The public prosecutor’s office looking into Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal in Germany has widened the investigation to include Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch, who was VW’s chief financial officer when its cars were built to fool emissions tests.

The news comes more than one year after Pötsch was named chairman; last December, he acknowledged that the emissions cheating had stemmed from a “chain of errors” in the company rather than from the actions of a group of rogue engineers.

Pötsch was Volkswagen’s chief financial officer from 2003 to 2015 — a period that encapsulates the company’s development of cheating devices that could fool U.S. emissions tests on diesel engines. The Environmental Protection Agency’s list of affected model years runs from 2009 to 2015.

Volkswagen announced the new development Sunday, saying that despite the Braunschweig public prosecutor’s move, the company “reaffirms its belief that the Volkswagen Board of Management duly fulfilled its disclosure obligation under German capital markets law.”

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David Strickroth does steady business at High Impact Tactical Firearms in Upland, Calif. It’s a small shop, as gun shops go, with several dozen firearms hanging on the olive green walls and sitting in a glass display case below. He typically sells one or two guns a day.

Recently, though, things have picked up: “Now I’m selling six or seven a day,” Strickroth says.

The reason? Strickroth uses the word “panic,” but describes it more as angst that gun owners and would-be owners are feeling over the rhetoric of the presidential election, the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency and the potential for more regulation in California — a state that already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

“Doesn’t matter what side somebody’s on,” Strickroth says. “It’s just that what’s said [during the election] generates an angst in people that makes folks either feel ‘I’ve got to get rid of this’ or ‘I’ve got to go get me one.’ “

That angst is not just limited to the Golden State, though.

The FBI processed more than 2.3 million background checks nationally last month — those background checks being the best available proxy for gun sale numbers. That was the most ever for the month of October and an increase of more than 350,000 background checks compared to the same month last year.

Gun shops around the country are seeing record sales. Others are offering pre-election sales. Major gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. are reporting huge jumps in earnings. In its earnings report, Sturm, Ruger & Co. wrote that the “stronger-than-normal industry demand during the summer [was] likely bolstered by the political campaigns for the November elections.”

As large as the recent surge in gun sales is, the trend is not new. Gun and ammunition sales jumped sharply after both of the last presidential elections, fueled by fears that an Obama presidency would lead to restricted access to firearms. Sales have also jumped following mass shootings and moments when gun control rises to the top of the national conversation.

October marked the 18th month in a row that the number of FBI background checks set a monthly record, putting 2016 on track to shatter the previous annual record.

Sales and angst have ramped up in recent weeks as the election grows closer.

The National Rifle Association has spent more than $26 million on advertising promoting Republican nominee Donald Trump and warning against Clinton, according to The Wall Street Journal. Most of those ads have been directed at swaying voters’ opinions in battleground states like North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio. One of the more recent ads shows a woman reaching for a gun case during a break-in, only to have it disappear.

“Hillary Clinton could take away her right to self-defense,” a voice in the ad says. “And with Supreme Court justices, Hillary can. Don’t let Hillary leave you protected with nothing but a phone.”

Clinton, for her part, has denied those accusations repeatedly on the campaign trail.

Her campaign has promised to expand background checks for gun sales; to keep guns from the hands of violent criminals, domestic abusers and the severely mentally ill; and to oppose the gun lobby. She has also promised to address gun deaths. But Clinton has refuted claims that she would do away with the Second Amendment.

“I respect the Second Amendment,” Clinton said in the last presidential debate. “I also believe there’s an individual right to bear arms. That is not in conflict with reasonable, common-sense regulation.”

Strickroth, the California gun store owner, says that many people are not convinced. He hears from gun owners and enthusiasts who are afraid that they’ll lose their right to own certain types of firearms if Clinton becomes president.

Personally, he doesn’t believe that will happen. Strickroth is no fan of Clinton and won’t be voting for her on Tuesday, but he says that any restrictions on people’s Second Amendment rights will “eventually [get] to the court and the court will say, ‘No, you can’t do that,’ ” he says.

He references the uproar and fear that followed the 1968 Gun Control Act and the last two presidential elections and gestures around his gun shop. “I’m still here,” he says.

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Truffles are one of the most expensive, sought-after foods on earth. Frankly, we don’t get it. They’re a fungus that smells like dirty socks.

We wanted to understand what all the fuss is about. Enter Ian Purkayastha, a baby-faced connoisseur known as Truffle Boy. He’s has been completely obsessed with truffles since he was 15. Growing up, he foraged for mushrooms in the forests of Arkansas. Now he sells truffles to the fanciest restaurants in New York City.

Ian takes us to some of the best kitchens in Manhattan on his quest to sell $20,000 worth of truffles out of the trunk of his car. It is a race against time: the truffles lose value with every passing minute. Meanwhile, Ian has to deal with traffic, parking cops, penny-pinching chefs and black market smugglers.

Truffles can’t be cultivated like other crops, so the supply can’t increase to meet the demand. That means truffle dealing — and truffle smuggling — are a high stakes hustle.

Today on the show we follow Ian through back alleys and curbside deals with some of best chefs in New York to find out why people are willing to pay so much for a fungus that smells like old socks. Plus, we hear the science behind why people just can’t get enough of them.

Music: “Back From The Dead” and “Soul Toucher.” Find us: Twitter/Facebook.

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When electric cars began to take hold in the U.S. market — a small hold — the big concern was range anxiety: the fear that your vehicle doesn’t have the fuel to get to your destination.

It’s easy to forget how vast and complex the existing infrastructure for gas vehicles is. Not having that convenience is a problem the sellers and proponents of electric vehicles been working to change.

Now, the Obama administration says it will significantly expand the nation’s infrastructure for electric vehicles. The U.S. Department of Transportation is establishing 48 national electric vehicle charging corridors. Those vehicle routes dotted with charging stations are intended to cover 25,000 miles of highway in 35 states.

Here’a a summary of the electric-car initiatives from the administration’s announcement:

“For the first time, the United State Department of Transportation (DOT) is establishing 48 national electric vehicle charging corridors on our highways, these newly designated electric vehicle routes cover nearly 25,000 miles, in 35 states.

“28 states, utilities, vehicle manufactures, and change organizations are committing to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure on the DOT’s corridors;

“24 state and local governments are committing to partner with the Administration and increase the procurement of electric vehicles in their fleets;

“The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting two studies to evaluate the optimal national electric vehicle charging deployment scenarios, including along DOT’s designated fueling corridors;

“38 new businesses, non-profits, universities, and utilities are signing on to DOE’s Workplace Charging Challenge and committing to provide EV charging access for their workforce.”

The administration is sprinting to do everything it can think of to accelerate the move to clean energy, according to Roland Hwang, director of the energy and transportation program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“This is a better mousetrap when it comes to the environment. This is the future of clean transportation technology. We need this to get off of fossil fuel,” Hwang says of the White House announcement.

The idea is to add thousands of electric charging stations around the country. In addition, states and local governments signed up to increase electric vehicles in their fleets.

The administration points to the example of California pledging to buy 150 zero-emissions vehicles (electric or fuel cell). It will also provide charging at a minimum of 5 percent of the state-owned parking places by 2020.

This all comes as consumers are turning away from sedans and moving toward SUVs and pickups. David Shepardson of Reuters looks at the problem of slow electric adoption by consumers.

“In August 2008, Obama set a goal of getting 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the roads by 2015. Only about 520,000 electric cars have been sold in the United States since 2008, out of about 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads.

“The White House has repeatedly tried to boost EV sales, including hiking the EV tax credit and converting it to a point-of-sale rebate, but the proposals have yet to pass Congress.

“Electric vehicle infrastructure will also get a boost from Volkswagen AG’s diesel emissions settlement. The German automaker must spend $2 billion over 10 years to improve infrastructure and other efforts to advance zero emission vehicles.”

Hwang says while electric cars have failed to take hold in the U.S., that’s not the case in Europe or China. He points out that the biggest seller of electric passenger vehicles is not Tesla but the Chinese company BYD.

Hwang says now that all those places moving in the same direction, “it almost forces the auto industry to make significant investments in the technology, just to keep up.” He says a byproduct of the emissions scandal at Volkswagen is that company is now investing significantly in electric vehicles. “Their biggest pathway to the future is now electric,” Hwang says, because the biggest market for electric cars is China. He says right now, China is what the industry has to follow.

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