance chief teared up in 2017 as he revealed problems that had lain hidden inside...

When it comes to the plot details of its next Marvel Studios or Star Wars installment, Walt Disney Co. keeps things completely confidential. But the company’s forthcoming streaming service already has premiered weeks before its official launch.

PepsiCo Inc. ’s sales climbed in its latest quarter as increased spending on advertising drove growth while also damping earnings.

Ad spending was up 12% so far this year, Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston said in an interview. “We’re seeing returns on the investment.”

The European Union’s top court gave judges in the bloc broader power to order the removal of Facebook posts, dealing a fresh blow to the U.S. tech giant as it faces growing regulatory headwinds on both sides of the Atlantic.

The EU’s Court of Justice said Thursday that a judge in one of the bloc’s member states can order Facebook Inc. or other social-media companies to scan for and remove posts that are identical—or in some cases merely “equivalent”—to content that has already been ruled illegal in that country. The court also said that nothing in EU law stops judges from ordering social-media companies to apply such orders globally, provided they do so “within the framework of the relevant international law.”

New safety features being rolled out by auto makers to keep drivers from hitting pedestrians don’t work at times in some of the most dangerous situations and frequently fail at night, according to a new study by AAA.

Testing performed by the association found that pedestrian-detection technology offered in four different models performed inconsistently and didn’t activate properly after dark, when many roadway deaths occur.

The app enables users to sift through jobs by location, pay and skills, Uber said, adding that it spent the past year testing it. Uber also said it plans to work with staffing agencies including TrueBlue Inc. that employ, pay and handle worker benefits.

Uber’s move to offer a service to gig workers, rather than employ them directly, comes as its mainstay business is under immense financial and regulatory pressure. Last month, California passed employment legislation intended to force companies that rely on gig workers to reclassify such independent contractors as employees. Uber and rival Lyft Inc. have spent much of the year opposing it, arguing that it would introduce new costs and hurt their drivers who prefer flexible work arrangements.

The law threatens to upend Uber’s business model, which relies on gig workers such as drivers, and further erode its bottom line. The company in August posted its largest quarterly loss, weighed down by competition in growth...

“Canopy’s business is rapidly evolving, and the financial results will likely be volatile,” Constellation’s finance chief, David Klein, said Thursday during a conference call.

Shares of Constellation fell 5% in Thursday afternoon trading. The stock is still up roughly 19% so far this year.

Constellation’s chief executive, Bill Newlands, on Thursday said the company would be rolling out a Corona-branded hard seltzer in four flavors.

U.S. sales of alcoholic seltzer have surged over the past two years even as beer sales have slumped. The U.S. market is dominated by White Claw hard seltzer, owned by Mike’s Hard Lemonade Co., and Truly made by Boston Beer Co.

Mr. Newlands said Constellation has been surprised by the popularity of alcoholic seltzers. “The growth that we’ve all seen in seltzers has had some impact on our franchise and many other beer franchises during the summer months,” he said.

The company said quarterly sales were $2.34...

Amazon.com Inc. and Walt Disney Co. are at loggerheads over terms for carrying the entertainment giant’s apps in Amazon’s Fire TV devices, a dispute that highlights the new power struggles emerging in the streaming economy.

Amazon is pushing for the right to sell a substantial percentage of the ad space on Disney apps, and Disney has so far resisted, according to people familiar with the situation. Some of these people say they are optimistic the companies will reach an agreement. If they don’t, Disney apps could be removed from Fire TV, the second-largest distributor of streaming TV apps. Disney has several apps, including for networks such as ABC, ESPN and Disney Channel.

Betting firm William Hill PLC and the owner of Washington’s basketball and hockey teams plan to open a sports-betting venue inside the district’s Capital One Arena, in what would be the first wagering establishment inside a major-league sports venue in the U.S.

The sportsbook is expected to open as soon as 2020, depending on regulatory approval. Financial terms weren’t disclosed for the deal between the American subsidiary of U.K.-based William Hill and Monumental Sports & Entertainment, owner of the NBA’s Wizards, WNBA’s Mystics and NHL’s Capitals.

Concerns that planes could be targeted in cyberattacks are prompting U.S. officials to re-energize efforts to identify airliners’ vulnerability to hacking.

The revived program, led by the Department of Homeland Security and involving the Pentagon and Transportation Department, aims to identify cybersecurity risks in aviation and improve U.S. cyber resilience in a critical area of public infrastructure, a DHS official said. DHS is offering few details on the program but says it will involve some limited testing of actual aircraft.

Transportation and national- security officials remain concerned that aviation is a preferred target for terrorists and that cyberattacks could provide a new avenue to threaten planes and passengers.

McDonald’s Corp. is getting on the plant-based bandwagon.

The world’s biggest fast-food company by revenue said Thursday it is testing Beyond Meat Inc. patties at restaurants in Canada for 12 weeks. Dubbed the “P.L.T.” for plant, lettuce and tomato, the sandwich will be on sale at 28 restaurants in southwestern Ontario starting Monday.

The big bet that U.S. hardwood lumber companies placed on China over the past two decades is collapsing.

China was a savior of sorts for the industry after the financial crisis last decade. Customers there kept buying oak and ash boards in large quantities, while construction and furniture production fell in the U.S.

Nissan Motor Co.’s search for a new chief executive is focusing on three candidates who the company hopes will bring international experience and a fresh outlook to the troubled car maker, according to people familiar with the board’s thinking.

The current top candidates include Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Japanese beverage giant Suntory Holdings Ltd., said one of the people. Also under consideration are Jun Seki, the Nissan executive overseeing the company’s business recovery, and Ashwani Gupta, the chief operating...

Southwest plans to stop flying from Newark, N.J., in November after struggling to turn a profit there and cutting capacity nationwide to account for the grounding of its fleet of Boeing Co. 737 MAX jets. The carrier’s absence could free up capacity for other airlines to operate in Newark during peak hours.

Competitors including Spirit Airlines Inc. are hoping to take up the slack Southwest is creating. JetBlue Airways Corp. said it is also eyeing the openings, while United Airlines Holdings Inc. doesn’t want authorities to approve new flights at times when the airport is already over capacity.

Officials from the Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration are evaluating whether to let another carrier add more flights or keep the schedule open to ease the strain on the airport. That illustrates the balance that regulators must strike between encouraging competition, which can lead to lower fares, and risking congestion that can snarl...

BERLIN— Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Herbert Diess, Chairman Hans-Dieter Pötsch, and former CEO Martin Winterkorn have been charged by German prosecutors on suspicion of misleading shareholders in the months before the 2015 diesel emissions-cheating scandal became public.

The surprise indictment on Tuesday makes clear that prosecutors in Braunschweig, the district with jurisdiction over Volkswagen’s headquarters in nearby Wolfsburg, don’t agree with the company’s claims that the executives had no way of knowing that news of a U.S. investigation into the scandal would cause huge shareholder losses.

In the battle to dominate the new entertainment landscape, Hollywood’s titans are borrowing from Netflix’s playbook, transforming how they do business with writers, producers and stars—and how money is made in entertainment

But other steps it took backfired and contributed to a perception in Washington that Juul was on the wrong side of a public health crisis.

“I think Juul put the entire category at risk by pursuing top-line growth and market share without a real eye toward what was going on and who was using them,” said Scott Gottlieb, who as federal Food and Drug Administration commissioner clashed with the startup last year.

The company flooded the White House with lobbyists and other advocates, making it appear that it was bypassing the FDA, which irked officials in the agency and some in the administration, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Juul launched an anti-vaping program for schools despite warnings that the effort was reminiscent of one by major tobacco companies years ago that seemed aimed more at luring new smokers than dissuading them. And it made unauthorized claims to children and adults that its products were safer than cigarettes, the FDA...

Troubles tied to a payroll processor sent hundreds of small businesses scrambling for funds this month, triggered an FBI investigation and cast a spotlight on a critical but lightly regulated industry.

About $30 million destined for paychecks and related tax payments went missing on Sept. 4 because of problems tied to MyPayrollHR, based in Clifton Park, N.Y. Workers at firms that used MyPayrollHR saw funds yanked back out of their bank accounts—in some cases twice—after another firm discovered the money backing the deposits wasn’t available.

An oil-industry stalwart is hoping to undercut the way most U.S. natural gas is shipped abroad, using a newly patented method he says is cheaper because it requires less upfront investment than the dominant technology, liquefied natural gas or LNG.

Forrest Hoglund, the 86-year-old former chief executive of shale giant EOG Resources Inc., has patented a method of transporting gas called compressed gas liquids, or CGL, with his new company, SeaOne Holdings LLC. The technique allows the gas to be shipped without first separating other byproducts such as propane and butane, allowing importers to strip out them out and sell them individually, Mr. Hoglund says.

Amazon.com Inc. has adjusted its product-search system to more prominently feature listings that are more profitable for the company, said people who worked on the project—a move, contested internally, that could favor Amazon's own brands.

Late last year, these people said, Amazon optimized the secret algorithm that ranks listings so that instead of showing customers mainly the most-relevant and best-selling listings when they search—as it had for more than a decade—the site also gives a boost to items that are more profitable for the company.

Purdue Pharma LP filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday night with a partial deal aimed at resolving thousands of lawsuits filed by states and municipalities accusing it of fueling the opioid crisis.

The filing, made in federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, N.Y., marks a remarkable downfall for the closely held company started more than five decades ago in New York by three physician brothers. After it launched the prescription opioid OxyContin in the 1990s, Purdue became one of the most recognizable names in treating pain, a characteristic that later helped make it a target for blame for the opioid crisis.

MoviePass is finally fading out.

The service, which made a splash with a too-good-to-be true subscription service that let customers watch up to a movie a day in theaters for less than $10 a month, said it planned to shut down as of Saturday. MoviePass’s parent, Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc., said Friday it was exploring all options, including a sale of the entire company.

MoviePass...