By Lauren Schwahn, NerdWallet

It’s a challenging time for small businesses.

A majority of small businesses – 59% — cited financial uncertainty as the biggest challenge they’re facing. Business owners were surveyed as part of the May 2025 Small Business Economic Report from the National Small Business Association.

It’s difficult for businesses to plan around changing tariffs, tax policies and consumer spending shifts, says Elizabeth Gore, co-founder of Hello Alice, a platform that connects small businesses with grants and resources.

“There’s just so much up in the air,” she says.

Amid these pressures, consumers want to do their part. An April 2025 NerdWallet survey found that 84% of Americans say it’s important to them to support small businesses.

But many consumers are concerned about their own financial situations.

So how can you scale back spending while still supporting small businesses?

Build small businesses into your budget

Try earmarking money specifically for small businesses.

As you’re planning monthly expenses, ask yourself what’s most important to you, says Alvin Carlos, a certified financial planner and founder of District Capital Management in Washington, D.C.

Then, you can pinpoint the businesses you want to prioritize.

“Maybe you say, ‘I like going to local theaters’ or ‘I like to dine out once a week,’” Carlos says.

Review your income and fixed expenses to find out how much you can comfortably spend on entertainment, dining and other categories.

Look at your recent credit card transactions and bank statements to help you learn what you typically spend and spot areas to trim.

Shift your spending strategy

Keeping your spending within budget may require you to rethink where you shop and what you buy.

Making fewer, higher-quality purchases from small businesses can save you money in the long run.

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For example, frequent clothing purchases from major retailers can add up. Instead, you could invest in a few well-made pieces from a local boutique or thrift store.

Swapping your daily coffee-chain latte for a twice-a-week cup at a local cafe could be another smart choice.

“These are your friends, your neighbors, your family members that are working in these businesses,” Gore says. “And usually you’re getting better products, better services and a better experience.”

Adjusting your habits can also help you save money at businesses you already frequent.

If dining at your favorite restaurant no longer fits your budget, look for ways to lower the cost rather than cut out the business completely. Getting takeout can reduce tipping costs, Carlos says.

Carlos also recommends following small businesses’ social media accounts to get information about loyalty programs, pop-up deals and other discounts.

Your local bakery, for example, may “want to get rid of their bread at 3 p.m., or their scones, and maybe you get 20% off,” he says.

Keep convenience in mind

Lending support doesn’t always mean overhauling your shopping behavior. In some cases, all it takes is a few clicks.

Many small businesses have an online presence, Gore says, making it easy to place orders and purchase gift cards. Seeing the total before you check out can help you stick to a budget.

It’s also possible to shop small through major platforms you probably already use, such as Amazon, Etsy and food delivery apps like DoorDash and Instacart.

“If you have a friend who’s sick, go through DoorDash and order from a local restaurant or a local cookie company and so on,” Gore says. “You can still use these macro corporate accounts to impact small business if that is an easier way for you to do it.”

Spread the word

There are plenty of free ways to help out small businesses, too. Making word-of-mouth referrals, sharing social media posts and tagging others in the comments can boost visibility and bring in new customers.

“Just taking a second and popping them on your Facebook, Instagram, your TikTok, that helps them so much to get more eyeballs,” Gore says.

Writing online reviews is another way to show love.

“As a small-business owner myself, I really appreciate it when someone writes me a Google review because it really helps my business,” Carlos says.

A little effort can make a big difference.

Lauren Schwahn writes for NerdWallet. Email: lschwahn@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lauren_schwahn.

The article How to Cut Spending Without Cutting Out Small Businesses originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By KRYSTA FAURIA, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For longtime Miley Cyrus fans, her ninth studio album is bound to live up to its name. It truly is “Something Beautiful.”

Over the years, the Grammy winner has demonstrated that she is unequivocally a pop star. She’s also a dedicated student of contemporary music history and various genres, something she’s made clear through her love of performing cover songs and across her diverse discography (lest anyone forget her 2020 glam rock-inspired concept album, “Plastic Hearts”).

On “Something Beautiful,” Cyrus proves that she is most in her element musically when firmly holding onto those myriad identities, weaving together an inventive tapestry of pop, rock, electronic, disco and even funk — like in the album’s soulful, heartache anthem, “Easy Lover.”

This album cover image released by Columbia Records shows “Something Beautiful” by Miley Cyrus. (Columbia Records via AP)

Most of Cyrus’ album comprises ABBA-channeling earworms; “End of the World” has a piano riff that screams “Dancing Queen.” But she balances ’70s nostalgia with belting vocals and wide-ranging instrumentation throughout. Cyrus arguably hasn’t had this kind of sonic variation on a record since 2010’s “Can’t Be Tamed.”

“Something Beautiful” is accompanied by a musical film of the same name, which will premiere in June at the Tribeca Film Festival. The aptly named first track, “Prelude,” is a narrated introduction, which gives the wrong impression that the album only serves as a score to the film. It stands on its own.

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That’s because most of the 13 tracks reflect Cyrus’s work over the past two decades. “More To Lose,” for example, is a big-hearted ballad that sounds like it could have been featured on a “Hannah Montana” soundtrack, though her vocals and musical sensibilities have matured. “Walk of Fame” — her upbeat collaboration with Brittany Howard — also harks back to her early discography, reminiscent of songs like “Liberty Walk” and “Scars” on “Can’t Be Tamed.”

Cyrus draws on other past eras too, like in “Pretend You’re God,” which evokes the psychedelic sound of her 2015 album, “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz.”

The album does benefit from a newfound sense of structure, perhaps from the presumed guardrails in place by the accompanying film. Where Cyrus has previously struggled to fit certain songs, especially ballads, into the context of her previous albums — the stripped-down “Wonder Woman” felt arbitrarily tacked onto the otherwise elaborate “Endless Summer Vacation,” for example — there is a continuity throughout “Something Beautiful” in its eclecticism.

There’s an electronic, energetic pivot toward the second half of the album, specifically in the tracks “Reborn” and “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved.” The latter sounds strikingly like something Lady Gaga would have put on “Born This Way.” Coincidentally, there is a narrator on the song who sounds eerily like Gaga.

In many ways, the record is a return to form for the 32-year-old, whose pop reputation has always been in tension with her interest in other genres. But she also demonstrates, through those electronic songs in particular, how her sound has evolved and expanded over time.

By SAMY MAGDY and BASSEM MROUE

CAIRO (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Mohammed Sinwar, believed to be the head of Hamas’ armed wing, has been killed, apparently confirming his death in a recent strike in the Gaza Strip. There was no confirmation from Hamas.

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Sinwar is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who helped mastermind the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the Israel-Hamas war, and who was killed by Israeli forces in October 2024. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Israeli strikes have decimated Hamas’ leadership during the 19-month war, and Mohammed Sinwar was one of the last widely known leaders still alive in Gaza. But the group has maintained its rule over the parts of Gaza not seized by Israel. It still holds dozens of hostages and carries out sporadic attacks on Israeli forces.

As the head of Hamas’ armed wing, Sinwar would have had the final word on any agreement to release the hostages, and his death could further complicate U.S. and Arab efforts to broker a ceasefire. Israel has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas has been either defeated or disarmed and sent into exile.

Mentioned in passing

Netanyahu mentioned the killing of Sinwar in a speech before parliament in which he listed the names of other top Hamas leaders killed during the war. “We have killed ten of thousands of terrorists. We killed (Mohammed) Deif, (Ismail) Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Sinwar,” he said.

Netanyahu did not elaborate. Israeli media had reported that the younger Sinwar was the target of a May 13 strike on what the military said was a Hamas command center beneath the European Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Sinwars’ hometown. The military declined to comment on whether Sinwar had been targeted or killed.

At least six people were killed in the strike and 40 wounded, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at the time.

A Hamas veteran

Mohammed Sinwar was born in 1975 in the urban Khan Younis refugee camp. His family was among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. The refugees and their descendants today make up the majority of Gaza’s population.

Like his older brother, Yahya, the younger Sinwar joined Hamas after it was founded in the late 1980s as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He became a member of the group’s military wing, known as the Qassam Brigades.

He rose through the ranks to become a member of its so-called joint chiefs of staff, bringing him close to its longtime commander, Deif, who was killed in a strike last year.

Mohammed Sinwar was one of the planners of a 2006 cross-border attack on an Israeli army post. In that attack, combatants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who was held for five years and later exchanged for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar.

In an interview with Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV aired three years ago, Mohammed Sinwar said that when Hamas threatens Israel, “we know how to specify the location that hurts the occupation and how to press them.”

Hamas has said that Mohammed Sinwar was targeted by Israel on several occasions and was briefly believed to have been killed in 2014. He is said to have been one of a handful of top commanders who knew about the Oct. 7 attack in advance.

In December 2023, the Israeli military released a video it said showed a bearded Mohammed Sinwar sitting next to a driver in a car as it moved inside a tunnel in the Gaza Strip. Hamas never confirmed what would be one of the few public images of him.

Mroue reported from Beirut.

By The Associated Press

A German court ruled against a Peruvian farmer Wednesday in a landmark case that claimed global warming fueled by energy company RWE ‘s historical greenhouse gas emissions put his home at risk.

Farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya said glaciers above his hometown of Huaraz are melting, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding.

RWE, which has never operated in Peru, denied legal responsibility, arguing that climate change is a global issue caused by many contributors.

Experts said the case had the potential to set a significant precedent in the fight to hold major polluters accountable for climate change.

Here’s a look at other climate cases being watched closely:

An environmental group has asked the Dutch Supreme Court to uphold a landmark lower court ruling that ordered energy company Shell to cut carbon emissions by net 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.

That ruling was overturned in November by an appeals court — a defeat for the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups, which had hailed the original 2021 ruling as a victory for the climate.

Climate activists have scored several courtroom victories, including in 2015, when a court in The Hague ordered the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels. The Dutch Supreme Court upheld that ruling five years ago.

The United Nations’ top court held two weeks of hearings in December into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its impacts.

The case was spurred by a group of island nations that fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, prompting the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”

Any decision in the case, the largest in the court’s history, would be non-binding advice and could not directly force wealthy nations to act, though it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.

In another advisory opinion requested by small island nations, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea last year said carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and countries must take steps to mitigate and adapt to their adverse effects.

Colombia and Chile are awaiting an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on whether countries are responsible for climate change harms and, if so, what their obligations are to respond on human rights grounds.

A four-day hearing was held this month in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and an opinion is expected by the end of the year.

Much of the testimony focused on indigenous rights in Latin America, including whether industries violate their rights to life and to defend their land from environmental harm.

Dozens of U.S. states and local governments have filed lawsuits alleging that fossil fuel companies misled the public about how their products could contribute to climate change, claiming billions of dollars in damage from more frequent and intense storms, flooding, rising seas and extreme heat.

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In March the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in 19 states aimed at blocking climate change suits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states.

And state supreme courts in Massachusetts, Hawaii and Colorado have rejected attempts by oil companies to dismiss lawsuits, allowing them to proceed in lower courts.

Even so, the Department of Justice recently sued Hawaii and Michigan to prevent the states from seeking damages from fossil fuel companies in state court for harms caused by climate change. The DOJ also sued New York and Vermont, challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.