Millions of boomer small business owners will soon retire. Will their companies just disappear? | Gene Marks

Want to buy my business? It’s been very profitable. I’ve run it for more than 25 years. But no, you don’t want to buy it. Like most small businesses in this country, there’s really nothing of value here.According to the Small Business Administration, there are approximately 33m small businesses in the US

One in five UK hospitality businesses fear collapse as costs surge

One in five hospitality businesses fear collapse in the next 12 months, according to an industry-wide survey that comes days before rises in tax and employment costs kick in.From Wednesday, many pub, restaurant and hotel companies face the prospect of a higher bill for business rates paid to their local authority, while an increase in minimum wage thresholds takes effect on the same day.The impending cost crunch has left the sector facing a crisis in confidence and warning of multiple business failures unless the burden is “dramatically reduced”.One in five of the survey respondents, who between them operate more than 20,000 venues, said their businesses were at risk of failing in the next 12 months.Almost half (44%) were pessimistic, while 17% were operating at a loss and 2% believed their businesses were already unviable, according to data shared with the Guardian by sector analysts CGA by NIQ

How Meta’s victim-blaming failed to sway jurors in landmark social media addiction trial

When Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, sought to defend itself in the landmark social media addiction lawsuit alleging its products caused personal injury to a young user, it went on the offensive. The mental health problems that the 20-year-old known as KGM suffered since she was a child were not the result of exposure to harm on Instagram, Meta’s lawyers and public relations team argued, but instead linked to her mother’s parenting and her offline social problems.In a bench memo filed before the trial began, lawyers for Meta quoted excerpts from KGM’s teenage text messages, personal writings and social media posts complaining about her mother. They combed through therapy notes and called on doctors to testify to examples of personal conflict. Throughout the proceedings, Meta’s communications team sent reporters repeated updates from the trial and quotes from testimony that highlighted her familial issues

‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books

Recently, the literary agent Kate Nash started noticing that the submission letters she was receiving from authors were becoming more thorough – albeit also more formulaic.“I took it as a rise in diligence,” she said. “I thought it was a good thing.”But then she had what she described as her eureka moment: the letter with the AI prompt right at the top. “It read: ‘Rewrite my query letter for Kate Nash including a comp to a writer she represents,’” she said

Mary Rand obituary

One of the true “golden girls” of the swinging 60s, Mary Rand, who has died aged 86, emerged as the brightest British sporting star of her era when she became her nation’s first female gold medallist in Olympic athletics, taking long jump victory with a world record leap in the Tokyo games of 1964. She also won silver in the pentathlon and bronze in the sprint relay at the event, making her the first British athlete to have claimed three medals in one Olympic Games.Her life was transformed after she broke the previous record on a wet day with a leap of 6.76 metres. On a cinder track, running into a headwind, her performance was spectacular

Alfie Barbeary’s late try earns Bath thrilling comeback victory against Sale

The reservoir of talent at Bath runs deep these days. The champions rested a raft of key players but still had too much class for a Sale side whose season continues to unravel at a rate of knots.An entertaining game played in difficult, windswept conditions could have gone either way, but Johann van Graan’s side conjured up two tries in the final quarter to clinch a bonus-point win.First their precocious 20‑year‑old hooker, Kepu Tuipulotu, broke on the left touchline before sending a delightful kick downfield for his fellow replacement Bernard van der Linde to gather and score.It was a telling reminder of Tuipulotu’s awesome potential on a day when Finn Russell and Ben Spencer were given the afternoon off