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With a lot of states forcing businesses to close their doors over the past couple months, small businesses felt the pain of little to no foot traffic.Now, building customer relationships is more important than ever, and many businesses turned to the internet to help fill the gap in sales.¡°Everything happened, as we all know, in a matter of three days the world changed dramatically,¡± said Dawn Johnson, owner of Mainstream Boutique Aurora and Mainstream Boutique Castle Pines in Colorado. She¡¯s been in business for seven years.¡°The passion of a small business owner goes so much deeper than people know. It¡¯s like a child,¡± she said.Back in March, she was forced to close her doors. Her only solution was to move online.¡°I would come in on the weekend. My husband would hold the camera, my daughter who is 16 she would model the clothes,¡± Johnson explained. ¡°We tried things we never tried before.¡± This included a virtual fashion show and a virtual selling event with one of their vendors.With limited resources, Jonson and her staff managed to post their items for sale on platforms like Instagram and Facebook in a matter of days.¡°Anything helps. Every time we get one sale on that I do a happy dance,¡± she said. And the reach of the internet brought in a following from all over.¡°One of the things we noticed is we had a captive audience for the first time ever,¡± she said.¡°We are social beings and I think our limitations on our social interactions have 100 percent changed the way we do so many things,¡± said Melissa Akaka, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Denver. She does consumer insight research.¡°Small businesses have especially had to become innovative about how they can maintain a relationship with their customers when they need to follow all of the social distancing protocols that are in place,¡± she explained.Akaka said the pandemic has changed the way we buy things ¨C and customer relationships, especially through social media, are more important than ever.¡°Those who have really strong brands and really strong community ties with their customers or their followers, I think have a better chance of being able to succeed on this type of platform because they already have their customers built in,¡± she explained.However, even companies with those strong ties are having a hard time.¡°We have a following, but we¡¯re still a small family business,¡± said Steve Weil, President of Rockmount Ranch Wear. The company has been around 75 years, serving customers and other businesses with their clothing and other apparel. Rockmount went online back in 2001.¡°That has been our lifeblood quite frankly, because it enabled us to reach the world in a¡­disrupted retail landscape,¡± Weil explained. ¡°Since COVID, it was part of our business that continued to operate whereas retail did not.¡±Long standing businesses like this, have seen hard times before.¡°Everything from tornadoes wiping our factories, to the Great Recession, and now this,¡± he said. ¡°The secret of survival is never forgetting that disasters happen, and we¡¯ve been through them every 10 years for 75 years.¡±Even with the help of the internet and social media, both Johnson and Weil saw a drop in sales in recent months.¡°It was less, it wasn't the same. But what it was able to do is keep us going because we literally would have had no income at all,¡± Johnson said.¡°Our sales plummeted to less than half of normal,¡± Weil said.Big social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are trying to make a difference by offering a platform for small businesses to market and sell. Facebook recently announced Facebook Shops, which will allow businesses to sell their items directly on their platform, without taking them to another site. Johnson said she plans on taking advantage of that as well.¡°The Facebook and the Instagrams of the world, it means a lot for companies to recognize how hard it is for small businesses. We¡¯ll try anything to see if it works,¡± Johnson said.Akaka said when it comes to small businesses, there¡¯s a lot of room for innovation, as customer relationships and online presence becomes more important.¡°Those who can figure out how to adapt and really think through solutions to not just their business problems but to their customers' problems,¡± she explained. ¡°Those who can step up and be solutions for that are going to weather the storm much better.¡±  4395

Val¨¦rie P¨¦cresse, the President of the ?le-de-France region in which Paris lies, has told reporters that the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral was an accident. "This was an accident. It wasn¡¯t intentional," she said.P¨¦cresse said the region would unlock an emergency fund of €10 million euros (.3 million) to help in the rebuild efforts.The cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is home to scores of priceless artifacts, artwork and relics collected over the centuries, each with their own story.As a devastating fire tore through the revered Gothic cathedral on Monday, toppling its spire, many feared these treasures might be lost forever.A "forest" of wooden latticework fueled the blaze which consumed the building's roof, whose framework dates back to the 13th century, according to Msgr. Patrick Chauvet, the cathedral's rector.The Paris Fire Brigade tweeted that the cathedral's stone construction has been "saved," as have the "main works of art." As more information emerges, what has been rescued from Notre Dame is becoming apparent.Yet many details, such as possible water damage from the operation to save the building, are still unclear.What was saved? The Crown of Thorns, which some believe was placed on the head of Jesus and which the cathedral calls its "most precious and most venerated relic," was rescued from the fire, according to Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.? Hidalgo confirmed the Tunic of Saint Louis and other "major" works were also saved.? The facade and twin bell towers, the tallest structures in Paris until the completion of the Eiffel Tower in the late 19th century, survived the blaze.The North tower was completed in 1240 and the South tower in 1250.? The cathedral's main bell, Emanuelle, lives in the South tower. It has marked significant moments in French history, such as the end of World War II, as well as holidays and special occasions.? The Rose windows are a trio of immense round stained-glass windows over the cathedral's three main portals that date back to the 13th century. The Archbishop of Paris said all three have been saved, reports CNN affiliate BFM TV.? The original Great Organ, one of the world's most famous musical instruments, dates back to medieval times. Over the years, organ makers renovated the instrument and added onto it, but it still contained pipes from the Middle Ages before Monday's fire.The position of titular organist, or head organist, carries great prestige in France and around the world. The Archbishop of Paris confirmed the organ is safe, reports CNN affiliate BFM TV.Fate of other artifacts unconfirmed"We managed to protect the most precious treasures in a safe place," a Paris City Hall spokesperson told CNN.However it has not been confirmed whether individual items such as a fragment of the True Cross and one of the Holy Nails were saved.? There were also numerous sculptures, statues and paintings inside the cathedral depicting Biblical scenes and saints.One series of 76 paintings, each nearly four meters tall, commemorates the New Testament's Acts of the Apostles, including the crucifixion of St. Peter and the conversion of St. Paul. The works were completed between 1630 and 1707 by the members or associates of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.Another painting is from a series by Jean Jouvenet depicting the life of the Virgin Mary. All six from the series used to be in the cathedral. They were moved to the Louvre in the 1860s, and only "The Visitation" was returned to Notre Dame.A portrait from 1648 of St. Thomas Aquinas also graced the cathedral's interiors.? It is not yet clear how much damage there is to the cathedral's exterior, where a menagerie of menacing gargoyles and chimeras stand guard and a system of flying buttresses support the outside walls.A Paris police source told CNN that part of the vault has collapsed in the central nave, and architects are checking whether the structure is stable.? The cathedral also has an archaeological crypt under the courtyard. It was created to protect 19th-century relics that were discovered during excavations in 1965. It opened to the public in 1980. 4127

Virginia's highest court has upheld a ban on firearms at a pro-gun rally in the state's capital next week. The Supreme Court issued its decision late Friday, rejecting an appeal from gun-rights groups that said the ban violated their Second Amendment right to bear arms. The court did not rule on the merits of the case, however. The justices said they did not have enough information to decide whether a lower court judge had ruled appropriately. State officials had asked the court to uphold the ban. Gov. Ralph Northam said officials had received credible threats of "armed militia groups storming our Capitol¡± during the rally scheduled for Monday in Richmond. 676

Warner Bros. made a copyright claim Tuesday against a pro-Trump 2020 video that uses the score of "The Dark Knight Rises.""The use of Warner Bros.' score from The Dark Knight Rises in the campaign video was unauthorized," the entertainment company said in a statement Tuesday. "We are working through the appropriate legal channels to have it removed."CNN and Warner Bros. share a parent company, WarnerMedia, which is owned by AT&T.On Tuesday, President Donald Trump 484

Video games allow us to let go and play in someone else's world for a while.At the Smithsonian American Art Museum's recent video game convention, one game is getting a lot of attention for combining beautiful graphics with the ugliness of war. The game is called Brukel and it tells the story of World War II through the eyes of someone who lived it.¡°This whole thing is obviously a labor of love,¡± one gamer said of Brukel. ¡°It¡¯s obviously very personal to the creator.¡±The creator is Bob DeSchutter, an award-winning video game developer and a college professor at Miami University. ¡°In the game, you go in there and you have your cellphone with you,¡± he says. ¡°You can take pictures of everything, and if you take pictures of an object, you hear my grandma talk about it.¡±De Schutter traveled to Belgium to have his 93-year-old grandmother, Bie Verlinden, narrate this video game. Verlinden is also the game¡¯s hero, and players shoot a camera instead of a gun. It took De Schutter five years of coding to create Brukel, and the finished product has both his critics' and grandma¡¯s approval.¡°She¡¯s like, ¡®Oh, wow! This looks exactly the way it was,¡¯¡± De Schutter says about his grandmother¡¯s reaction to the video game. ¡°I¡¯m obviously very happy about that.¡±The game is also gaining positive attention among parents, who say they are happy to have their children play this game. ¡°It¡¯s a different spin from Fortnite, from Madden and all the other games that they play,¡± says parent Shaunice Morris. ¡°Now, they¡¯re able to play the game and have fun playing the video game, but also learn while in the process.¡±It's learning that includes life lessons that span countries and cultures, coming from a woman who lived through war and is now able to share her stories across generations through gaming. 1812

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