MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2025--
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, today announced the winners of its fourth annual Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Day – BJ’s Nevada BBQ, the Homeless Garden Project, and Perry’s Joint. The three heroes were honored in a special ceremony at Intuit Dome, hosted by WNBA League MVP and basketball legend Lisa Leslie. During the ceremony, the winners were acknowledged for going above and beyond to serve their customers, employees, and community, and awarded $20,000 each to help fuel their continued success.
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Perry Bennett of Perry's Joint in Pasadena, Calif., is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Jay Rathmann of BJ's Nevada BBQ is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Sparks, Nev. (Bridget Bennett/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Three small businesses were presented with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Lisa Leslie presents small business owners with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
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Building on the success of Small Business Hero Day over the last four years, Intuit also announced an expansion of the program into a year-long initiative called the Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Program. The program will assist even more small business heroes across the U.S. by spotlighting three winners each quarter who have made a positive impact in their community, while demonstrating courage, perseverance, and integrity. Each winner will receive a $20,000 grant and additional resources from QuickBooks and Mailchimp to help amplify their small business on a larger scale, and support their continued success and growth. Nominations for the inaugural Small Business Hero Program are now open for businesses located in the U.S. To submit a small business for consideration, go to intuit.com/heroprogram. 1
“The Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Program will help provide a greater support system for small businesses across the country and the communities they serve,” said Emma Rodgers, SVP, Marketing, Intuit. “These businesses fuel the economy and play a key role in our local communities, but running a small business is not easy. We’ve seen how impactful our $20,000 grants have been to the past recipients, and we’re excited to expand the program and triple the number of businesses who will receive grants and resources each year, as part of our mission to help small businesses thrive and achieve prosperity.”
New data from the 2025 Intuit Small Business Heroes Survey found that nine in 10 respondents (90%) say small businesses contribute to their sense of community. 2 This year’s Small Business Hero Day winners are a shining example of how local business leaders play a key role in building this sense of community. Each has impacted their respective communities in unique ways and plan to use the grant money to further their positive impact.
About Intuit
Intuit is the global financial technology platform that powers prosperity for the people and communities we serve. With approximately 100 million customers worldwide using products such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to prosper. We never stop working to find new, innovative ways to make that possible. Please visit us at Intuit.com and find us on social for the latest information about Intuit and our products and services.
1 NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Sponsored by Intuit. Legal residents of the 50 US (D.C.), 18+ can nominate Businesses that are located and operate in the 50 US (D.C.). Void where prohibited. Enter Contest by 5/15/26. Terms and Conditions Apply. See Official Rules for all business eligibility requirements, phase dates, and entry details, at https://quickbooks.intuit.com/offers/small-business-hero-program.
2 Methodology: In April 2025, Intuit QuickBooks commissioned an online survey of 4,000 US consumers age 18+. The survey focused on consumer sentiment towards small and local enterprises. Percentages have been rounded to the nearest decimal place, so values shown in data report charts and graphics may not add up to 100%. Responses were collected using Prodege audience pools and partner networks with double opt-ins and random device engagement sampling to ensure accurate targeting and results. Respondents received remuneration. Results are post-stratified against U.S. Census data.
Perry Bennett of Perry's Joint in Pasadena, Calif., is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Jordan Strauss/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Jay Rathmann of BJ's Nevada BBQ is honored as Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero with a $20,000 check on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Sparks, Nev. (Bridget Bennett/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Three small businesses were presented with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
Lisa Leslie presents small business owners with $20,000 at Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp's fourth annual Small Business Hero Day at the Intuit Dome on Friday, April 25, 2025 in Inglewood, Calif. Owners from BJ's Nevada BBQ, The Homeless Garden Project, and Perry's Joint were honored. (Dan Steinberg/AP Content Services for Intuit QuickBooks)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, over the course of a single day, went from threatening Iran with “annihilation” to proclaiming that the battered Islamic Republic's leadership had presented a “workable” plan that led him to agree to a 14-day ceasefire that he expects will pave the way to end the nearly six-week war.
The dramatic shift in tenor came as intermediaries led by Pakistan worked feverishly to head off a further escalation. Even China, Iran's biggest trading partner and America's most significant economic competitor, quietly pulled strings to find a path toward a ceasefire, according to two officials briefed on the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all Military objectives, and are very far along with a definitive Agreement concerning Longterm PEACE with Iran, and PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump said in a social media post Tuesday announcing the temporary ceasefire. It came about 90 minutes before his deadline for Tehran to open the critical Strait of Hormuz or see its power plants and other critical infrastructure obliterated.
The president was to meet at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, with the emerging plan to reopen the strait expected to be at the center of their talks. Trump has been angry that NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the vital waterway as gas prices soared during the war.
As the deadline neared, Democratic lawmakers decried Trump's threat to wipe away an entire civilization as “a moral failure." Pope Leo XIV warned that strikes against civilian infrastructure would violate international law and said the Republican president's comments were “truly unacceptable.”
In the end, Trump may have backed down because of a simple truth: Escalation could risk involving the United States in the sort of “forever war” that had bedeviled his predecessors in the White House and that he had vowed he would keep the U.S. out of if voters elected him again.
As Trump boasted about U.S. and Israeli military success over the past six weeks, he appeared to be working from the premise that he could bomb Iran into capitulation.
Starting with the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the opening salvos, he seemed to discount that the Iranian leadership could opt for a long and bloody war.
The Islamic Republic over the past 47 years has shown it is willing to dig in, even when it appears to America to be working against its own self-interest.
The clerical leadership held Americans hostage for 444 days, from late 1979 to early 1981, at the cost of the country’s international standing. The mullahs allowed the Iran-Iraq war to go on for years, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Iran stood by Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ultimately defanged the Iran-backed group in Gaza as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and created the conditions that led to the collapse of Bashar Assad's government in Syria, an authoritarian rule supported by Tehran.
Iran's leadership exuded confidence that it could bog down the world's superpower in a costly and extended conflict even if it might not defeat the U.S. military.
Defense analysts largely agreed that the U.S. military could quickly take control of the narrow Persian Gulf waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20% of the world's oil flows on any given day. But maintaining security over the strait would require a high-risk, resource-intensive operation that could be a yearslong American commitment.
Ben Connable, executive director of the nonprofit Battle Research Group, said securing the strait would require the U.S. military to maintain control of about 600 kilometers (373 miles) of Iranian territory, from Kish Island in the west to Bandar Abbas in the east, in order to stop Iran from firing missiles at passing ships. It is a mission that Connable said would likely require three U.S. infantry divisions, roughly 30,000 to 45,000 troops.
“This would be an indefinite operation — so, you know, think: be ready to do this for 20 years,” said Connable, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer. “We didn't think we were going to be in Afghanistan for 20 years. We didn’t think we’re going to have to be in Vietnam as long as we were, or Iraq.”
The two-week ceasefire includes allowing both Iran and Oman to charge fees on ships transiting through Hormuz, a regional official said. The official said Iran would use the money it raised for reconstruction.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday noted that Trump has considered the idea of a toll for vessels passing through the strait. But in the near term, his priority “is the reopening of the strait without any limitations, whether in the form of tolls or otherwise.”
Trump has repeatedly made maximalist demands throughout the first 15 months of his second White House term only to dial them back.
The president backed off many of the sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs he first announced in April 2025 after they caused markets to go haywire. During a January meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump insisted that he wanted the U.S. to take control of Greenland — only to switch course and abandon his threat to impose widespread tariffs on Europe to press his case.
The ceasefire announcement came after Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif urged Trump to extend his deadline to allow diplomacy to advance.
Two weeks has become Trump’s favorite interval to buy himself time when making major decisions on major policy issues. Last summer, the White House said he would decide about launching an initial bombing campaign against Iran within two weeks, only to have the president order airstrikes that he said “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program before that interval was up.
The White House confirmed that Vice President JD Vance will lead the U.S. negotiating team in talks with Iran aimed at finding a permanent end to war.
The delegation is also expected to include special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The talks are expected to begin Friday in Pakistan.
“Vice President Vance has played a very significant and a key role in this since the very beginning,” Leavitt said.
Trump’s deadline was nearing with no resolution in sight when Vance, who has long pushed for restraint in U.S. military intervention overseas, got roped into the conversation, according to an official from one of the mediating countries who was briefed on the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive diplomatic discussions.
Vance, who was traveling in Hungary in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before upcoming elections, said Wednesday that the agreement with Iran was “a fragile truce.”
“I think if they negotiate in good faith, we will be able to find a deal. That’s a big if. And ultimately, it’s up to the Iranians how they negotiate. I hope they make the right decision,” said Vance, who was to travel back to Washington on Wednesday before heading to Islamabad.
Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in Washington, Justin Spike in Budapest and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, is joined by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, left, for a photo opportunity at the State Department, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
A zoom lens and slow shutter speed technique shows President Donald Trump speaking with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, speaks at Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)
The White House is seen in Washington, Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. EDT. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
