Clearly looking for a lot of press attention by announcing after 9 pm Eastern on a Friday, the U.S. Soccer Federation has decided, after a long process with several delays, to award Division 2 status to both the USL and NASL. Neither league meets the standards laid out for a D2 league, but the NASL has been given waivers regarding its shortcomings for years, and since the USL is no further from meeting those standards, the USSF decided it was only fair to let them in on the fun too.
What this also means is that the NASL is not, in fact, dead. It looked an awful lot like it would be for a while there, but it kept hanging on, and now with this news, and the fact that the New York Cosmos will be sold to someone who might not be completely terrible as an owner, things might be looking up. They lost a few teams to the USL, but there are a number of expansion teams in the works, at least some of which look like they might actually be real.
Also, in completely unrelated news, Bob Bradley appears to be on the verge of taking the job of manager of Norway's national team. He had an extremely successful stint managing in their domestic league a few years ago, which they obviously still remember.
EDIT: The official NASL response to the decision makes no mention of (former?) commissioner Bill Peterson, and if he's out of the picture I have a lot more confidence in that league being able to right the ship.