• Slug: Family Choice Day. 570 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).
• Video available.

By Sienna Monea
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – ASU Preparatory Academy is making educational waves with Family Choice Day. This new program aims to give families more flexibility while helping students stay engaged in their learning. The initiative comes as more schools nationwide, including those in the Phoenix area, adopt four-day school weeks.

Continue reading “ASU Prep launches Family Choice Day for flexible Friday learning”

• Slug: LA Sanctuary City. 670 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Brandelyn Clark
Cronkite News

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted Tuesday to pass a new sanctuary city ordinance that aims to solidify protections for immigrant residents at risk of deportation.

City hall was abuzz with activity as supporters, many wearing T-shirts and holding signs with slogans like “Protect our neighbors” and “Make California a Sanctuary City,” gathered to advocate for the measure.

Continue reading “‘We are not alone’: LA city council passes sanctuary city ordinance as Donald Trump plans mass deportations”

• Slug: Hispanic Cancer. 1,130 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Nicollette Valenzuela
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – For 58-year-old Beatriz Topete, cancer has been a part of her life from an early age. When she was barely a toddler, Topete lost her mother to leukemia. Fourteen years later, her half-sister, 3, was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, a type of cancer that affects kidneys. The girl survived.

Later, the disease took her 62-year-old father, two uncles and one grandmother. Topete was anything but surprised when doctors told her she had a rare muscle cancer called leiomyosarcoma this year.

Continue reading “Cancer can affect anyone. But Hispanics face disproportionately severe outcomes”

• Slug: Costly Arizona Elections. 750 words.
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By Miguel Ambriz
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – More than $250 million poured into Arizona’s contests for the U.S. Senate and House. After all the ads, mailers, phone calls and rallies, not a single seat flipped – proving, experts said, that money isn’t everything in politics.

The Senate race between Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake, a former news anchor, drew the bulk of that spending – $156 million, according to OpenSecrets, a group that tracks campaign spending.

Continue reading “Ruben Gallego outspent Kari Lake to win Senate seat but other Arizona races proved money isn’t always enough”

• Slug: Young Voter Swing. 710 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Nash Darragh
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – The outcome of the 2024 election has a familiar look to 2020. Then, the Democrats successfully got Joe Biden elected to the presidency, won the U.S. House and split the Senate. Now, a massive swing has led to what some are calling “the greatest comeback in political history.”

The Republicans have a trifecta for at least two years; Donald Trump won the presidency while Republicans won the Senate and officially claimed 218 House seats for a GOP majority.

Continue reading “‘Cultural shift’ of young voters favored Donald Trump in 2024 election”

• Slug: State of Lung Cancer. 465 words.
• File photo available.

By Jalen Woody
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – The American Lung Association (ALA) graded Arizona’s lung cancer response as mostly below average Tuesday. The association releases an annual report documenting the success or failure in each state’s response to lung cancer awareness.

“The No. 1 modality (for lung cancer) is going to be smoking,” said Dr. Richard Gillespie, a thoracic surgeon at HonorHealth Heart Care – Heart and Lung Surgery – Shea. “It’s No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, but it’s not the only risk.”

Continue reading “Arizona receives mixed ratings on American Lung Association’s annual ‘State of Lung Cancer’ report”

• Slug: Borderlands-Uvita. 2,340 words.
• Photos, charts available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Carly Stoenner
Cronkite Borderlands Project

UVITA, Costa Rica — Yocelin Dayana Garcias Barrio and Gladys Yusberny Seijas Matute stand begging for money in front of a grocery store in this small tourist town on the Pacific coast in southern Costa Rica. They hold pieces of cardboard with messages written in black ink. The 90-degree tropical sun bears down on them, and perspiration mixed with highway exhaust soaks their clothes. They have been on the road for two months since leaving Colombia, which was their first stop after fleeing their home country of Venezuela.

“We are a Venezuelan family. We are migrants. Please help us if you can with work, food or a little money,” reads their makeshift sign. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”

Continue reading “Migrants headed north from the Darién Gap can walk or catch a bus”

• Slug: COVID-19 California. 940 words.
• File photo available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Brandelyn Clark
Cronkite News

LOS ANGELES – As COVID-19 is expected to surge this winter, communities across the Southwest face rising hospitalizations and new, resilient variants. Infection rates can be even more severe for marginalized populations in these states.

Limited health-care access and historically low vaccination rates amplify the burden on these communities and underscore long-standing health disparities. Following a summer surge, this new wave serves as a stark reminder of how these inequities continue to put vulnerable groups at greater risk.

Continue reading “COVID-19 winter surge expected to hit marginalized communities hardest, experts warn”

EDS: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. The error occurred in grafs 2 and 18 of the original. The story below has been corrected, but clients who used previous versions are asked to run the correction found here.

• Slug: CHIPS Biden TSMC. 645 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Phineas Hogan
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration has finalized a $6.6 billion award for the Taiwan semiconductor giant that is building massive factories in Phoenix, amid concerns President-elect Donald Trump will derail subsidies aimed at fostering the domestic chip industry.

“This is a gigantic announcement,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters on a call ahead of the announcement early Friday, 10 days after Trump’s election.

Continue reading “Biden locks in $6.6B for huge TSMC chip factories in Arizona, ensuring Trump can’t rescind CHIPS Act deal”

• Slug: Trump Defense React. 815 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Gabrielle Wallace and Amelia Monroe
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly was among the combat veterans and Democrats expressing deep skepticism at Donald Trump’s choice of a defense secretary with no national security experience.

“Typically you expect someone in that role to have implemented or made policy – defense policy,” Kelly, a Navy combat pilot, said Wednesday of the president-elect’s pick, conservative Fox News host Pete Hegseth.

Continue reading “Kelly skeptical, Gallego mum on Trump defense pick – Fox News host Pete Hegseth – who lacks national security experience”

• Slug: California Health Equity. 800 words.
• Photo available (thumbnail, caption below).

By Brandelyn Clark
Cronkite News

LOS ANGELES – For the first time, Latino and Indigenous populations in California will have their health challenges and needs documented in a way that reflects and serves their communities. Senate Bill 1016, signed into law Sept. 28, aims to disaggregate Latino and Indigenous health data, mandating the state Department of Public Health to specify ethnicity and language.

California’s population is 40% Latino and Indigenous. Both groups have long been overlooked in broad health data categories. By breaking down these marginalized groups’ demographics, including more specific ethnic categories beyond Hispanic and/or Latino, the bill will help address significant health inequities that have remained hidden.

Continue reading “California SB 1016 health data bill addresses Latino and Indigenous disparities”

• Slug: Alzheimer’s Consortium. 400 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Nicollette Valenzuela
Cronkite News

PHOENIX – Arizona is home to over 150,000 people aged 65 and older who live with Alzheimer’s, or 11% of older residents. Specialists are calling for more research to understand the higher prevalence of the disease among Hispanic Americans.

Alzheimer’s is a brain disease that alters the way a person thinks, behaves and remembers. Over time, the disorder slowly inhibits a person’s ability to perform everyday tasks.

Continue reading “Alzheimer’s affects the Hispanic community at higher rates, but research is lagging”

• Slug: Men Only President. 1,200 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Gabrielle Wallace
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Women have led the governments of nearly a third of the countries on Earth as presidents, prime ministers and chancellors. Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat kept the 235-year-old glass ceiling in the United States unbroken.

“It absolutely will happen,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

Just not yet.

Continue reading “Women have led other democracies, but US voters rejected the two who tried – what will it take to elect a female president?”

• Slug: Deportation Trump Mandate. 1,190 words.
• Photos available (thumbnail, caption below)

By Mia Osmonbekov and Kelechukwu Iruoma
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump made mass deportations his signature campaign promise, and in his victory speech Wednesday, he asserted that voters gave him “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”

Does that mandate extend to rounding up and expelling 11 million undocumented immigrants?

Continue reading “Donald Trump has promised mass deportations, but public support is mixed”

• Slug: Abortion Measures Harris. 890 words.
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By Amelia Monroe and Madeline Nguyen
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – Ten states considered measures to protect or expand abortion rights on Tuesday. Voters approved seven of those proposals, including one in Arizona that overturned a 15-week ban and enshrines abortion access in the state constitution.

Democrats were counting on these ballot measures to propel their presidential nominee and other candidates.

Continue reading “Disconnect on abortion rights cost Kamala Harris, as voters backed ballot measures but not the candidate who supported them”

• Slug: Kern River Dewatering. 1,080 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Emery Davis
Cronkite News

LOS ANGELES – Thousands of dead fish have been left behind in the waterbed where the Kern River sometimes flows through Bakersfield – not due to drought but to maintenance by the city water department that added to accusations of mismanagement.

Those claims were brought to Superior Court in a 2022 lawsuit by multiple environmental advocacy organizations. In October, Bakersfield argued against the claims, asserting it is not solely responsible for the dewatering of the Kern River.

Continue reading “Bakersfield lawsuit continues as Kern River water management that left fish dead comes under fire”

All content from our live election blog is available for use on our retail site here. Please credit the relevant journalists and Cronkite News. Photos from our Election Day coverage at polling places, watch parties and beyond are available below:

Continue reading “Photos from Election Day and night”

• Slug: Ride to the Polls. 685 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Brianna Chappie
Cronkite News

WHITERIVER – Kaia Aiello, 20, sat on top of her horse, Amoureux, Tuesday and prepared to lead a group to the only polling location in this small town on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation so they could cast votes in the 2024 presidential election.

Aiello is a field organizer for Arizona Native Vote, a nonprofit organization that seeks to amplify Indigenous voices in rural communities throughout Arizona, including on Hopi and Navajo land and the three other federally recognized Apache nations in Arizona.

Continue reading “White Mountain Apache members participate in ‘Ride to the Polls’ movement”

• Slug: Navajo Nation Elections. 1,215 words.
• Photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Marshall Baker
Cronkite News

NAVAJO NATION – On a brisk Tuesday election morning, thousands in the Navajo Nation lined up at precincts and chapter houses to cast their votes in the general and Navajo Nation elections. As ballots were counted and numbers updated throughout the day, the overall feeling was excitement, but there was still uncertainty among voters as voting came to an end.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump set up camp outside voting sites and provided donuts, coffee and many campaign flyers to help spread their respective messages.

Continue reading “Voters in Navajo Nation face polling issues on Election Day; Apache County extends voting hours”