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In the midst of an economic downtown, small businesses had to figure out how to stay afloat. The website fundBLACKfounders launched earlier this year, and is providing a platform to help small businesses that are in need, or are looking to launch.¡°We offer a boutique movie-going entertainment experience,¡± Kendra Tucker explained. She helps run Next Act Entertainment. The idea for the Maryland business started in 2018, in part with co-owner Anthony Fykes.¡°2019 we opened up the theater. We took up a 1938 Art Deco theater right outside of Baltimore,¡± Fykes explained. ¡°And we basically renovated it.¡±Then COVID-19 hit, forcing businesses like movie theaters to close temporarily.¡°During this time we knew that we just needed to survive as most small businesses do, and we had a lot of guests that were asking us about, How can we support you?'¡± Fykes said.For some businesses, closures weren¡¯t temporary. A study out of Stanford University showed the drop in business owners from February to April 2020 was the largest on record, and black-owned businesses saw a 41 percent drop.So Fykes looked for help. ¡°I basically just did a Google search and I found Renee, and the platform looked legit,¡± he said.He had come across fundBLACKfounders, a crowdfunding platform.¡°We were super nervous at first around even doing something like this. We were like, how are we going to be perceived, are our guests going to think we¡¯re going belly up?,¡± Fykes said.¡°What I noticed with crowdfunding is that not a lot of African Americans were using it for ownership or for building businesses or startups,¡± Renee King said. She started fundBLACKfounders. She said anyone can start a campaign on the platform -- but unlike other crowdfunding sites, fundBLACKfounders coaches businesses through the process, and gives founders flexibility. The platform takes five percent commission on funds earned.¡°They can raise or lower their goal amount,¡± King explained. ¡°As the money starts to come in and our merchant account clears it, the money goes straight to the founder.¡±¡°Starting in the end of January 2020 through now, we¡¯ve raised over ,000¡­for 12 black entrepreneurs,¡± she said.For Next Act, the platform provided a way for the community to help.¡°It¡¯s success is really built on the strength of the community that supports it, and fundBLACKfounders, it matches the type of strength and support that we get from our community,¡± Tucker said.For other companies like Saraa Green¡¯s startup, the platform gives her a way to get an idea going. ¡°We initially wanted to raise capital for our business to bring our tool out into the market,¡± she said.Her product is called The Braid Releaser. ¡°My mom had to take out our braids and take down our braids and that would take hours, and the tools that she was currently using really wasn't doing its job,¡± Green explained. ¡°She wanted to create a tool that would decrease the time in taking down braids, that is comfortable to use, and that essentially reduces the hair loss during the process.¡±That¡¯s when she met Renee King. ¡°I did not want my mother's dream to just come to an end because of this pandemic,¡± Green said.Nearly eight in 10 small businesses are now fully or partially open as of June, according to a poll by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.¡°What's good is this is actually helping us think through how do we flex into the entertainment part of our business,¡± Tucker said. Next Act has expanded to become a broader entertainment space, and is even being used for private events to help stay in business.As fundBLACKfounders grows, King wants the platform to help connect businesses to their communities.¡°We need to start helping black entrepreneurs a little bit more, and getting them more funding so that they can scale the solutions they need for their communities or they need for the world in general,¡± King said. 3864

In new tapes, President Trump admits to Bob Woodward he concealed critical details he knew about the coronavirus. "I wanted to always play it down." https://t.co/eICaAx70mY pic.twitter.com/zXNOZtIBx7¡ª CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 9, 2020 254

In the last year, the MeToo movement has led the charge in women speaking openly about sexual harassment, which in turn has caused a number of prominent men in powerful positions to lose their positions of power. Now there are questions on whether the Christmas song "Baby, It's Cold Outside," which was first recorded in 1944, should no longer be played due to its lyrics. Since the 40s, the song has been recorded by dozens of popular artists. WDOK Christmas 102.1 in Cleveland, Ohio cited complaints by listeners in pulling the song from its airwaves last week. Denver's KOSI-FM also stopped playing the song but has since recanted, also citing listener feedback. ¡°We value the opinion of all our listeners and appreciate the feedback we received,¡± said KOSI 101.1 Program Director, Jim Lawson in a media release. ¡°Respondents voted 95 percent in favor of us keeping the song. While we are sensitive to those who may be upset by some of the lyrics, the majority of our listeners have expressed their interpretation of the song to be non-offensive.¡±Some suggest the theme of the song is that a woman is being harassed to stay at a man's home and have another drink on a cold night.In the song, the woman suggests she should leave multiple times, only for the male singer to persuade her not to. Here are the full lyrics to the song: I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside 1412

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana ¡ª The Indianapolis Zoo is facing it's second loss in less than a month after a female orangutan died on Tuesday.Kim was a 39-year-old orangutan who came to the Indianapolis Zoo with her infant, Max, back in 2016 from the Jackson Zoo in Mississippi. 283

In post-Brexit Britain, trips to the European Union will get a little more expensive for millions of Brits in search of a continental break.The European Commission confirmed on Friday that UK travelers will be required fill out an online form and cough up €7 (.90) for visa-free travel, which will be valid for three years.Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker, likened the "simple form" to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) scheme used by the United States -- which requires travelers to pay to apply for permission to enter the country.She also pointed out that the EU's version, called ETIAS, will be "way cheaper."But this all comes with a major caveat. If the UK crashes out of the EU with no agreement in place, Brits will be required to get a visa to travel to the EU, a commission spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday.ETIAS, which is expected to come into force in 2021, will apply to countries outside the EU whose citizens can currently travel in Europe visa free. There are currently 61 such countries, including the United States, Israel and Singapore.It will cover the so-called Schengen group of 26 European countries that share largely open land borders.The electronic visa waiver system was conceived to "identify any security or irregular migratory risks posed by visa-exempt visitors traveling to the Schengen area while at the same time facilitate crossing frontiers for the vast majority of travelers who do not pose such risks,"?according to the commission. 1554