USA TODAY’s Post

“Dr. Ruth,” Westheimer, the diminutive sexpert whose heavy German accent and straight talk about sex on radio and TV brought frank discussion about relationships into American pop-culture, has died. She was 96. Known as "Dr. Ruth" for her books and radio and TV appearances, Westheimer died at her home Friday in New York City. It was announced Saturday by her frequent co-author and spokesman Pierre Lehu, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eNVYW3_G 📸: Getty Images

No. 31 Barbora Krejčíková of the Czech Republic survived a fierce comeback from No. 7 Jasmine Paolini of Italy on Saturday to become the 2024 #Wimbledon women’s singles champion in a three-set thriller. Krejčíková outlasted Paolini 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 to keep her country’s Wimbledon winning streak alive after compatriot Markéta Vondroušová shocked the tennis world by becoming the first unseeded woman to win the Wimbledon singles title last year. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e9Crb5kf

School is out, the mercury is climbing at a record pace, and young people across America are at risk of losing the reading and math skills they learned during the academic year. In an average year, kids lose about 20% of their progress in reading and 27% in math during the summer, according to a 2020 study of outcomes from 2008 to 2016 in the American Educational Research Journal. In interviews with USA TODAY, education experts and school leaders offered five key ways to avoid backsliding. Read more in Kayla Jimenez's story: https://lnkd.in/gz8PuUyr

Postal rates, including the price of Forever stamps, are going up again. Forever stamps get a 5-cent increase from 68 cents to 73 cents when the price increase goes into effect on Sunday. Read more: https://lnkd.in/egqfAgeu 

To convert or not convert traditional retirement savings into a Roth IRA? That’s likely a big question #GenX will have to answer soon as they head into #retirement, experts say. Roth accounts offer retirees many benefits that traditional 401(k)s don’t. They have tax-free withdrawals, aren’t subject to required minimum distributions, and aren’t taxable to heirs. Like most other financial decisions, “it’s a very personal decision and has to be evaluated individually,” said Jaime Eckels, CFP®, wealth management partner at Plante Moran Financial Advisors. What should you know and consider when deciding? Medora Lee spoke to experts to find out:

Your local grocery trip could soon look different thanks to a pending merger between the parent companies of some of the nation's biggest grocery chains. Regulators have yet to approve the merger between Kroger and Albertsons, which would entail the sale or divestment of 579 stores, including Safeway stores, to C&S Wholesale Grocers, which owns the Piggly Wiggly Midwest, LLC grocery brand. The planned merger, announced in October 2022 but stalled when the Federal Trade Commission sued to stop it in February, represents approximately 20% of the U.S. grocery market, according to the USDA. If approved, it would affect one out of six grocery laborers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kroger and Albertsons released the full list of locations that would be sold if the merger goes through. See if yours is one of them:

In the latest cybersecurity scare, a file containing nearly 10 billion passwords was posted to a hacking site. Researchers at Cybernews said they discovered the file, posted on July 4, with 9.9 billion unique plaintext passwords. Experts said they believe this data dump, RockYou2024, is the largest password leak ever. The passwords on the document have likely been collected from more than 4,000 databases over the last 20 years, Cybernews said. This should be a "wake-up call" for Internet users, says retired FBI agent Scott E. Augenbaum. "This has an impact because just think about how many of our parents have the same password for multiple platforms or even our kids," he said. "This will have a greater ripple effect across consumers than anyone could imagine." See below on how to protect yourself from password leaks, and get the latest from Betty Lin-Fisher: https://lnkd.in/ezCcN4wx