By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/nebraska-gets-87-7-million-in-additional-funds-for-broadband-expansion/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Nebraska is getting an 
additional $87.7 million for its so-called Broadband Bridge program to 
improve high-speed internet services across the state.

The U.S. Department of Treasury announced the award Tuesday. The 
funding is part of the American Rescue Plan Act and part of President 
Joe Biden’s push to improve broadband coverage.

The new funding for Nebraska is estimated to serve 21,000 households 
and provide high-speed internet service to 23% of the households now 
lacking it.

Dan Watermeier, the chairman of the Nebraska Public Service 
Commission, said the PSC is working with the Nebraska Department of 
Economic Development to administer the new funds.

“This new funding along with what is currently in place will make a 
big impact on helping to provide broadband to the unserved and 
underserved areas of our state,” Watermeier said.

The Nebraska Legislature had previously allocated $20 million to the 
Broadband Bridge program. This spring, lawmakers added an additional $80
 million in ARPA funds for high-speed internet expansion in the state’s 
1st and 3rd Congressional Districts.

The goal of the state’s Broadband Bridge program is to provide 
high-speed internet service, defined as 100 Mbps upload speed and 100 
download speed, in un- and underserved areas of Nebraska.

Kate Ellingson, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Economic
 Development, said applications for the new broadband funds will be 
taken at a later date.

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/nebraska-gets-87-7-million-in-additional-funds-for-broadband-expansion/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Nebraska is getting an 
additional $87.7 million for its so-called Broadband Bridge program to 
improve high-speed internet services across the state.The U.S. Department of Treasury announced the award Tuesday. The 
funding is part of the American Rescue Plan Act and part of President 
Joe Biden’s push to improve broadband coverage.The new funding for Nebraska is estimated to serve 21,000 households 
and provide high-speed internet service to 23% of the households now 
lacking it.Dan Watermeier, the chairman of the Nebraska Public Service 
Commission, said the PSC is working with the Nebraska Department of 
Economic Development to administer the new funds.“This new funding along with what is currently in place will make a 
big impact on helping to provide broadband to the unserved and 
underserved areas of our state,” Watermeier said.The Nebraska Legislature had previously allocated $20 million to the 
Broadband Bridge program. This spring, lawmakers added an additional $80
 million in ARPA funds for high-speed internet expansion in the state’s 
1st and 3rd Congressional Districts.The goal of the state’s Broadband Bridge program is to provide 
high-speed internet service, defined as 100 Mbps upload speed and 100 
download speed, in un- and underserved areas of Nebraska.Kate Ellingson, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Economic
 Development, said applications for the new broadband funds will be 
taken at a later date.

Nebraska gets $87.7M in additional funds for broadband expansion

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Wednesday authorized its first update to COVID-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days.

The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5">saved millions</a>&nbsp;of lives. The hope is that the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-cd39872e31c490cb92c7678a8de83499">modified boosters</a>&nbsp;will blunt yet another winter surge.

“You’ll see me at the front of the line,” FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told The Associated Press shortly before his agency cleared the new doses.

Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new U.S. boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, that are considered the most contagious yet.

The combination aims to increase cross-protection against multiple variants.

“It really provides the broadest opportunity for protection,” Pfizer vaccine chief Annaliesa Anderson told the AP.

The updated boosters are only for people who have already had their primary vaccinations, using the original vaccines. Doses made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are for anyone 12 and older while Moderna's updated shots are for adults — if it has been at least two months since their last primary vaccination or their latest booster. They're not to be used for initial vaccinations.

There’s one more step before a fall booster campaign begins: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must recommend who should get the additional shot. An influential CDC advisory panel will debate the evidence Thursday — including whether people at high risk from COVID-19 should go first.

“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants," FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement.

The U.S. has purchased more than 170 million doses from the two companies. Pfizer said it could ship up to 15 million of those doses by the end of next week.

The big question is whether people weary of vaccinations will roll up their sleeves again. Just half of vaccinated Americans got the first recommended booster dose, and only a third of those 50 and older who were urged to get a second booster did so.

It’s time for U.S. authorities to better explain that the public should expect an updated COVID-19 vaccination every so often, just like getting a fall flu shot or a tetanus booster after stepping on a rusty nail, said University of Pennsylvania immunologist E. John Wherry.

“We need to rebrand it in a societally normal-looking way,” rather than a panicked response to new mutants, Wherry said. “Give a clear, forward-looking set of expectations.”

Here’s the rub: The original vaccines still offer strong protection against severe disease and death from COVID-19 for most generally healthy people, especially if they got that important first booster dose. It’s not clear just how much more benefit an updated booster will bring — beyond a temporary jump in antibodies capable of fending off an omicron infection.

One reason: The FDA cleared the modifications ahead of studies in people, a step toward eventually handling COVID-19 vaccine updates more like yearly flu shots.

First, FDA checked human studies of earlier Pfizer and Moderna attempts to update their vaccines — shots matching the omicron strain that struck last winter. That recipe change was safe, and substantially boosted antibodies targeting the earlier variant — better than another dose of the original vaccine — while adding a little protection against today's genetically distinct BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions.

But FDA&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-3742cacfc9c102e9748cd8ff17036db6">ordered the companies</a>&nbsp;to brew even more up-to-date doses that target those newest omicron mutants instead, sparking a race to roll out shots in less than three months. Rather than waiting a few more months for additional human studies of that recipe tweak, Marks said animal tests showed the latest update spurs “a very good immune response.”

The hope, he said, is that a vaccine matched to currently spreading variants might do a better job fighting infection, not just serious illness, at least for a while.

What's next? Even as modified shots roll out, Moderna and Pfizer are conducting human studies to help assess their value, including how they hold up if a new mutant comes along.

And for children, Pfizer plans to ask FDA to allow updated boosters for 5- to 11-year-olds in early October.

It’s the first U.S. update to the COVID-19 vaccine recipe, an important but expected next step -- like how flu vaccines get updated every year.

And the U.S. isn’t alone.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-bbda6ba6107b3c839e42925136007fed">Britain</a>&nbsp;recently decided to offer adults over 50 a different booster option from Moderna, a combo shot targeting that initial BA.1 omicron strain. European regulators are considering whether to authorize one or both of the updated formulas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Wednesday authorized its first update to COVID-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days.The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-england-54d29ae3af5c700f15d704c14ee224b5">saved millions</a>&nbsp;of lives. The hope is that the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-cd39872e31c490cb92c7678a8de83499">modified boosters</a>&nbsp;will blunt yet another winter surge.“You’ll see me at the front of the line,” FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told The Associated Press shortly before his agency cleared the new doses.Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new U.S. boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, that are considered the most contagious yet.The combination aims to increase cross-protection against multiple variants.“It really provides the broadest opportunity for protection,” Pfizer vaccine chief Annaliesa Anderson told the AP.The updated boosters are only for people who have already had their primary vaccinations, using the original vaccines. Doses made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are for anyone 12 and older while Moderna's updated shots are for adults — if it has been at least two months since their last primary vaccination or their latest booster. They're not to be used for initial vaccinations.There’s one more step before a fall booster campaign begins: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must recommend who should get the additional shot. An influential CDC advisory panel will debate the evidence Thursday — including whether people at high risk from COVID-19 should go first.“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants," FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a statement.The U.S. has purchased more than 170 million doses from the two companies. Pfizer said it could ship up to 15 million of those doses by the end of next week.The big question is whether people weary of vaccinations will roll up their sleeves again. Just half of vaccinated Americans got the first recommended booster dose, and only a third of those 50 and older who were urged to get a second booster did so.It’s time for U.S. authorities to better explain that the public should expect an updated COVID-19 vaccination every so often, just like getting a fall flu shot or a tetanus booster after stepping on a rusty nail, said University of Pennsylvania immunologist E. John Wherry.“We need to rebrand it in a societally normal-looking way,” rather than a panicked response to new mutants, Wherry said. “Give a clear, forward-looking set of expectations.”Here’s the rub: The original vaccines still offer strong protection against severe disease and death from COVID-19 for most generally healthy people, especially if they got that important first booster dose. It’s not clear just how much more benefit an updated booster will bring — beyond a temporary jump in antibodies capable of fending off an omicron infection.One reason: The FDA cleared the modifications ahead of studies in people, a step toward eventually handling COVID-19 vaccine updates more like yearly flu shots.First, FDA checked human studies of earlier Pfizer and Moderna attempts to update their vaccines — shots matching the omicron strain that struck last winter. That recipe change was safe, and substantially boosted antibodies targeting the earlier variant — better than another dose of the original vaccine — while adding a little protection against today's genetically distinct BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions.But FDA&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-3742cacfc9c102e9748cd8ff17036db6">ordered the companies</a>&nbsp;to brew even more up-to-date doses that target those newest omicron mutants instead, sparking a race to roll out shots in less than three months. Rather than waiting a few more months for additional human studies of that recipe tweak, Marks said animal tests showed the latest update spurs “a very good immune response.”The hope, he said, is that a vaccine matched to currently spreading variants might do a better job fighting infection, not just serious illness, at least for a while.What's next? Even as modified shots roll out, Moderna and Pfizer are conducting human studies to help assess their value, including how they hold up if a new mutant comes along.And for children, Pfizer plans to ask FDA to allow updated boosters for 5- to 11-year-olds in early October.It’s the first U.S. update to the COVID-19 vaccine recipe, an important but expected next step -- like how flu vaccines get updated every year.And the U.S. isn’t alone.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-bbda6ba6107b3c839e42925136007fed">Britain</a>&nbsp;recently decided to offer adults over 50 a different booster option from Moderna, a combo shot targeting that initial BA.1 omicron strain. European regulators are considering whether to authorize one or both of the updated formulas.___

US clears updated boosters targeting newest COVID variants

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday that classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from former President Donald Trump’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">Mar-a-Lago estate</a>&nbsp;as part of an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into the discovery of the government records.

<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22272789/doj-response-to-trump-special-master.pdf">CLICK HERE to read</a>&nbsp;the full response from the Department of Justice

The FBI also seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified records during its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and found classified documents stashed in Trump’s office,&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_1.pdf" target="_blank">according to a filing</a>&nbsp;that lays out the most detailed chronology to date of months of strained interactions between Justice Department officials and Trump representatives over the discovery of government secrets.

The filing offers yet another indication of the sheer volume of classified records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. It shows how investigators conducting a criminal probe have focused not just on why the records were improperly stored there, but also on the question of whether the Trump team intentionally misled them about the continued, and unlawful, presence of the top secret documents.

The timeline laid out by the Justice Department made clear that the extraordinary search of Mar-a-Lago came only after other efforts to retrieve the records had failed, and that it resulted from law enforcement suspicion that additional documents remained inside the property despite assurances by Trump representatives that a “diligent search” had accounted for all of the material.

It also included a picture of some of the seized documents bearing clear classification markings, perhaps as a way to rebut suggestions that whoever packed them or was handling them could have easily failed to appreciate their sensitive nature.

The photo shows the cover pages of a smattering of paperclip-bound classified documents — some marked as “TOP SECRET//SCI” with bright yellow borders, and one marked as “SECRET//SCI” with a rust-colored border — along with whited-out pages, splayed out on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago. Beside them sits a cardboard box filled with gold-framed pictures, including a Time magazine cover.

Though it contains significant new details on the investigation, the Justice Department filing does not resolve a core question that has driven public fascination with the investigation — why Trump held onto the documents after he left the White House and why he and his team resisted repeated efforts to give them back. In fact, it suggests officials may not have received an answer.

During a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago by FBI and Justice Department officials, the document states, “Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the Fifteen Boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the Administration.”

That visit to Mar-a-Lago, which came weeks after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the records, receives substantial attention in the document and appears to be a key investigative focus.

Though Trump has said he had declassified all of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, his lawyers did not suggest that during the visit and instead “handled them in a manner that suggested counsel believed that the documents were classified,” according to the document.

FBI agents who went there to receive additional materials were given “a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents,” the filing states.

That envelope, according to the FBI, contained 38 unique documents with classification markings, including five documents marked confidential, 16 marked secret and 17 marked top secret.

During that visit, the document says, Trump’s lawyers told investigators that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location — a Mar-a-Lago storage room — and that “there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched.”

After that, though, the Justice Department, which had subpoenaed video footage for the property, “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” The filing does not identify the individuals who may have relocated the boxes.

In their August search, agents found classified documents both in the storage room as well as in the former president’s office — including three classified documents found not in boxes, but in office desks.

“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the document states.

It says, “In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.”

The investigation began from a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-criminal-investigations-government-and-politics-4ee554f467252929f96c70d42a93a05d">which recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January</a>&nbsp;that were found to contain 184 documents with classified markings, including top secret information.

The purpose of the Tuesday night filing was to oppose a request from the Trump legal team for a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-d99f53f65920b6d6dce16f8b02aabd13">special master</a>&nbsp;to review the documents seized during this month’s search and set aside those protected by claims of legal privilege. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is set to hear arguments on the matter on Thursday.

Cannon on Saturday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/florida-government-and-politics-1cc6c63010da10a19fb8cfc8595ffe38">said it was her “preliminary intent”</a>&nbsp;to appoint such a person but also gave the Justice Department an opportunity to respond.

On Monday, the department said it had already completed its review of potentially privileged documents and identified a “limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information.” It said Tuesday that a special master was therefore “unnecessary.”

In a separate development, the Trump legal team has grown with the addition of another attorney. Chris Kise, Florida’s former solicitor general, has joined the team of lawyers representing Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss the move by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Kise did not return messages seeking comment.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661941600753.jpeg" alt="This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. (Department of Justice via AP)" />
 <figcaption>This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. (Department of Justice via AP)</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday that classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from former President Donald Trump’s&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">Mar-a-Lago estate</a>&nbsp;as part of an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into the discovery of the government records.<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22272789/doj-response-to-trump-special-master.pdf">CLICK HERE to read</a>&nbsp;the full response from the Department of JusticeThe FBI also seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified records during its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago and found classified documents stashed in Trump’s office,&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.48.0_1.pdf" target="_blank">according to a filing</a>&nbsp;that lays out the most detailed chronology to date of months of strained interactions between Justice Department officials and Trump representatives over the discovery of government secrets.The filing offers yet another indication of the sheer volume of classified records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. It shows how investigators conducting a criminal probe have focused not just on why the records were improperly stored there, but also on the question of whether the Trump team intentionally misled them about the continued, and unlawful, presence of the top secret documents.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661953153908.png" alt="Trump statement on his social media Wednesday." />
 <figcaption>Trump statement on his social media Wednesday.</figcaption>
 </figure>The timeline laid out by the Justice Department made clear that the extraordinary search of Mar-a-Lago came only after other efforts to retrieve the records had failed, and that it resulted from law enforcement suspicion that additional documents remained inside the property despite assurances by Trump representatives that a “diligent search” had accounted for all of the material.It also included a picture of some of the seized documents bearing clear classification markings, perhaps as a way to rebut suggestions that whoever packed them or was handling them could have easily failed to appreciate their sensitive nature.The photo shows the cover pages of a smattering of paperclip-bound classified documents — some marked as “TOP SECRET//SCI” with bright yellow borders, and one marked as “SECRET//SCI” with a rust-colored border — along with whited-out pages, splayed out on a carpet at Mar-a-Lago. Beside them sits a cardboard box filled with gold-framed pictures, including a Time magazine cover.Though it contains significant new details on the investigation, the Justice Department filing does not resolve a core question that has driven public fascination with the investigation — why Trump held onto the documents after he left the White House and why he and his team resisted repeated efforts to give them back. In fact, it suggests officials may not have received an answer.During a June 3 visit to Mar-a-Lago by FBI and Justice Department officials, the document states, “Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the Fifteen Boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the Administration.”That visit to Mar-a-Lago, which came weeks after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the records, receives substantial attention in the document and appears to be a key investigative focus.Though Trump has said he had declassified all of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, his lawyers did not suggest that during the visit and instead “handled them in a manner that suggested counsel believed that the documents were classified,” according to the document.FBI agents who went there to receive additional materials were given “a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped in tape, containing the documents,” the filing states.That envelope, according to the FBI, contained 38 unique documents with classification markings, including five documents marked confidential, 16 marked secret and 17 marked top secret.During that visit, the document says, Trump’s lawyers told investigators that all the records that had come from the White House were stored in one location — a Mar-a-Lago storage room — and that “there were no other records stored in any private office space or other location at the Premises and that all available boxes were searched.”After that, though, the Justice Department, which had subpoenaed video footage for the property, “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” The filing does not identify the individuals who may have relocated the boxes.In their August search, agents found classified documents both in the storage room as well as in the former president’s office — including three classified documents found not in boxes, but in office desks.“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the document states.It says, “In some instances, even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.”The investigation began from a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-criminal-investigations-government-and-politics-4ee554f467252929f96c70d42a93a05d">which recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January</a>&nbsp;that were found to contain 184 documents with classified markings, including top secret information.The purpose of the Tuesday night filing was to oppose a request from the Trump legal team for a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-d99f53f65920b6d6dce16f8b02aabd13">special master</a>&nbsp;to review the documents seized during this month’s search and set aside those protected by claims of legal privilege. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is set to hear arguments on the matter on Thursday.Cannon on Saturday&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/florida-government-and-politics-1cc6c63010da10a19fb8cfc8595ffe38">said it was her “preliminary intent”</a>&nbsp;to appoint such a person but also gave the Justice Department an opportunity to respond.On Monday, the department said it had already completed its review of potentially privileged documents and identified a “limited set of materials that potentially contain attorney-client privileged information.” It said Tuesday that a special master was therefore “unnecessary.”In a separate development, the Trump legal team has grown with the addition of another attorney. Chris Kise, Florida’s former solicitor general, has joined the team of lawyers representing Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss the move by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Kise did not return messages seeking comment.

Read Justice Dept. response to Trump request for a special master

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Authorities in Virginia are investigating the fatal police shooting of a federal fugitive.

Virginia State Police said the shooting happened shortly before 10 p.m. Monday in Albemarle County after a law enforcement task force located Andrew T. Ainsworth, 60, who was wanted for a federal probation violation.

State police said Ainsworth sped away after officers tied to stop a Toyota pickup he was driving, and that a brief vehicle pursuit ended on the ramp from Fountaine Ave to the Route 29 Bypass.

As officers approached the Toyota, Ainsworth fired a gun from inside his vehicle, according to police. Three officers returned fire.

Ainsworth died at the scene. Authorities said a gun was recovered from inside the truck.

Ainsworth’s most recent address was Omaha, Nebraska, according to authorities. Online court records indicate that he has convictions for bank robberies in Nebraska, Minnesota, and New Mexico and has also been convicted of escape.

<a href="https://northplattepost.com/posts/2ddcec21-000f-4ace-b19e-4250120d6629">&nbsp;&nbsp;Download The Post app for iOs or Android</a>

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661946562823.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Authorities in Virginia are investigating the fatal police shooting of a federal fugitive.Virginia State Police said the shooting happened shortly before 10 p.m. Monday in Albemarle County after a law enforcement task force located Andrew T. Ainsworth, 60, who was wanted for a federal probation violation.State police said Ainsworth sped away after officers tied to stop a Toyota pickup he was driving, and that a brief vehicle pursuit ended on the ramp from Fountaine Ave to the Route 29 Bypass.As officers approached the Toyota, Ainsworth fired a gun from inside his vehicle, according to police. Three officers returned fire.Ainsworth died at the scene. Authorities said a gun was recovered from inside the truck.Ainsworth’s most recent address was Omaha, Nebraska, according to authorities. Online court records indicate that he has convictions for bank robberies in Nebraska, Minnesota, and New Mexico and has also been convicted of escape.<a href="https://northplattepost.com/posts/2ddcec21-000f-4ace-b19e-4250120d6629">&nbsp;&nbsp;Download The Post app for iOs or Android</a><figure>
 <img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/XLCC1pQLyNgrnDeIVi35SqjF6pT1sNXe26QLx_up_ZUj1H06wHxWBqpcSD6nw971WloMmxKx62WUwv-Qz9fhXOuYG4uJdCvAYRONIobyxH9N1Krw74bUA4pxrR3CXe_pFKPESnV_cxYldGvXx4xnYrRUKKo6WgmXP1tl8ZS2hRWHms24erpA7_fL" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>

Federal fugitive from Nebraska fatally shot by police in Virginia

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — President&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday railed against the “MAGA Republicans in Congress” who have refused to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and now are targeting the FBI as he tried to portray Democrats as the true pro-law enforcement party ahead of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections">November midterms</a>.

(click below to watch the President's speech)

In remarks initially billed as a crime-prevention speech, Biden seized on comments from allies of former President Donald Trump who have called for stripping funding from the FBI since it executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence. Biden’s remarks were the first substantive defense he has made of the FBI since the Aug. 8&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">search at Mar-a-Lago</a>, which triggered not just withering criticism of the agency but threats of violence against its employees.

“It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement and their families, for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” Biden said before a crowd of more than 500 at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. “I’m opposed to defunding the police; I’m also opposed to defunding the FBI.”

It was a notably different tack for Biden, who has steered clear of extensively commenting on any element of the Justice Department’s investigation since federal agents conducted the search at Trump’s estate. Biden also appeared to call out — without naming him — recent comments from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who warned of “riots in the streets” should Trump ultimately face prosecution.

“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” Biden said. “Where the hell are we?”

The speech Tuesday continued Biden’s aggressive rhetoric against the GOP ahead of the midterms, as Democrats enjoy a slightly brighter political environment buoyed by significant legislative accomplishments and a presidential approval rating that has trended slightly upward. During a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inflation-maryland-congress-f72f8363b9344a7cb2dd871409d77dba">political rally in the Washington suburbs</a>&nbsp;last week, Biden likened Republican ideology to “semi-fascism.” He is set to deliver a democracy-focused speech on Thursday in Philadelphia that the White House has said “will make clear” who is fighting for democratic values.

As he has done before, Biden on Tuesday criticized GOP officials who have refused to denounce the pro-Trump rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol nearly 20 months ago. Referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, Biden said, “Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don’t tell me you support the law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th.”

The campaign-style speech near Biden’s birthplace was the first of three visits by the president in less than a week to the state that is home to a competitive governor’s race and a U.S. Senate contest that could help determine whether Democrats will keep their majority in the chamber. Trump is hosting his own rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Democrats believe Pennsylvania is their strongest opportunity to flip a Senate seat currently held by Republicans. Meanwhile, the open race for governor will give the winner power over how 2024’s presidential election is run in a battleground state that is still buffeted by Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats fraudulently stole the 2020 election from him.

Biden’s comments on the FBI come as his son Hunter faces a federal investigation for tax evasion. He has not faced any charges, and he’s previously denied wrongdoing.

The president also used his remarks Tuesday to promote his administration’s crime-prevention efforts and to continue to pressure Congress to revive a long-expired federal ban on assault-style weapons. Democrats and Republicans worked together in a rare effort to pass&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-signs-gun-violence-bill-c21249287f976c2c164d8753205c2e6d">gun safety legislation</a>&nbsp;earlier this year after massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. They were the first significant firearm restrictions approved by Congress in nearly three decades, but Biden has repeatedly said more needs to be done.

“We beat the NRA. We took them on and beat the NRA straight up. You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials,” an animated Biden said. “We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country! Determined. I did it once before. And I’ll do it again.”

As a U.S. senator, Biden played a leading role in temporarily banning assault-style weapons, including firearms similar to the AR-15 that have exploded in popularity in recent years, and he wants to put the law back into place. Biden argued that there was no rationale for such weapons “outside of a war zone” and noted that parents of the young victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde had to supply DNA because the weapon used in the massacre rendered the bodies unidentifiable.

“DNA, to say that’s my baby!” Biden said. “What the hell is the matter with us?”

Democrats are trying to blunt Republican efforts to use concern about crime to their advantage in the midterms. It’s a particularly fraught issue in Pennsylvania, a key swing state.

The Republican candidate for governor,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-abortion-campaigns-presidential-election-2020-b261a2e8a1689f13c3c4ab756423da95">Doug Mastriano</a>, accuses Democrat&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-covid-health-campaigns-pennsylvania-a07131f0300273976ee3247da0b81e95">Josh Shapiro</a>&nbsp;of being soft on crime as the state’s twice-elected attorney general, saying Shapiro “stands aside” as homicides rise across Pennsylvania.

Homicides have been increasing in Pennsylvania, but overall crime seems to have fallen over the last year, according to state statistics.

“The real heroes here are the people who put on the uniform every single day,” said Shapiro, who spoke shortly before Biden’s remarks at Wilkes University. “We know that policing is a noble profession, and we know that we need to stand with law enforcement.”

In the U.S. Senate race, heart surgeon turned television celebrity Dr.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-campaigns-mehmet-oz-c5c184110eb41b1f607bee62940490e4">Mehmet Oz</a>, the Republican nominee, has tried to portray the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-mehmet-oz-0bfe47345d93ff1c73a5801d8527427f">John Fetterman</a>, as extreme and reckless on crime policy.

Fetterman has endorsed recommendations that more geriatric and rehabilitated prisoners can be released from state prisons without harming public safety. Oz and Republicans have distorted that into the claim that Fetterman wants to release “dangerous criminals” from prisons or that he’s in favor of “emptying prisons.”

Fetterman’s campaign on Tuesday released a new 30-second ad emphasizing that Fetterman — as mayor of the tiny, impoverished western Pennsylvania steel town of Braddock from 2006 through 2018 — has dealt with street-level crime, and Oz hasn’t. In the ad, Fetterman said he ran for mayor “to stop the violence” after two of his students in an afterschool program were murdered and “I worked side by side with police.”

Fetterman was not in Wilkes-Barre with Biden on Tuesday, but he’s expected to march in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade when the president visits Sept. 5. Biden also will be in Pennsylvania on Thursday for a prime-time speech that the White House said will address “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and defending democracy.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661905826981.png" alt="“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” Biden said. “Where the hell are we?” White House photo" />
 <figcaption>“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” Biden said. “Where the hell are we?” White House photo</figcaption>
 </figure>WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — President&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday railed against the “MAGA Republicans in Congress” who have refused to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol and now are targeting the FBI as he tried to portray Democrats as the true pro-law enforcement party ahead of the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections">November midterms</a>.(click below to watch the President's speech)<div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OJCyEehQIWQ?start=641" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>In remarks initially billed as a crime-prevention speech, Biden seized on comments from allies of former President Donald Trump who have called for stripping funding from the FBI since it executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida residence. Biden’s remarks were the first substantive defense he has made of the FBI since the Aug. 8&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">search at Mar-a-Lago</a>, which triggered not just withering criticism of the agency but threats of violence against its employees.“It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement and their families, for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” Biden said before a crowd of more than 500 at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania. “I’m opposed to defunding the police; I’m also opposed to defunding the FBI.”It was a notably different tack for Biden, who has steered clear of extensively commenting on any element of the Justice Department’s investigation since federal agents conducted the search at Trump’s estate. Biden also appeared to call out — without naming him — recent comments from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who warned of “riots in the streets” should Trump ultimately face prosecution.“The idea you turn on a television and see senior senators and congressmen saying, ‘If such and such happens there’ll be blood on the street’?” Biden said. “Where the hell are we?”The speech Tuesday continued Biden’s aggressive rhetoric against the GOP ahead of the midterms, as Democrats enjoy a slightly brighter political environment buoyed by significant legislative accomplishments and a presidential approval rating that has trended slightly upward. During a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-inflation-maryland-congress-f72f8363b9344a7cb2dd871409d77dba">political rally in the Washington suburbs</a>&nbsp;last week, Biden likened Republican ideology to “semi-fascism.” He is set to deliver a democracy-focused speech on Thursday in Philadelphia that the White House has said “will make clear” who is fighting for democratic values.As he has done before, Biden on Tuesday criticized GOP officials who have refused to denounce the pro-Trump rioters who breached the U.S. Capitol nearly 20 months ago. Referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, Biden said, “Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don’t tell me you support the law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th.”The campaign-style speech near Biden’s birthplace was the first of three visits by the president in less than a week to the state that is home to a competitive governor’s race and a U.S. Senate contest that could help determine whether Democrats will keep their majority in the chamber. Trump is hosting his own rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.Democrats believe Pennsylvania is their strongest opportunity to flip a Senate seat currently held by Republicans. Meanwhile, the open race for governor will give the winner power over how 2024’s presidential election is run in a battleground state that is still buffeted by Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats fraudulently stole the 2020 election from him.Biden’s comments on the FBI come as his son Hunter faces a federal investigation for tax evasion. He has not faced any charges, and he’s previously denied wrongdoing.The president also used his remarks Tuesday to promote his administration’s crime-prevention efforts and to continue to pressure Congress to revive a long-expired federal ban on assault-style weapons. Democrats and Republicans worked together in a rare effort to pass&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-signs-gun-violence-bill-c21249287f976c2c164d8753205c2e6d">gun safety legislation</a>&nbsp;earlier this year after massacres in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. They were the first significant firearm restrictions approved by Congress in nearly three decades, but Biden has repeatedly said more needs to be done.“We beat the NRA. We took them on and beat the NRA straight up. You have no idea how intimidating they are to elected officials,” an animated Biden said. “We’re not stopping here. I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country! Determined. I did it once before. And I’ll do it again.”As a U.S. senator, Biden played a leading role in temporarily banning assault-style weapons, including firearms similar to the AR-15 that have exploded in popularity in recent years, and he wants to put the law back into place. Biden argued that there was no rationale for such weapons “outside of a war zone” and noted that parents of the young victims at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde had to supply DNA because the weapon used in the massacre rendered the bodies unidentifiable.“DNA, to say that’s my baby!” Biden said. “What the hell is the matter with us?”Democrats are trying to blunt Republican efforts to use concern about crime to their advantage in the midterms. It’s a particularly fraught issue in Pennsylvania, a key swing state.The Republican candidate for governor,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-abortion-campaigns-presidential-election-2020-b261a2e8a1689f13c3c4ab756423da95">Doug Mastriano</a>, accuses Democrat&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-covid-health-campaigns-pennsylvania-a07131f0300273976ee3247da0b81e95">Josh Shapiro</a>&nbsp;of being soft on crime as the state’s twice-elected attorney general, saying Shapiro “stands aside” as homicides rise across Pennsylvania.Homicides have been increasing in Pennsylvania, but overall crime seems to have fallen over the last year, according to state statistics.“The real heroes here are the people who put on the uniform every single day,” said Shapiro, who spoke shortly before Biden’s remarks at Wilkes University. “We know that policing is a noble profession, and we know that we need to stand with law enforcement.”In the U.S. Senate race, heart surgeon turned television celebrity Dr.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-campaigns-mehmet-oz-c5c184110eb41b1f607bee62940490e4">Mehmet Oz</a>, the Republican nominee, has tried to portray the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-mehmet-oz-0bfe47345d93ff1c73a5801d8527427f">John Fetterman</a>, as extreme and reckless on crime policy.Fetterman has endorsed recommendations that more geriatric and rehabilitated prisoners can be released from state prisons without harming public safety. Oz and Republicans have distorted that into the claim that Fetterman wants to release “dangerous criminals” from prisons or that he’s in favor of “emptying prisons.”Fetterman’s campaign on Tuesday released a new 30-second ad emphasizing that Fetterman — as mayor of the tiny, impoverished western Pennsylvania steel town of Braddock from 2006 through 2018 — has dealt with street-level crime, and Oz hasn’t. In the ad, Fetterman said he ran for mayor “to stop the violence” after two of his students in an afterschool program were murdered and “I worked side by side with police.”Fetterman was not in Wilkes-Barre with Biden on Tuesday, but he’s expected to march in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade when the president visits Sept. 5. Biden also will be in Pennsylvania on Thursday for a prime-time speech that the White House said will address “the continued battle for the soul of the nation” and defending democracy.___

🎥Biden blasts ‘MAGA Republicans,’ ‘sickening’ attacks on FBI

Increase suggests youth shifting to substitutes for banned cartridges&nbsp;

The Federal Trade Commission’s <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/E-Cigarette%20Report%202019-20%20final.pdf">second report on e-cigarette sales and advertising nationwide</a>&nbsp;shows
 sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol e-cigarette 
cartridges surging dramatically in 2020. This significant increase, 
which coincides with a federal ban on the flavored cartridges popular 
with young smokers, suggests that youth e-cigarette use shifted to 
substitute products rather than declined. The report also found that the
 distribution of free and discounted e-cigarettes – a practice linked to
 a rise in youth smoking – reached record highs.

“This report shows that youth are still at 
risk from flavored or deeply discounted e-cigarettes,” said Samuel 
Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.&nbsp;“Marketers 
of e-cigarettes have proven skillful at evading FDA regulation and 
hooking youth on addictive products.” 

The FTC has been reporting on tobacco
 sales annually since 1967 and smokeless tobacco sales since 1987. Last 
year, the agency expanded its studies of industry and published its 
first-ever report on e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes or vaping devices are 
battery-operated devices that people use to inhale an aerosol, which 
typically contains nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals.&nbsp;The two 
main types of e-cigarettes are cartridges and disposables. Cartridges 
are rechargeable and designed to be used multiple times. Users generally
 replace the pre-filled cartridge when it is empty. Disposables are not 
rechargeable or refillable, and are thrown away once they run out of 
charge or e-liquid. 

This year’s e-cigarette report covers
 sales and advertising data from 2019 and 2020, a period in which the 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an enforcement 
policy banning the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges other than 
menthol. Overall, the report found that total e-cigarette sales, which 
had increased from $304.2 million in 2015 to $2.046 billion in 2018, 
grew to $2.703 billion in 2019, but then declined to $2.24 billion in 
2020. The FTC report notes that the 2020 decline may not represent the 
market given major industry shifts. Key findings in the report include:

The FTC’s report provides an 
important market snapshot of the impact of the FDA’s efforts to restrict
 harmful youth e-cigarette use and a roadmap for additional steps the 
FDA can take to combat youth addiction to nicotine. There is significant
 evidence that flavored e-cigarettes remain attractive for youth, 
increasing the serious potential for more American youth to become 
addicted to nicotine and its harmful effects on the human body. This 
report shows that partial bans on certain types of flavors for certain 
types of e-cigarettes are unlikely to be successful in achieving a 
reduction in youth addiction to nicotine via e-cigarette usage. 

The FTC also is concerned about price
 discounting practices for e-cigarettes. Studies indicate that consumers
 clearly respond to price changes for tobacco products – with younger 
smokers responding more strongly than their older counterparts. Such 
studies led the U.S. Surgeon General to conclude that price discounting 
has resulted in an increase in youth tobacco use. The FTC considers 
similar discounting in the price of e-cigarettes also concerning. FDA 
efforts to restrict free e-cigarette samples seem to have engendered an 
effort by e-cigarette manufacturers to circumvent the ban by offering 
record-high discounting and nearly free e-cigarette products.&nbsp; 

The Commission vote approving the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report and related data tables for 2019-20 was 5-0.

<h2>Increase suggests youth shifting to substitutes for banned cartridges&nbsp;</h2>FTCThe Federal Trade Commission’s <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/E-Cigarette%20Report%202019-20%20final.pdf">second report on e-cigarette sales and advertising nationwide</a>&nbsp;shows
 sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol e-cigarette 
cartridges surging dramatically in 2020. This significant increase, 
which coincides with a federal ban on the flavored cartridges popular 
with young smokers, suggests that youth e-cigarette use shifted to 
substitute products rather than declined. The report also found that the
 distribution of free and discounted e-cigarettes – a practice linked to
 a rise in youth smoking – reached record highs. “This report shows that youth are still at 
risk from flavored or deeply discounted e-cigarettes,” said Samuel 
Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.&nbsp;“Marketers 
of e-cigarettes have proven skillful at evading FDA regulation and 
hooking youth on addictive products.” The FTC has been reporting on tobacco
 sales annually since 1967 and smokeless tobacco sales since 1987. Last 
year, the agency expanded its studies of industry and published its 
first-ever report on e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes or vaping devices are 
battery-operated devices that people use to inhale an aerosol, which 
typically contains nicotine, flavorings, and other chemicals.&nbsp;The two 
main types of e-cigarettes are cartridges and disposables. Cartridges 
are rechargeable and designed to be used multiple times. Users generally
 replace the pre-filled cartridge when it is empty. Disposables are not 
rechargeable or refillable, and are thrown away once they run out of 
charge or e-liquid. This year’s e-cigarette report covers
 sales and advertising data from 2019 and 2020, a period in which the 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published an enforcement 
policy banning the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges other than 
menthol. Overall, the report found that total e-cigarette sales, which 
had increased from $304.2 million in 2015 to $2.046 billion in 2018, 
grew to $2.703 billion in 2019, but then declined to $2.24 billion in 
2020. The FTC report notes that the 2020 decline may not represent the 
market given major industry shifts. Key findings in the report include: <ul>
 <li>Significant shift to flavored disposable e-cigarettes: Publicly
 available sources indicate that the sale of disposable e-cigarettes – 
which are exempt from the FDA’s 2020 policy – increased substantially, 
with “other” flavored disposable products making up 77.6 percent of all 
disposables sold in December 2020. The FTC’s data did not show an 
increase in disposable sales. However, FTC’s data likely does not 
represent an accurate picture of the market for disposable e-cigarettes.
 Only two of the five companies submitting data for 2019-20 continued to
 market disposable e-cigarettes in 2020, and those that did provided 
more limited offerings. In order to improve the representativeness of 
its industry sales data for future FTC reports, the FTC recently sent 
orders to four additional e-cigarette companies. </li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Major increase in menthol cartridge sales:
 Similarly, the report found that the sale of the remaining 
non-FDA-banned flavored cartridge, menthol, increased significantly, to 
63.5 percent of all cartridges sold in 2020. </li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Record high e-cigarette discounting: The
 data also reveal that price discounting for e-cigarettes reached a 
record high of $182.3 million in 2019, and, although it decreased 
slightly in 2020, such discounting still represented the largest 
category of ad expenditures by e-cigarette manufacturers.</li>
 </ul><ul>
 <li>Doubling of nearly free e-cigarette samples: The
 data collected for 2019-20 suggest that spending on the sampling and 
distribution of free and deeply price-discounted e-cigarettes more than 
doubled in just two years, making it the second-largest spending 
category in 2020. This occurred because, after the FDA banned tobacco 
product sampling in 2016 to limit youth access, some companies began 
offering e-cigarettes for $1 (or even less) in an apparent attempt to 
get around the ban. </li>
 </ul>The FTC’s report provides an 
important market snapshot of the impact of the FDA’s efforts to restrict
 harmful youth e-cigarette use and a roadmap for additional steps the 
FDA can take to combat youth addiction to nicotine. There is significant
 evidence that flavored e-cigarettes remain attractive for youth, 
increasing the serious potential for more American youth to become 
addicted to nicotine and its harmful effects on the human body. This 
report shows that partial bans on certain types of flavors for certain 
types of e-cigarettes are unlikely to be successful in achieving a 
reduction in youth addiction to nicotine via e-cigarette usage. The FTC also is concerned about price
 discounting practices for e-cigarettes. Studies indicate that consumers
 clearly respond to price changes for tobacco products – with younger 
smokers responding more strongly than their older counterparts. Such 
studies led the U.S. Surgeon General to conclude that price discounting 
has resulted in an increase in youth tobacco use. The FTC considers 
similar discounting in the price of e-cigarettes also concerning. FDA 
efforts to restrict free e-cigarette samples seem to have engendered an 
effort by e-cigarette manufacturers to circumvent the ban by offering 
record-high discounting and nearly free e-cigarette products.&nbsp; The Commission vote approving the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report and related data tables for 2019-20 was 5-0.Cover image courtesy Pixabay

FTC: Drastic surge in flavored, menthol e-cigarettes

Scammers wasted no time capitalizing on the Biden Administration’s plan to cancel some federal student loan debt, <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">as BBB predicted</a>. <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> has already received reports from consumers who have been targeted by impostor loan forgiveness calls and emails.

You receive a call or voicemail from someone claiming to represent a 
new student loan forgiveness program. To see if you qualify for 
forgiveness, the scammer insists that you need to complete an online 
application form, which asks for personal information, such as your bank
 account details.

One consumer <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">reported the following experience to BBB</a>:
 “My daughter received a voicemail from ‘the Biden student loan 
forgiveness program’… She returned the call and spoke with “Peter,” who 
asked for her email address and telephone number. He asked if she wanted
 to see if she qualified for the loan, but when we started asking him 
questions… he got frustrated and ended the call.”

In other variations, the scammer insists that you need to pay an 
upfront fee or even redirect your current student loan payments to them.
 For example, another person targeted by this scam told BBB: “I got a 
"Final Notice" letter that has the debt amount listed… Thinking it was 
from the federal student loan department, I called. They had me change 
my password and got my bank account number. [And] direct payments to 
them.”

Currently, most of the student loan forgiveness scams reported to <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> are <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/scamstudies/government_impostor_scams/government_impostor_scams_full_study" target="_blank">government impostors</a>. But watch out for new variations as scammers have time to get creative.

How to avoid student loan forgiveness scams

Get more solid advice by reading the <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">BBB Tip: Student loan forgiveness is here. Here’s how to avoid scams</a>. You can also read up on government impostor scams in this <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22776-government-impostors-press-release" target="_blank">BBB study</a> and <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/spot-a-scam" target="_blank">learn how to spot a scam</a>.

For information on federal student loan repayment options, visit the official government website, <a href="http://www.StudentAid.gov">StudentAid.gov</a>. This is the best way to determine if you qualify for loan forgiveness and how to receive it. &nbsp;

If you spot a student loan forgiveness scam, report it. Sharing your experience on <a href="http://www.BBB.org/ScamTracker" target="_blank">BBB.org/ScamTracker</a> can help other consumers spot the scam faster.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/1/1579883951052.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>BBBScammers wasted no time capitalizing on the Biden Administration’s plan to cancel some federal student loan debt, <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">as BBB predicted</a>. <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> has already received reports from consumers who have been targeted by impostor loan forgiveness calls and emails.<h2>How the scam works</h2>You receive a call or voicemail from someone claiming to represent a 
new student loan forgiveness program. To see if you qualify for 
forgiveness, the scammer insists that you need to complete an online 
application form, which asks for personal information, such as your bank
 account details.One consumer <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">reported the following experience to BBB</a>:
 “My daughter received a voicemail from ‘the Biden student loan 
forgiveness program’… She returned the call and spoke with “Peter,” who 
asked for her email address and telephone number. He asked if she wanted
 to see if she qualified for the loan, but when we started asking him 
questions… he got frustrated and ended the call.”In other variations, the scammer insists that you need to pay an 
upfront fee or even redirect your current student loan payments to them.
 For example, another person targeted by this scam told BBB: “I got a 
"Final Notice" letter that has the debt amount listed… Thinking it was 
from the federal student loan department, I called. They had me change 
my password and got my bank account number. [And] direct payments to 
them.”Currently, most of the student loan forgiveness scams reported to <a href="https://www.bbb.org/scamtracker" target="_blank">BBB Scam Tracker</a> are <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/scamstudies/government_impostor_scams/government_impostor_scams_full_study" target="_blank">government impostors</a>. But watch out for new variations as scammers have time to get creative.<h2>How to avoid student loan forgiveness scams</h2><ul>
 <li>When in doubt, contact the government agency directly. If
 you receive a message that seems legitimate, but you aren’t sure, stop 
communicating with the person who contacted you. Then, verify their 
claims by contacting the government agency they say they represent. For 
details on the student loan forgiveness program, visit <a href="http://www.ED.gov" target="_blank">ED.gov</a> or <a href="http://www.studentaid.gov" target="_blank">StudentAid.gov</a>. </li><li>Never pay fees for a free government program. Government
 agencies will never ask you to pay a fee to benefit from a free 
government program. Don’t let scammers persuade you otherwise. Con 
artists may say the fee will get you relief faster or will unlock 
additional benefits, but that is all part of the scam. </li><li>Think twice about unsolicited calls, emails, or text messages. Usually,
 government agencies won’t reach out to you unless you request to be 
contacted. Out-of-the-blue communications are a red flag. </li><li>Don’t give in to scare tactics. If someone claims 
you’ll miss out if you don’t act immediately, be wary. This is an 
all-too-common tactic scammers use on their victims. Instead of 
responding, stop communications until you can verify what they say is 
true.</li>
 </ul><h2>For more information</h2>Get more solid advice by reading the <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/27471-bbb-tip-student-loan-forgiveness-is-here-heres-how-to-avoid-scams" target="_blank">BBB Tip: Student loan forgiveness is here. Here’s how to avoid scams</a>. You can also read up on government impostor scams in this <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22776-government-impostors-press-release" target="_blank">BBB study</a> and <a href="https://www.bbb.org/all/spot-a-scam" target="_blank">learn how to spot a scam</a>.For information on federal student loan repayment options, visit the official government website, <a href="http://www.StudentAid.gov">StudentAid.gov</a>. This is the best way to determine if you qualify for loan forgiveness and how to receive it. &nbsp;If you spot a student loan forgiveness scam, report it. Sharing your experience on <a href="http://www.BBB.org/ScamTracker" target="_blank">BBB.org/ScamTracker</a> can help other consumers spot the scam faster.

Alert: New imposter scam targets student loan holders

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday and will return to Washington on Tuesday, nearly a week after she came down with a “rebound” case of the coronavirus.

Her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, announced the negative test in a statement Monday night.

Jill Biden had been isolating at her family's house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since testing positive on Aug. 24, and at the time, her spokesperson said she was not experiencing any symptoms. She first tested positive for the virus on Aug. 15, when she and President Joe Biden were vacationing in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

The president, who had his own back-to-back cases of COVID-19, was identified as a close contact of his wife and the White House said he was undergoing more frequent testing for the virus as a precaution. While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines called for Biden to wear a face covering in close proximity to others indoors, he was seen without a mask hugging and taking selfies with supporters during an indoor rally on Thursday in the Washington suburbs.

Jill Biden, 71, and her husband, 79, have been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. She had been prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious disease and death among those at highest risk from COVID-19. A minority of those prescribed the drug have experienced a rebound case of the virus a few days after their initial recovery.

WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday and will return to Washington on Tuesday, nearly a week after she came down with a “rebound” case of the coronavirus.Her communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, announced the negative test in a statement Monday night.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">She won’t leave my side! I’m grateful to have Willow with me as I recover from COVID-19. 💕 <a href="https://t.co/UxLVE8FQwf">pic.twitter.com/UxLVE8FQwf</a>&mdash; Jill Biden (@FLOTUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/FLOTUS/status/1562607595466428417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Jill Biden had been isolating at her family's house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, since testing positive on Aug. 24, and at the time, her spokesperson said she was not experiencing any symptoms. She first tested positive for the virus on Aug. 15, when she and President Joe Biden were vacationing in Kiawah Island, South Carolina.The president, who had his own back-to-back cases of COVID-19, was identified as a close contact of his wife and the White House said he was undergoing more frequent testing for the virus as a precaution. While Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines called for Biden to wear a face covering in close proximity to others indoors, he was seen without a mask hugging and taking selfies with supporters during an indoor rally on Thursday in the Washington suburbs.Jill Biden, 71, and her husband, 79, have been twice-vaccinated and twice-boosted with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. She had been prescribed the antiviral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious disease and death among those at highest risk from COVID-19. A minority of those prescribed the drug have experienced a rebound case of the virus a few days after their initial recovery.

First lady Jill Biden tests negative for COVID-19 after rebound

MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.

The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.

Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.

His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.

A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.

“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.

Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.

By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.

“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.

“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.

Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.

His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.

In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.

“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.

Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.

Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.

In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.

“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”

Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.

But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.

Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.

In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.

The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.

Chief among them was his former protege and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.

“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.

“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”

There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.

Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.

But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.

Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.

When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.

His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.

There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.

In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.

His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.

“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.

He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.

Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.

“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”

But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.

It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.

His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.

After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife. But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.

Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.

In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.

And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife Raisa grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.

During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.

Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”

Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.

He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.

“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”

Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.

He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.

“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.

Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.

Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.

The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661895504846.png" alt="A quarter-century after the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country." />
 <figcaption>A quarter-century after the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.</figcaption>
 </figure>MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.Chief among them was his former protege and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife. But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife Raisa grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.___

Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91

By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/nontraditional-students-get-another-option-to-complete-college-degrees/">Nebraska Examiner</a>

LINCOLN — Married with three kids and working, Amanda Redler said she
 couldn’t manage the one-hour commute to a community college from her 
home in Albion to resume her college studies.

So Redler turned to the Western Governors University, a completely 
online university that Nebraska helped found back in 1996 when Ben 
Nelson was governor.

Redler is now on track to graduate in the spring and is already 
teaching sixth graders at Petersburg. She is among about 300,000 
Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree.

On Tuesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and others inked an agreement to make 
completing a college degree easier and more affordable for 
nontraditional, adult students who cannot travel, because of the demands
 of life or a rural location, to a brick-and-mortar school.

“This is about giving everyone access to a life-changing education,” said Paul Illich, president of Southeast Community College.

Under an agreement signed by Ricketts and WGU, transferring credits 
from institutions such as Southeast will be easier, and Nebraska 
students will gain access to the state’s $21 million worth of 
“Opportunity Grant” scholarships for post-secondary studies.

Ricketts said Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree 
are a pool of “untapped talent” in a world where about 71% of jobs 
require a post-secondary degree.

This spring, the Nebraska Legislature established a goal of getting 
70% of the state’s workforce, ages 25-34, to have “a degree, 
certificate, diploma, or other postsecondary or industry-recognized 
credential with economic value by 2030.” Currently, about 58% of that 
group have degrees.

Ricketts said that making it easier, and more affordable, for 
Nebraskans to attend WGU is another step to address the state’s 
workforce shortage. Most recently, 52,000 jobs were unfilled in the 
state.

WGU offers a “flat tuition rate,” in which students pay $3,750 for a 
six-month term in which they can complete as many courses as they are 
able. The school also allows students to test out of certain subjects by
 showing competency, learned through real-life experiences, in that 
subject.

Redler said she tested out of several subjects, earning “competency 
units” instead of “college credits,” while pursuing her degree in 
education.

WGU President Scott Pulsipher, speaking at a news conference Tuesday,
 said the system, which credits experience as well as “time in a seat,” 
allows nontraditional students to complete studies more quickly and at a
 lower cost.

“There is no waste of time learning what I already know,” Redler said.

Brenda Soto, a WGU grad from Lincoln, said she was able to propel her
 career by working on a master’s degree in health care administration 
while working. She is now the state’s Emergency Preparedness &amp; 
Response Officer, a job that requires a master’s degree.

Pulsipher said about 390 students from Nebraska are currently enrolled in WGU, among about 130,000 nationwide.

He said the average Nebraska student takes two years and three months to complete a degree, at an average cost of $15,165.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661889251700.png" alt="Gov. Pete Ricketts was joined at a Tuesday press conference by two Nebraskans who attended the Western Governors University, from left, Brenda Soto and Amanda Redler. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>Gov. Pete Ricketts was joined at a Tuesday press conference by two Nebraskans who attended the Western Governors University, from left, Brenda Soto and Amanda Redler. (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>By PAUL HAMMEL <a href="https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2022/08/30/nontraditional-students-get-another-option-to-complete-college-degrees/">Nebraska Examiner</a>LINCOLN — Married with three kids and working, Amanda Redler said she
 couldn’t manage the one-hour commute to a community college from her 
home in Albion to resume her college studies.So Redler turned to the Western Governors University, a completely 
online university that Nebraska helped found back in 1996 when Ben 
Nelson was governor.<h2>Already teaching</h2>Redler is now on track to graduate in the spring and is already 
teaching sixth graders at Petersburg. She is among about 300,000 
Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree.On Tuesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts and others inked an agreement to make 
completing a college degree easier and more affordable for 
nontraditional, adult students who cannot travel, because of the demands
 of life or a rural location, to a brick-and-mortar school.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/8/1661889312815.jpeg" alt="Southeast Community College President Paul Illich (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)" />
 <figcaption>Southeast Community College President Paul Illich (Paul Hammel/Nebraska Examiner)</figcaption>
 </figure>“This is about giving everyone access to a life-changing education,” said Paul Illich, president of Southeast Community College.Under an agreement signed by Ricketts and WGU, transferring credits 
from institutions such as Southeast will be easier, and Nebraska 
students will gain access to the state’s $21 million worth of 
“Opportunity Grant” scholarships for post-secondary studies.Ricketts said Nebraskans who have some college studies but no degree 
are a pool of “untapped talent” in a world where about 71% of jobs 
require a post-secondary degree.<h2>70% goal by 2030</h2>This spring, the Nebraska Legislature established a goal of getting 
70% of the state’s workforce, ages 25-34, to have “a degree, 
certificate, diploma, or other postsecondary or industry-recognized 
credential with economic value by 2030.” Currently, about 58% of that 
group have degrees.Ricketts said that making it easier, and more affordable, for 
Nebraskans to attend WGU is another step to address the state’s 
workforce shortage. Most recently, 52,000 jobs were unfilled in the 
state.WGU offers a “flat tuition rate,” in which students pay $3,750 for a 
six-month term in which they can complete as many courses as they are 
able. The school also allows students to test out of certain subjects by
 showing competency, learned through real-life experiences, in that 
subject.<h2>Credits for competency</h2>Redler said she tested out of several subjects, earning “competency 
units” instead of “college credits,” while pursuing her degree in 
education.WGU President Scott Pulsipher, speaking at a news conference Tuesday,
 said the system, which credits experience as well as “time in a seat,” 
allows nontraditional students to complete studies more quickly and at a
 lower cost.“There is no waste of time learning what I already know,” Redler said.Brenda Soto, a WGU grad from Lincoln, said she was able to propel her
 career by working on a master’s degree in health care administration 
while working. She is now the state’s Emergency Preparedness &amp; 
Response Officer, a job that requires a master’s degree.Pulsipher said about 390 students from Nebraska are currently enrolled in WGU, among about 130,000 nationwide.He said the average Nebraska student takes two years and three months to complete a degree, at an average cost of $15,165.WGU, Pulsipher said, is a private, nonprofit entity that is wholly 
supported by tuition income. Nebraska did provide some seed money in 
1996, along with nine other states, to establish the online university, 
officials said.