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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

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Tyson Foods says it has fired seven top managers at its largest pork plant after an independent investigation into allegations that they bet on how many workers would test positive for the coronavirus. The company announced Wednesday that the investigation led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed troubling behavior that resulted in the firings at the plant in Waterloo, Iowa. “We value our people and expect everyone on the team, especially our leaders, to operate with integrity and care in everything we do,” said Tyson Foods President & CEO Dean Banks said in a press release. “The behaviors exhibited by these individuals do not represent the Tyson core values, which is why we took immediate and appropriate action to get to the truth. Now that the investigation has concluded, we are taking action based on the findings.”Banks traveled to the Waterloo plant on Wednesday to discuss the actions with employees.The names of the employees fired will not be released, the Associated Press reported.According to USA Today, lawyers who are representing the five Tyson workers who died of COVID-19 allege that plant manager Tom Hart organized a "cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool" among other managers and supervisors. 1278

INDIANAPOLIS -- After Papa John's CEO John Schnatter blamed the NFL and protests during the national anthem for his company's falling pizza sales, he gained some new fans -- just ones he doesn't want. After Schnatter's comments, neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer claimed Papa John's was the official pizza of the alt-right. The website posted a photo of a pizza with pepperoni in the shape of a swastika.Papa John's has since denounced its new supporters. 494

INDIANAPOLIS — A woman needed help after she spent nearly ,000 on Amazon gift cards from Kroger and they didn't work. "I love wearing jewelry. I wear a lot of jewelry that I know makes a woman feel really good; it makes her feel a little bit more bouncy," said, Lilly Ogle, who is a jewelry maker.The cash from her creations sold around the world helps pay the bills."I've sold pieces in Denmark, Finland, Germany—just all over," she said. "I use real stones; I use onyx, pearl, Mother of Pearl, jade, all kinds."Last year, she saved 5. That money was meant to buy Christmas gifts for her family."It took me a whole year to save that money," Ogle said. So she bought 5 in Amazon gift cards at her local Kroger store, and then this happened:"I got home 20 minutes later, tried to use those cards, and they said they have already been used—that's impossible. I just got them," Ogle recalled. She says Amazon told her they couldn't help because she did not order the cards directly from them.Though she had her receipts, Kroger said it could not help because gift cards are like cash. The cards "...cannot be replaced, and no refunds can be made."Kroger also said, "Cashiers have no way to know if the gift card belongs to the person presenting it or to someone else ... since the cards have no names on them and no ID is required for their use.""I'm not trying to get more than I paid for the cards. I feel like I deserve 5 back that I put out for the cards," Ogle explained. Blackhawk Network, the company that oversees the Amazon cards, said they could not provide specifics on what happened to Ogle's card. They did review our request and, in the end, refunded the 5. The company said in a statement:"We can share that we are in contact with her to resolve this matter to her satisfaction. Our advice to any cardholder that may have questions, concerns, suspicions about a card is that it's very important to call the customer service number on the back of the card immediately."We have processes to help victims of fraud through restitution when appropriate. However, we don't go at it alone. Blackhawk partners with law enforcement in our various geographies and retail industry organizations to enable a safer shopping environment for consumers."This article was written by Rafael Sanchez for WRTV. 2325

In one of the more bizarre episodes of the midterm elections this year, the race for Virginia's 5th Congressional District has come down to a fight over "Bigfoot erotica" and whether one candidate is into it.Democratic candidate Leslie Cockburn tweeted on Sunday that, in addition to campaigning with a white supremacist, Republican candidate Denver Riggleman was "a devotee of Bigfoot erotica" -- both charges that Riggleman denied in an interview with CNN."My opponent Denver Riggleman, running mate of Corey Stewart, was caught on camera campaigning with a white supremacist. Now he has been exposed as a devotee of Bigfoot erotica. This is not what we need on Capitol Hill," Cockburn tweeted along with a photo of a nude Bigfoot, apparently from Riggleman's Instagram.Riggleman, however, told CNN that the accusation about a sexual interest in Bigfoot was absurd and acknowledged writing two books on Bigfoot, including an unpublished text called "The Mating Habits of Bigfoot and Why Women Want Him," both of which he said were "parody" and stemmed from running jokes he had with friends from the military.Riggleman also said did not believe in Bigfoot, but added that he did not want to "alienate" the Bigfoot vote and said the entire thing was a joke that his opponent had seized upon unfairly."I think we probably jumped the shark on stupid," Riggleman said.Riggleman's Bigfoot history seemed to have first gained traction after The Cook Political Report noted it in its recent overview of House races. The report pointed out that the Facebook author page for the Bigfoot book had recently been deleted and that Riggleman's Instagram was set to private, but used to be "peppered with images of what can only be described as Bigfoot-themed erotic art."In a statement, Cockburn campaign manager Louise Bruce accused Riggleman of "scrubbing his social media of 'Bigfoot erotica' and who knows what else."Riggleman said they put his Instagram on private to avoid "weird comments," but at this point that was past them, so they would look at making the account public again.As the Bigfoot story gained traction online, the Riggleman campaign seemed to lean into it by sharing a video?from conservative-libertarian activist Matt Kibbe posted on Monday afternoon in which Riggleman played up the strange news cycle and went into a pretty extensive explanation about different "Bigfoot belief systems.""Check out this video on my research into the Bigfoot myth," Riggelman tweeted. "I sure don't know what Bigfoot Erotica is, @LeslieCockburn knows more about that than I do apparently - but I can talk about Bigfoot theories all day. See the video here #bigfoot #va05." 2687

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