Things To Do In SW Florida

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials agreed earlier this month to hold off on any interest-rate moves while they evaluated the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on inflation, unemployment, and the broader economy.

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  How to cut spending without cutting out small businesses

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  Sanford airport adds low-cost carrier offering direct flights to Dominican Republic

According to minutes from their May 6-7 meeting, released Wednesday, “almost all” of the 19 officials that participate in the Fed’s meetings on policy saw a risk that “inflation could prove to be more persistent than expected.” The policymakers showed greater concerns about higher inflation than rising unemployment, the minutes showed, a key reason they left rates unchanged. read more

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. read more

A low-cost airline is expanding its U.S. footprint to Sanford, where starting this fall it will offer service to the Dominican Republic as the airport’s first new carrier since 2021.

Arajet, based in the Dominican Republic, will on Oct. 26 begin direct flights three times a week between Orlando Sanford International Airport and Punta Cana International Airport. Tickets went on sale Wednesday with fares to Punta Cana starting at $138 per person and $162 back to Sanford.

“People are screaming for lower fares,” said Victor Pacheco Mendes, who founded Arajet in 2022 and is chief executive officer. “And we’re going to deliver. … We saw a huge need for lower fares in the [Central Florida] region — but not a cheap product.”

Located about 45 miles northeast of Walt Disney World, the Sanford airport has long sat in the shadow of the much-larger Orlando International Airport — which has about 40 airlines and handled more than 57 million passengers last year, making it one of the busiest airfields in the country. read more

By MELINA WALLING, ANNIKA HAMMERSCHLAG and JOSHUA A. BICKEL

GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — Just steps from the porticos, patios, clay-tiled roofs and manicured lawns of suburbia, Kelly Saxer has gotten used to questions. As she weaves through tomato vines, snaps asparagus and generally gets her hands dirty, visitors and even some nearby residents want to know what she’s doing — and how the farm where she works wound up here.

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“Sometimes it feels like we’re animals in a zoo a little bit because people will walk by and they’ll just stare, you know, like gawk at us,” Saxer said. read more

By ALAN SUDERMAN, AP Business Writer

The headline-grabbing tale of an Italian man who said he was kidnapped and tortured for weeks inside an upscale Manhattan townhouse by captors seeking his bitcoin highlights a dark corner of the cryptocurrency world: the threat of violence by thieves seeking digital assets.

The alleged attempted robbery is known as a “wrench attack.” It’s a name popularized by an online comic that mocked how easily high-tech security can be undone by hitting someone with a wrench until they give up passwords.

Wrench attacks are on the rise thanks in part to cryptocurrency’s move into mainstream finance, Phil Ariss of the crypto tracing firm TRM Labs said in a recent blog post.

“Criminal groups already comfortable with using violence to achieve their goals were always likely to migrate to crypto,” Ariss said.

Some of the crypto’s key characteristics help explain why wealthy individuals who hold a lot of digital assets can be ripe targets for such attacks.

The draw

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin offer traders full control of their funds without the need for a bank or permission from a government to buy, sell or hold it. The trade-off is that if funds are lost or stolen, there can be no way to get them back. read more