Some general étale Weak Lefschetz-type theorems

We establish new general etale versions of theorems of Barth and Sommese. Respectively, we compute the lower etale cohomology of closed subvarieties of $P^N$ of small codimensions and of their preimages with respect to proper morphisms (that are not necessarily finite; this statement is completely new), and also of the zero loci of sections of ample vector bundles; all these statements are valid over fields of arbitrary characteristics. To obtain these results, we use a new 'fat hyperplane section' Weak Lefschetz-type theorem for etale cohomology of non-projective varieties that is related to a result of Goresky and MacPherson (over complex numbers).