Tuesday, October 6, 2020
WASHINGTON – Sen. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, bought $110,350 worth of ads on Spanish-language TV stations this week and last – just a quarter of what her Democratic challenger has spent over the past two months.
McSally’s buys on Univision and Telemundo stations in Arizona are her first Spanish-language broadcast ads in this campaign, according to reports filed with the Federal Communications Commission.
They come in the final weeks of the campaign as McSally struggles to hold on to her seat against Democrat Mark Kelly, who has been consistently ahead in polls. The two are scheduled to face off Tuesday in their only debate of the campaign.
With Kelly scheduled to spend about $100,000 a week on Spanish-language ads for the rest of the campaign, some analysts question whether McSally’s effort will be enough.
“It’s a little late, frankly, because the Hispanic vote is the largest minority group population as a voter segment,” said Mike Noble, chief of research at OH Predictive Insights.
Monday, October 5, 2020
Senate candidates Martha McSally and Mark Kelly laid out their visions of public land management for Arizona on Friday in two separate online forums hosted by the Arizona Trail Association.
The online forums took place ahead of their only scheduled debate on Tuesday and today’s voter registration deadline.
Climate change starkly contrasted the candidates, McSally continued her rhetoric of qualifying the scientific consensus that human emissions are its primary driver by saying “there’s a human element to it.” This is consistent with language she used in her 2018 campaign from an interview with the Arizona Republic.
Kelly mentioned climate several times throughout his forum citing it as a threat to the state’s outdoor recreation industry and drought, which aggravated this summer’s Bighorn Fire.
Tags: mcsally , kelly , election , wildfire , climate change , environment , Image
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Friday said it would hear Arizona’s defense of two election laws, on ballot-collecting and out-of-precinct voting, that were struck down by a lower court earlier this year as racially discriminatory.
The controversial voting restrictions are still in effect, as the lower court’s ruling was put on hold for a potential Supreme Court appeal. And they will likely remain so until after next month’s election: Experts say the Supreme Court is not likely to even hear the cases until December, the first open date on its calendar.
The two cases – Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee – are being watched nationally because many states have similar laws that would be affected by the court’s ruling.
The announcement comes days after UA announced the team’s delayed 2020 Pac-12 football schedule on Saturday, Oct. 3. The Wildcats plan to start pre-season practice on Friday, Oct. 9.
“My positive test result, while a shock, is a stark reminder of how we must all remain vigilant in our focus on handwashing, physical distancing and face coverings,” Sumlin said in a statement released by UA. “I am feeling well and will be engaged in our ramp-up activities on a virtual basis until I complete the isolation protocol.”
The university has begun contact tracing protocols and has determined “the test result is not related to any team activities and no close contacts were identified within the football program”, according to the school’s press release.
“I look forward to being back on field in time to begin preparing for the season,” Sumlin said in the release.
The Wildcats are scheduled to play their season opener against the University of Utah Utes on Nov. 7.
Tags: ua football , sumlin , covid , Image
This week, the University of Arizona will remain in phase one of their staged plan for reopening but anticipates moving into phase two of the plan next week, UA President Dr. Robert C. Robbins said in a news conference this morning.
Phase one allows students to attend essential in-person classes only, but the university plans to add in-person instruction for classes of 30 or fewer students the week of Oct. 12.
According to Robbins, about 2,500 additional students will have the option to attend in-person classes, and the new opportunity only applies to those who signed up for in-person classes during the registration period at the beginning of the school year.
Phase 2 was originally set to begin on Aug. 31, but the high numbers of positive coronavirus cases delayed the step toward having more in-person classes on campus.
Since Aug. 24, about 6,200 UA students have attended essential in-person courses.
Robbins said the university has no recorded cases of COVID-19 transmission within a classroom or laboratory setting, but they will only move into phase two if public health metrics continue a positive trend.
“This strategic reintroduction of more students to a university campus is a part of layered mitigation,” Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen said at the press conference. “If the numbers go up, we will not support more introduction of students on campus. Our hope is in this next 7-10 days, we will see those numbers stabilize.”
Over the 10-day window from Sept. 23-Oct. 2, the university reported 181 positive coronavirus tests for a positivity rate of 2.3%. This is an improvement from the previous 10-day period, which saw a COVID-19 positivity rate of 7.9%.
As of Friday evening, the university had 68 dorm students in isolation housing and 450 beds available.
Robbins partly credits the decrease in cases to the university’s voluntary 14-day self-quarantine program in which students were asked to stay home and avoid unnecessary trips, which ended Sept. 29. However, he warns the quarantine period may be restored if the number of coronavirus cases rises.
“If noncompliance remains a significant issue or if we see an increase in cases, it may need to be reinstated and we’re not going to be able to progress to this stage two that we’re thinking about doing next week,” Robbins said.
WASHINGTON – A federal judge reiterated her order Thursday that the Census Bureau continue its count until Oct. 31, saying plans to end earlier were “erroneous … unlawful” and they undermined the credibility of the count.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lucy H Koh came just five days before the bureau said it planned to stop field operations, contrary to Koh’s order from last month.
At stake is congressional representation and the potential loss of federal funding that could be skewed by an undercount. An official with the Arizona Complete Count Committee has estimated that a 1% undercount could cost the state $62 million a year in federal funding, or $620 million by the next decennial census in 2030.
With 316 new cases reported today, the number of Arizona’s confirmed novel coronavirus cases topped 221,000 as of Monday, Oct. 5, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Pima County had seen 25,980 of the state’s 221,070 confirmed cases.
With 1 new death today, a total of 5,707 Arizonans had died after contracting COVID-19, including 627 deaths in Pima County, according to the Oct. 5 report.
The number of hospitalized COVID cases continues to decline from July peaks. ADHS reported that as of Oct. 4, 567 COVID patients were hospitalized in the state. The number of hospitalized COVID patients peaked at 3,517 on July 13.
A total of 706 people visited emergency rooms on Oct. 4 with COVID symptoms. That number peaked at 2,008 on July 7.
A total of 134 COVID-19 patients were in intensive care unit beds on Oct. 4. The number of COVID patients in ICUs peaked at 970 on July 13.
On a week-by-week basis in Pima County, the number of positive COVID tests peaked the week ending July 4 with 2,453 cases, according to a Sept. 29 report from the Pima County Health Department. While a vocal minority continues to insist that masks do no good, the spread of the virus began to decline within weeks of Pima County’s mask mandate, as more people began wearing them in public, although the level of new cases has creeped back up in recent weeks with the return of UA students. For the week ending Sept. 5, a total of 859 cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 12, 1,102 cases were reported; for the week ending Sept. 19, 1,203 cases were reported; and for the week ending Sept. 26, 470 cases were reported. (Recent weeks are subject to revision.)
Deaths in Pima County are down from a peak of 55 in the week ending July 4 to 13 in the week ending Aug. 22, 10 in the week ending Aug. 29, zero in the week ending Sept. 5, two in the week ending Sept. 12 and two in the week ending Sept. 19. (Recent weeks are subject to revision.)
Hospitalization peaked the week ending July 18 with 234 COVID patients admitted to Pima County hospitals. In the week ending Aug. 29, 37 COVID patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; in the week ending Sept. 5, 25 patients were admitted to Pima County hospitals; in the week ending Sept. 12, 19 patients were admitted; in the week ending Sept. 19, 14 patients were admitted; and in the week ending Sept. 26, five people were admitted. (Numbers are subject to revision.)
Trump remains in hospital
President Donald Trump remained hospitalized on Monday after being taken by helicopter to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday, Oct. 2.
Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has forced him off the campaign trail, including the cancelation of a planned trip to Tucson today.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden plans to be in Arizona, where he has been leading in polls, later this week.
WASHINGTON – To American Airlines flight attendant Robyn Walters, her co-workers are like family. That made it all the more difficult last weekend when she had to say goodbye to colleagues who were working their last flights before being furloughed.
“It’s been absolutely heartbreaking,” Walters said. “They’re being separated from a career they’ve grown to love.”
Union officials said nearly 200 of Walters’ fellow Phoenix-based flight attendants were among 19,000 American Airlines employees furloughed or laid off nationwide Thursday, one day after the end of a federal stimulus package that had been preserving airline jobs for the past six months.
