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Financial planners often say you can pull two basic levers to improve your financial life: earn more money or spend less.

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For people trying to grow their net worth, earning more than one paycheck might seem like the best path forward.

According to Fiverr’s Next Gen of Work survey, 67% of Gen Zers say that having two or more income streams, or “income stacking,” is essential for financial security.

Income stacking is gaining traction with other age groups, too.

Vered Frank, a certified financial planner in New York City, says the topic comes up in about 90% of initial conversations with millennial clients and prospects.

Income stacking can be an effective wealth-building tool, but it won’t pay off for everyone.

Why is income stacking so popular right now?

While side hustles have been around since, well, forever, they’re having a moment in the spotlight. One reason? Social media.

You’ve probably seen more and more influencer videos popping up on your YouTube, Instagram and TikTok feeds.

“I think a lot of people are being exposed to how different people are making money, whether it’s selling on Amazon, a Shopify store, whatever it is,” says Patrick Yaghoobians, a CFP in Los Angeles.

Uncertainty around jobs and the economy is also playing a big part in the phenomenon. Consumer prices have grown, while job growth has slowed.

“People are feeling increasingly frustrated with their jobs, feeling like there isn’t a lot of mobility right now in the workplace, and so all of that is culminating in people wanting to think about different ways to generate income,” Frank says.

Does extra income really help you build wealth?

Income stacking takes many forms. There are options to fit just about any skill or situation, from active work, like freelance writing or tutoring, to more passive income strategies, such as investing in dividend stocks or real estate.

While some side hustles are more lucrative than others, what matters more is how you use the money you bring in. Extra income could go toward a brokerage account, retirement savings or paying off the student loans that have been dragging you down financially.

It’s easier to make income stacking work when you have a clear goal and timeframe in mind, says Samantha Mockford, a CFP with San Francisco-based firm Citrine Capital.

“You may hate sacrificing sleep when you drive rideshare in the evenings, but it may be tolerable if it means being debt-free before the year ends,” she said in an email interview.

A side job might also help you build wealth by giving you an opportunity to develop valuable skills or break into a higher-paying career field.

Where might multiple income streams fall short?

Social media can make income stacking look like a breeze. But the reality is often much more complicated.

With many income streams, the pay can be unpredictable. Yaghoobians, who bought and sold clothes and shoes as a side gig in college, knows this firsthand.

“If you were able to get your hands on a pair of Yeezys when they came out back in the day, you could probably get 4X your money right off the bat,” he says. “Other times, I purchased products in the hopes of flipping them, and I ended up losing money.”

Most side hustles come with a learning curve, Yaghoobians says, and that can be discouraging.

It’s easy to underestimate the time and effort involved, especially with income streams such as rental properties.

“Becoming a landlord is one of the most labor-intensive forms of ‘passive income’ there is,” Mockford said. “You have to be ready to unclog a toilet, fix a broken AC in the summer and coordinate with contractors for major repairs.”

And even if the money comes rolling in, that doesn’t automatically put you on the path to wealth.

If you don’t have a well-thought-out plan, you might lose the extra income to lifestyle creep or costs such as maintenance and taxes.

“Higher income means higher taxes,” Mockford said. “So if your additional income stream does not automatically withhold taxes, remember that a portion of everything you bring in is not yours to keep.”

If your income streams don’t include a traditional full-time job, you may also miss out on valuable employer-sponsored benefits, such as health insurance and 401(k) plans. It’s on you to find alternatives, such as self-employed retirement plans.

Is income stacking right for you?

Frank says income stacking may be more practical for creating a flexible working schedule than for accumulating wealth. The biggest income gains often come from optimizing what someone already has, she says, such as negotiating pay, reducing taxes or investing more efficiently.

Before adding an income stream, you might consider taking steps like having a career conversation with your boss or maximizing the money you put into a health savings account, Frank says.

And if you’re still interested in stacking income? Know what you’re getting yourself into.

“Do proper research before diving into anything or committing any of your financial capital into it,” Yaghoobians says. “And just make sure that whatever you’re doing, you dedicate your time accordingly to make sure that you’re still maintaining the work-life balance that makes sense for your lifestyle and your family and your situation.”

When in doubt, talk to a professional. A financial advisor or certified public accountant can guide you through different scenarios and help you make sense of your options.

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By SAM MEDNICK

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered under heavy Israeli restrictions at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for the first Friday prayers of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, including some who were allowed to enter from the occupied West Bank.

The Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa took place for the first time since a shaky ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect in October. It was the first opportunity many had to leave the West Bank and pray at the site in Jerusalem’s Old City since Ramadan last year.

Israel restricted the number of Palestinians allowed to enter from the West Bank to 10,000 on Friday, and only allowed men over 55 and women over 50 as well as children up to 12. It has imposed similar restrictions in the past, citing security concerns.

A frequent flashpoint

The hilltop, which Jews refer to as the Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism and was home to the ancient biblical temples. Muslims call the site the Noble Sanctuary. Today it is home to Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

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It has frequently been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli police said more than 3,000 police were deployed across Jerusalem. They said their presence was not meant to show aggression or force but was aimed at providing help in case of an emergency.

Many Palestinians view the heightened Israeli security presence, and increasing visits by religious and nationalist Israeli Jews, as a provocation. They fear that Israel intends to take over or partition the compound. The Israeli government denies having any such plans.

Jerusalem’s Islamic Waqf, the Jordanian religious authority that administers the compound, said there were 80,000 in attendance. In normal times, Ramadan Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa can draw up to 200,000.

Ezaldeen Mustafah, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was among those lamenting the restrictions.

“We need more people than this,” he said.

Some Palestinians from the West Bank on Friday said they were turned away from crossing into Jerusalem even though they had permits. Jihad Bisharat said he was told his permit had been canceled and was sent back. Israel’s army didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Old City, home to major religious sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians want all three territories for a future state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Israel annexed east Jerusalem, a move not recognized by most of the international community, and considers the entire city to be its capital.

Ramadan in Gaza

Many Palestinians said the month’s typically festive spirit is eluding them as they struggle with grief and losses following two years of conflict in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel.

“All the mosques have been bombed,” said Ramiz Firwana, a Gaza resident who gathered with other worshippers for a Friday sermon and prayers held in schoolyard.

On Thursday evening, families sat amid the rubble and destruction for iftar, the meal held at the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.

“Despite the displacement, the pain and the destruction, we want to rejoice and live,” said Mohammad Kollab, from Khan Younis. “We are not a people destined only for destruction and killing.”

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and caused widespread destruction and displaced most of the territory’s residents. Israel launched the offensive after Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage in the initial attack.

The Oct. 10 U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal has brought an end to major military operations and the release of the remaining hostages. But Palestinians, including many civilians, are still being killed in near-daily strikes that Israel says are aimed at militants who threaten or attack its forces.

Associated Press reporters Sam Metz contributed from Ramallah, West Bank, and Wafaa Shurafa from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.

By YURAS KARMANAU

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Even now, safely in her new home of Estonia, Inna Vnukova says she can’t purge the terrifying memory of living under Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine early in the war and her family’s harrowing escape.

They hid in a damp basement for days in their village of Kudriashivka after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. In the streets, soldiers waving machine guns bullied residents, set up checkpoints and looted homes. There was constant shelling.

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“Everyone was very scared and afraid to go outside,” Vnukova told The Associated Press, with troops seeking out Ukrainian sympathizers and civil servants like her and her husband, Oleksii Vnukov.

In mid-March, she decided that she and her 16-year-old son, Zhenya, would flee the village with her brother’s family, even though it meant leaving her husband behind temporarily. They took a risky trip by car to nearby Starobilsk, waving a white sheet amid mortar fire.

“We had already said our goodbyes to life, cursing this Russian world,” said Vnukova, 42. “I’ve been trying to forget this nightmare for four years, but I can’t.”

Many Ukrainians like Vnukova fled the invading forces. Those who stayed risked being detained — or worse — as Russian forces eventually took control of about 20% of the country and its estimated 3 million to 5 million people.

A new, Russian life in the seized regions

After four years of war, life in shattered cities like Mariupol and villages like Kudriashivka remains difficult, with residents facing problems with housing, water, power, heat and health care. Even President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged they have “many truly pressing, urgent problems.”

In the illegally annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Russian citizenship, language and culture is forced on residents, including in school lessons and textbooks. By spring 2025, some 3.5 million people in the four regions had been given Russian passports — a requirement to receive vital services like health care.

Some in the regions say they live in fear of being accused of sympathizing with Ukraine. Many have been imprisoned, beaten and killed, according to human rights activists.

Oleksii Vnukov, right, his wife, Inna Vnukova, center left, and their children Evhen, left, and Alisa, pose during an interview with The Associated Press in their apartment in Tallinn, Estonia, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (AP Photo)

Oleksii Vnukov, a court security officer, stayed behind in the village for nearly two weeks. Russian soldiers twice threatened to kill him, including an instance where he and a friend were dragged off the street by soldiers. But he survived and soon also escaped the village.

The family traveled through Russia before making it to Estonia, where Inna works in a printing house and Oleksii, 43, is an electrician.

“All life is leaving the occupied territories,” Vnukov said. “The people there aren’t living, they’re just surviving.”

Mykhailo Savva of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine said the Russian military’s practice of wielding “systemic and total control” in the regions continues today.

“Even though a significant number of socially active people have already been detained, Russian special services continue to identify disloyal Ukrainians, extract confessions, and continue to detain people,” Savva said. “Residents face such practices as document checks, mass searches, and denunciations on a daily basis.”

Human rights groups say Russian authorities used “filtration camps” to identify potentially disloyal individuals, as well as anyone who worked for the government, helped the Ukrainian army or had relatives in the military, along with journalists, teachers, scientists and politicians.

Stanislav Shkuta, 25, who lived in occupied Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region, said he narrowly escaped arrest several times before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory in 2023. He recalled being on a bus that was stopped by Russian soldiers.

“It was horrific. Men and women were asked to strip to the waist to see if they had Ukrainian tattoos,” said Shkuta, who now lives in Estonia. “I turned white with fear, wondering if I’d cleared everything on my phone.”

He said his friends who stayed in Nova Kakhovka say life has worsened, with suspected Ukrainian sympathizers stopped on the street or in surprise door-to-door inspections.

“Today, my friends complain that life there has become impossible,” he said.

Russia established a “vast network of secret and official detention centers where tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians” are held indefinitely without charge, said Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Center for Civil Liberties.

“Everyone knows that if you end up in the basement, your life is worth nothing,” she said.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, poses in her office in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Russian officials have refused to comment on past allegations by U.N. human rights officials that it tortures civilians and prisoners of war.

About 16,000 civilians have been detained illegally, but that number could be much higher because many are held incommunicado. said Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.

A U.N. report released last summer said that between July 2024 and June 2025, it spoke to 57 civilians who were detained in the occupied regions, and that 52 of them told of severe beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, degradation and threats of violence.

One particularly famous case is that of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, 27, who disappeared in 2023 while reporting near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and died in Russian custody. When her body was handed over to Ukraine in 2025, it bore signs of torture, with some of her organs removed, a prosecutor said.

“Russia uses terror in the occupied territories to physically eliminate active people working in certain fields: teachers, children’s writers, musicians, mayors, journalists, environmentalists. It also intimidates the passive majority,” Matviichuk says.

Destruction in Mariupol

At the start of the war, Russian forces besieged Mariupol before the port city fell in May 2022. The Russian bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater on March 16 of that year killed close to 600 people in and around the building, an AP investigation found, in the single deadliest known attack against civilians in the war.

Most of the city’s population of about a half-million fled but many hid in basements, said a former actor who huddled for months with his parents, saying they were nearly killed by the Russian bombing.

The former actor, now in Estonia, spoke on condition of anonymity to not endanger his 76-year-old parents, still in Mariupol. They had to take Russian citizenship to get medical care, as well as a one-time payment equivalent to $1,300 per person as compensation for their destroyed home, he said.

As in other occupied cities, Russification is taking place in Mariupol, changing street names, teaching Moscow-approved curriculum in schools, using Russian phone and TV networks and putting the city in Moscow’s time zone.

“But even today, the threat of death has not gone away. Only those who have Russian passports can survive,″ the former actor said, adding that his parents have asked him not to send postcards in Ukrainian because “it could be dangerous.”

Putin “openly states that there is no Ukrainian language, no Ukrainian culture, no Ukrainian nation. And in the occupied territories, these words are turning into terrible practice,” Matviichuk said.

A view inside Mariupol’s Drama Theater on Monday, April 4, 2022, after the landmark was heavily damaged during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces that led to Moscow’s takeover of the seaside city. (AP Photo, File)

But not everyone opposes the Russian takeover in Mariupol. The former actor says half of the members of his old troupe now support the Kremlin and believe Kyiv “provoked the war.”

Housing is a sore point in Mariupol, where the population is about half of what it was before 2022. New apartment blocks rose from the ruins, but rather than going to those who lost their homes, they are sold to Russian newcomers.

Some who lost their homes have made video appeals to Putin. “You said we ‘don’t abandon our own.’ Do we not count as your own?” said one resident at a mass rally.

At least 12,191 apartments in Mariupol were added to a list of purportedly “ownerless” and abandoned flats to be expropriated in the first half of 2025. Thousands more are being seized elsewhere.

Moscow is encouraging Russian citizens to move to the occupied regions, offering a range of benefits. Teachers, doctors and cultural workers are promised salary supplements if they commit to living there for five years.

Crumbling infrastructure and a shortage of doctors

Years of war and neglect have saddled many occupied cities in eastern Ukraine with serious problems in supplying heat, electricity and water.

The northeastern city of Sievierodonetsk suffered significant destruction before falling to Russia in June 2022. Once home to 140,000 people, only 45,000 remain, mostly elderly or disabled.

Only one ambulance crew serves the whole city, and doctors and other health workers rotate in from Russian regions like Perm to work at its hospital, said a 67-year-old former engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

But she still supports “the great work Putin is doing,” because she was born and raised in the former Soviet Union.

In Alchevsk, a city in the Luhansk region, over half the homes have been without heat for two bitterly cold months. Five warming stations have been set up and utility companies said over 60% of municipal heating networks are in poor shape, without funds for repairs.

Even a pro-Moscow politician, Oleg Tsaryov, has accused authorities of freezing “an entire city.” When the heating system failed in 2006, he noted on social media that Ukrainian authorities “and the entire country stepped in to help and completely replaced the faulty equipment.” But after the Russian takeover, officials had “contrived to repeat this Armageddon scenario all over again,” he added.

In the Donetsk region, water trucks fill barrels outside apartment blocks — but they freeze solid in winter, said a resident who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions.

“There’s constant squabbling over water,” she said, adding that lines to get the precious resource are “insane,” and people who are away at work often miss the trucks’ arrival.

A woman gets drinking water distributed by authorities in the city of Donetsk in the Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine, on Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo)

Donetsk residents wrote an appeal for Putin to intervene in what has become “a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe.”

Putin last year acknowledged the plight in the four regions.

“I know how difficult it is now for the residents of the liberated cities and towns. There are many truly pressing, urgent problems,” he said, marking the third anniversary of incorporating those areas into Russia. He cited the need for reliable water supplies and access to health care, among other issues, and said he has launched a “large-scale socioeconomic development program” for the regions.

Meanwhile, Inna Vnukova is building a new life in Estonia: She and Oleksii now have a 1-year-old daughter, Alisa. Their son is now 20.

Only about 150 people — including the couple’s parents — remain in the village that once was home to 800, Vnukova said, adding that she would like to show her daughter the family’s native Luhansk region someday.

“We’ve been dreaming of returning for four years, but we increasingly wonder — what will we see there?” she asked.

—-

Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of “tremendous interest.”

Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former President Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real.

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Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “I don’t know if they’re real or not,” and said of Obama, “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”

In a post on his social media platform Thursday night, Trump said he was directing government agencies to release files related “to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters.”

Obama, who made his comments in a podcast appearance over the weekend, later clarified that he had not seen evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” but said, “statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there.”

Trump told reporters Thursday that when it came to the prospect of extraterrestrial visitors: “I don’t have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do. A lot of people believe it.”

Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump suggested this week that he was ready to speak about it, however, when she said on a podcast that the president had a speech prepared to deliver on aliens that he would give at the “right time.”

That was news to the White House. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with a laugh when she was asked about it Wednesday and told reporters, “A speech on aliens would be news to me.”

Public interest in unidentified flying objects and the possibility of the government hiding secrets of extraterrestrial life remerged in the public consciousness after a group of former Pentagon and government officials leaked Navy videos of unknown objects to The New York Times and Politico in 2017. The renewed scrutiny prompted Congress to hold the first hearings on UFOs in 50 years in May 2022, though officials said that the objects, which appeared to be green triangles floating above a Navy ship, were likely drones.

Since then the Pentagon has promised more transparency on the topic. In July 2022 it created the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, which was intended to be a central place to collect reports of all military UFO encounters, taking over from a department task force.

In 2023, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the head of AARO at the time, told reporters he didn’t have any evidence “of any program having ever existed as a to do any sort of reverse engineering of any sort of extraterrestrial (unidentified aerial phenomena).”

The information that has been made public shows that the vast majority of UFO reports made by the military go unsolved but the ones that are identified are largely benign in nature.

An 18-page unclassified report submitted to Congress in June 2024 said service members had made 485 reports of unidentified phenomena in the past year but 118 cases were found to be “prosaic objects such as various types of balloons, birds, and unmanned aerial systems.”

“It is important to underscore that, to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity, or technology,” the report stressed.

Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Steve Peoples contributed to this report.