PAUL DAVENPORT

The explosion in omicron-fueled coronavirus infections has caused a breakdown in basic functions and services across America.

Thousands of voting rights advocates are rallying across the country Saturday to call for sweeping protections against a further erosion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

President Joe Biden has called school district superintendents in Florida and Arizona, praising them for doing what he called “the right thing” after their respective boards implemented mask requirements in defiance of their Republican governors amid growing COVID-19 infections.

The U.S. surgeon general says he's worried about what lies ahead with cases of COVID-19 increasing in every state, millions still unvaccinated and a highly contagious virus variant spreading rapidly.

One person who went missing from a Colorado River rafting trip in the Grand Canyon has been found dead.

Fierce wildfires are threatening Native American lands in the Pacific Northwest.

Firefighters working in searing heat struggled to contain the largest wildfire in California this year while state power operators urged people to conserve energy after a huge wildfire in neighboring Oregon disrupted the flow of electricity from three major transmission lines.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has called a special session of the Legislature to boost wildfire funding as two large wildfires burn in south-central Arizona.

Federal safety officials say they will investigate a crash in which authorities say a milk tanker going too fast collided with seven passenger vehicles on a Phoenix freeway, killing four people and injuring at least nine.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022 while denouncing the Republican-controlled state Senate’s ongoing audit of the 2020 presidential election.

FILE - In this Jan. 13, 2020, file photo Cindy McCain, wife of former Arizona Sen. John McCain, waves to the crowd after being acknowledged by Arizona Republican Gov. Arizona Republicans voted Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021 to censure Cindy McCain and two prominent GOP officials who have found themselves crosswise with former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)PHOENIX – Arizona Republicans voted Saturday to censure Cindy McCain and two prominent GOP members who have found themselves crosswise with former President Donald Trump. John McCain was censured by the state GOP in 2014 and went on to comfortably win a Republican primary over Ward and a general election. The self-described maverick, known best for his willingness to buck his party, had strained relations with the state party for much of his career but was consistently reelected by wide margins.

Ducey has rejected calls from health care leaders to tighten restrictions, arguing it would cause people to be out of work. “Faced with strict mitigation measures in place and states that have few or minimal mitigation measures in place all are experiencing the same thing,” Karamargin said. “The mitigation measures the state of Arizona put into place early on — they remain in place. Dr. Joshua LaBaer, director of the Biodesign Institute research center at Arizona State University, called the state “the hot spot of the world right now.” He believes at least one in 10 people actually has the virus. “I've never seen anything like this in all the years I’ve been part of health care,” White said.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Virgin Galactic on Saturday completed its first rocket-powered flight from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. The flight was the first from Virgin Galactic’s new headquarters at the futuristic desert outpost but it wasn't immediately clear from information released by the space tourism company whether the hour-long test flight actually reached space as planned. A Virgin Galactic representative did not immediately respond to an emailed request for clarification. The next phase of final testing for the Virgin Galactic team will involve company mission specialists and engineers being loaded into the spaceship’s passenger cabin for powered flights. They will evaluate all the hardware, camera settings and which angles will provide the best views.

Employees schedule COVID-19 tests and prepare test kits at Primary Health Medical Group's clinic in Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. A new daily high of nearly 228,000 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases was reported nationwide Friday, eclipsing the previous high mark of 217,000 cases set the day before, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. There were 2,607 deaths reported in the U.S. on Friday. Johns Hopkins had previously reported Wednesday daily COVID-19 deaths at 3,157. “In less than a week, we went from exceeding 5,000 new cases reported in one day to exceeding 6,000,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, North Carolina's health secretary.

The state expects to get enough doses of new coronavirus vaccines by the end of the year to inoculate more than 383,000 health care workers and long-term care facility residents, the state’s health director said Friday. Ned Lamont said nursing home residents, along with front-line health care workers, will get the first doses in his state. Laura Kelly said the state’s vaccine plan calls for the first shots to go to front-line health care workers with a high risk of coronavirus exposure, including workers in nursing homes, as well as nursing home residents. In Ohio, health care workers and others caring for COVID-19 patients and emergency medical responders will be first in line for the vaccine, Republican Gov. “We’re in a very dangerous situation and ... we can’t let our hospitals get to the point where health care is threatened,” DeWine said.

Jonathan Eshnaur lugged his 32-inch TV to a Thanksgiving Day family gathering at his sister’s home in Olathe, Kansas, so he could watch football outside. Health officials are urging people to remain vigilant until a vaccine becomes widely available, which is not expected to happen for at least a few months. Health officials on Monday added 4,425 confirmed infections and 87 hospitalizations to the state’s pandemic tally since Friday. Rhode Island’s hospitals reached their COVID-19 capacity on Monday, the same day the state’s two-week pause took effect. In suburban St. Louis, a hospital official warned that hospitalizations could double in two to three weeks if people don’t quarantine after Thanksgiving gatherings.

Despite the foreboding skies, there was little scent of smoke and the air quality index did not reach unhealthy levels. The sheer amount of smoke, the multiple layers of smoke above us in the atmosphere are combining to darken our sky, he said. Air quality warnings were issued throughout the Pacific Northwest, and people in communities from southern Oregon to north of Seattle have seen blood red skies and choking smoke. Gass said winds coming from the Pacific Ocean will likely continue to push the smoke across the West, worsening air quality. In Phoenix, the skies were finally blue on Wednesday after a cold front swept through the region, keeping the wildfire smoke west and southwest of Arizona.

In an emergency meeting called by Mayor Kate Gallego, the Phoenix City Council voted 7-2 in favor of making masks or face coverings mandatory. With todays vote, the Phoenix City Council is moving forward to protect our community, Gallego said. Restaurants and other businesses will have the right to refuse service to people who do not wear masks or face coverings. The restaurant patrons must wear masks while entering and exiting or moving around in the establishments. As of Friday, multiple cities across the state from Tucson to Flagstaff announced their own mandates for people to wear masks in public.

(Adolphe Pierre-Louis/The Albuquerque Journal via AP)ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Police in Albuquerque were being criticized Tuesday for not stepping in sooner as a protest over a statue of a Spanish conquistador erupted in violence, leaving one man hospitalized with gunshot wounds. Baca was once a candidate for the Albuquerque City Council and is the son of a former Bernalillo County sheriff. Mayor Tim Keller said during a news conference that Baca appeared to be “agitating at the protest well before this shooting took place." Keller said the investigation was being turned over to New Mexico State Police and the tactics used by police would be reviewed. Rio Arriba County officials removed it to safeguard it from possible damage and to avoid civil unrest ahead of a scheduled protest.