U.S. small-business confidence and hiring plans increased in May to their highest levels of the year, but the looming U.S. presidential election also drove uncertainty to nearly a four-year high, a survey showed on Tuesday.

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said its Small Business Optimism Index rose eight-tenths of a point to 90.5 last month, the second consecutive month it has risen after slumping in March to the lowest level since December 2012.

Forget the drive-thru. Walmart wants diners to find a value meal in its grocery aisles.

As fast food gets pricier, the nation’s largest grocer sees a sales opportunity.

On a call with CNBC on Thursday, Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said some of the discounter’s sales growth in the recent quarter came from customers who turned to its grocery aisles for cheaper meals than they can get at quick-service restaurants.

“It’s roughly 4.3 times more expensive to eat out than it is to eat at home,” he said. “And that’s benefiting our business.”

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to cut their US transaction fees in a landmark settlement that merchants say will save them $30bn over five years.

The deal, announced on Tuesday, will require the payments companies to lower the so-called swipe fees they charge sellers over the next five years.

It will also allow merchants to charge different prices to consumers based on which credit card they use.

The settlement does not include a requirement for merchants to pass on the savings from lower fees to consumers.

Visa and Mastercard on Tuesday reached a landmark $30 billion settlement that will limit credit and debit card fees for merchants, with some savings likely to be passed on to consumers.

The antitrust settlement is one of the largest in US history, and upon court approval would resolve claims in litigation that began in 2005.

Merchants have accused Visa and Mastercard of charging inflated swipe fees, or interchange fees, when shoppers use their credit or debit cards.

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to cut and cap credit card processing fees as a part of a major settlement with merchants after decades of litigation.

Why it matters: U.S. businesses are expected to save at least $29.8 billion in the five-year deal, according to attorneys who represented the plaintiffs in the class-action settlement.

Merchants will have more flexibility to adjust how much they charge consumers for goods sold via credit card.

A doctor's office, a winery, a bistro. A dentist, a painter, a realtor.

Those are just some of the small businesses in the Pittsburgh area that will lose their websites Friday when Google ends a web service it launched in 2017 to give business owners free landing pages.

For the next three months, links for the pages will route back to their owners’ profiles. After that they will return a "page not found” error, Google announced earlier this year. The tech giant encouraged small businesses to build new sites with tools like Wix, Squarespace and GoDaddy.

Thousands of Black, Latino and other minority business owners are scrambling to prove that their race puts them at a “social disadvantage” after a federal judge declared a key provision of a popular Small Business Administration (SBA) program unconstitutional, extending the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent retreat from affirmative action.

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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Derrick Johnson rebuffed a CNN anchor who listed statistics about Florida being a good state for minority business owners Monday.

The NAACP issued a travel warning for Florida on Saturday, claiming the state “devalues and marginalizes” issues facing “communities of color.”

Small businesses impacted by the current economic tumult are filing for bankruptcy at levels last witnessed at the outset of the lockdown-induced recession, even as President Joe Biden touts an uptick in new business ventures.