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A small daily newspaper in the U.S. Virgin Islands whose owner credited past generations of literate slaves for its survival is closing after 180 years in print, the Associated Press reported. The St. Croix Avis, which published its first edition in 1844, can no longer compete with social media and digital newspaper subscription services, according to owner and publisher Rena Brodhurst. “That is an impossible mission we are unable to fulfill,” she said in a statement published Sunday. It wasn’t immediately clear when the paper would stop publishing, although Brodhurst said the company would soon exhaust its final shipment of newsprint.

Two of Juul Labs’ longtime directors — a Hyatt Hotels heir and a venture capitalist — helped bail out the e-cigarette maker when it was on the brink of insolvency, the Wall Street Journal reported. It was a deal that preserved the equity investments of Nick Pritzker and Riaz Valani, cemented their influence over the company and secured them releases from liability in thousands of lawsuits against Juul. Now Juul is fighting a lawsuit from a group of investors alleging that those two directors were looking out for their own interests, not the company’s. Among the questions in dispute is whether the bailout that allowed Juul to avert bankruptcy in 2022 benefited insiders at the expense of other investors. The allegations have come to light as the company is trying to raise new capital, become profitable for the first time and turn the page after a turbulent year-and-a-half. Juul says that it delegated decisions to independent directors and that it secured needed financing from investors who support the company’s mission of offering adult cigarette smokers a less-harmful alternative. Juul was once a vaping juggernaut and one of the most valuable startups in America. Tobacco giant Altria Group in 2018 invested $12.8 billion in Juul. Juul used nearly all of the cash from Altria’s investment to fund employee bonuses and shareholder dividends, including more than $2 billion to Valani and more than $1 billion to Pritzker. Since then, Juul has been beset by thousands of lawsuits over its marketing practices and embroiled in a dispute with federal regulators over whether its e-cigarettes can be sold in the U.S. Juul has denied allegations that it marketed its e-cigarettes to children and teens.

South Jersey craft beer stalwart Flying Fish Brewing Co. has filed for bankruptcy protection just months after a deal fell through that would have seen the brand sold to Cape May Brewing Co., the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The Somerdale, N.J.-based Flying Fish listed $1.3 million in assets and $9.3 million in liabilities in its chapter 11 petition, which was filed on Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey. The company is owned by Elk Lake Capital, a capital investment firm in Scranton that acquired Flying Fish in 2016. Elk Lake Capital is also listed in the bankruptcy filing as Flying Fish’s biggest creditor, with unsecured claims of about $4.2 million. Celtic Capital Corp., a financial services firm in Calabasas, Calif., has nearly $4.1 million in unsecured claims with Flying Fish, according to the filing. Overall, the company listed $1.3 million in assets, about $500,000 coming from brewing machinery and equipment. It claimed more than $9.2 million in liabilities.

Consumer data company Near Intelligence Inc. has filed for chapter 11 protection less than a year after going public, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. The Pasadena, Calif.-based company will sell nearly all of its assets to credit institution Blue Torch Finance LP and plans to continue normal operations through the bankruptcy proceedings. Near went public in March via a business combination with special acquisition company KludeIn I Acquisition Corp., a deal that was based on Near’s pre-money enterprise valuation of $575 million at the time. The company later received notice in mid-November that, as a result of failing to file its third-quarter financial report in a timely manner, it was not in compliance with the Nasdaq’s listing rules. It was officially suspended from trading on the Nasdaq on Dec. 27 and is now trading on OTC Markets Group under the ticker “NIRLQ.” Its stock closed on Thursday at less than 1 cent a share. Near was founded by former chief executive Anil Mathews in 2012 and uses a combination of consumer data and artificial intelligence to provide partnering businesses with insights into consumer behavior and trends. Mathews told the Business Journal in April that about 87% of its income is recurring and comes from licensing its products. However, Near stated in its chapter 11 filing that it had struggled in recent years to raise sufficient capital to cover operational costs and that recent enactment of stricter data-privacy regulations have changed the industry and made it increasingly difficult for data-intelligence providers to gather information. The company accrued approximately $100 million in net losses in 2022.

JER Investors Trust Inc., a mortgage REIT, filed for bankruptcy in the latest sign of distress in commercial real estate, Bloomberg News reported. The real estate investment trust — which counts private equity firm C-III Capital Partners among its top shareholders — owes more than $100 million to creditors, but has less than $50 million in assets, according to a chapter 11 petition filed in Wilmington, Del., on Friday. JER Investors manages a portfolio of mortgage backed securities and other types of debt tied to the commercial real estate market, according to the company’s website. As interest rates climbed this year, commercial properties came under pressure, especially firms that lost tenants during the pandemic as office-tower workers stayed home. Earlier this month, mall owner Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust filed for bankruptcy for the second time in three years. In November, the coworking behemoth WeWork Inc. filed for bankruptcy with plans to cut back a sprawling real estate portfolio that spanned 39 countries. C-III Capital owns at least 8.4% of JER Investors, according to court papers. JER also owes C-III nearly $20 million, the bankruptcy filing shows. The Bank of New York Mellon Trust is owed $93.9 million, according to the chapter 11 petition.

U.S. prosecutors said they do not plan to conduct a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted last month of stealing from customers of his now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Reuters reported. In a letter filed on Friday night in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the "strong public interest" in a prompt resolution of their case against the 31-year-old former billionaire outweighed the benefits of a second trial. Prosecutors said that interest "weighs particularly heavily here," given that Bankman-Fried's scheduled March 28, 2024, sentencing will likely include orders of forfeiture and restitution for victims of his crimes. Jurors on Nov. 2 convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven fraud and conspiracy counts he faced. Prosecutors had accused him of looting $8 billion from FTX customers out of sheer greed. Bankman-Fried had faced six additional charges that had been severed from his first trial, including campaign finance violations, conspiracy to commit bribery, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. He had been extradited in December 2022 from the Bahamas, where FTX was based, to face the seven earlier charges.

A weekly newspaper in Oregon abruptly stopped publishing and laid off all of its workers after an employee embezzled tens of thousands of dollars and left months of bills unpaid, its editor said, the New York Times reported. The newspaper, The Eugene Weekly, announced on Thursday that it would stop printing after it discovered financial problems, including money not being paid into employee retirement accounts and $70,000 of unpaid bills to the newspaper’s printer, Camilla Mortensen, the newspaper’s editor, said on Sunday. The entire 10-person newspaper staff was laid off three days before Christmas, though some workers, including Ms. Mortensen, were still volunteering to publish articles online. The Eugene Weekly, a free newspaper, was founded in 1982 and each week prints 30,000 copies, which can be found in bright red boxes in and around Eugene, one of the most populous cities in Oregon. Leaders of The Eugene Weekly said in a letter to readers that the newspaper’s finances had been left in “shambles,” but they planned to fight to keep the publication alive.