[ ♪♪ ] Coming up on Arizona PBS, on Arizona horizon, a look closer at why Arizona has the highest percentage increase in deaths in the country last year and on cronkite news, Arizona having a lieutenant governor.

Ahead on Arizona PBS.

Welcome to Arizona horizon.

A federal judge in Florida today voided the Biden Administration's mandate for the mask mandate.

They ruled the mandate exceeds the authority of health officials and the judge ruled the CDC didn't properly justify the decision and the mandate had been extended to May 3rd to allow more time for the subvarient and is now responsible for most cases in the U.S. And another news former President Trump lashed out at Arizona attorney general mark Brnovich for, quote, kicking the can down the road and he wants to be, quote, going after people who committed election crimes.

Brnovich has been push for trump's endorsement in the primary to take on Mark Kelly.

Trump said today he'll make his endorsement soon and looks like it will not be in support of Brnovich.

Fundraising for the republican and democratic candidates for Arizona governor continue at a record pace.

The Arizona republican reports that over 5.$5 million was raised by candidates in the first three months with over eight million dollars spent putting total spending at over $13.5 million.

And the right wing media info wars is bankrupt and they have filed with assets at less than $50,000 and liabilities between one and ten million dollars.

And info wars is facing lawsuits tied to the owner conspiracy theorist Alex Jones who has found legally responsible for false claims that the 2012 Sandyhook massacre was staged and 26 people, most of them children, were killed.

Russian forces reportedly begun and long anticipated assault on eastern Ukraine, specifically a 300-mile region along the eastern border and it follows heavy attacks on other parts of Ukraine in anticipation of the offensive.

Missile strikes at numerous cities over the weekend and again today, the heavy barrage in weeks with Russia claims hundreds of targets hit.

That includes the city of Lviv where reports are Russian missile strikes killed seven people injuring 11.

Russian forces are closes in on the city of Mariupol where fights at a steel plant defying commands to surrender.

And the U.S. saw a record number of deaths and Arizona lead the number with the highest percentage increase in deaths last year.

We talked to Arizona public health association executive director will humble about the sobering numbers.

Will, good to see you and thanks for joining us and we talk all things health or morbidity and Arizona with the highest percentage increase as far as overall deaths in the country last year and what's going on?

>> Also in 2020, so for you to rack up all 50 states, Arizona had the highest increase in all caused mortality in 2020 and in 2021.

So it was a different list in 2020, and Arizona was the worst and there was other states like New Jersey and those types of states in 2020.

In 2021, Arizona had a 38% increase in all caused mortality and then Alaska and then Idaho type states, deep south type of states behind us and so that's Covid deaths, but also extra heart disease deaths, extra deaths from diabetes two and those kinds of causes.

>> I also saw drug overdoses, as well.

>> Accidents, which drug overdoses are in the accident and accident overdoses and mostly Fentanyl.

>> Fentanyl and accident fatalities, too.

>> It's really challenging and sad.

I mean, the thing about Fentanyl, it is so incredibly powerful that a very small mistake or change in the dosage creates a lethal event and it's so incredibly powerful, it's a drug.

>> Let's get back to Covid.

Plain this, we had the vaccines last year and more education and more information and shouldn't that have meant that the percentage of deaths increase should have been a lot lower than it was?

>> Well, yes, but two things and remember, the very beginning of 2020 was that January, February period and while there was a vaccine, the only people that qualified were, like, teachers, law enforcement, people over 70.

>> But 2021, will -- >> Not at the beginning of 2021, a lot of the deaths were in January and February of 2021 and infections in December before the vaccine was widely available.

It's one thing to have the vaccine but getting into arms and a lot of deaths were at the very beginning of 2021 when the vaccine hasn't been widely available and the Delta wave with insufficient rates which caused us to be the worst in terms of mortality and the highest death rate from Covid-19 also in 2021.

>> Also a lot of folks weren't wearing masks a lot of folks refused vaccinations and that had to play a part.

>> Lack of wearing masks and just poor vaccine uptake and, of course, the real thing, why did that happen and in my opinion, it was because we didn't use the policies that we should have been using to incentivize vaccines and require masks in public places.

>> More on that and cancer deaths, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and is that because people were delaying visits to doctors?

>> A lot of the heart disease was, because people might not have gone into to see their cardiologist and had chest pain and I'll going to power through this and I won't go in because I don't know what I'll find and I'm having a hard time to make an appointment.

It was delayed procedures and especially the beginning of 2021, we were in crisis standards of care.

In January of 2021, 68% of all of the hospital beds were Covid people and that pushed out people who needed stents and things like that.

There's a cascade effect because there were so many people because we weren't implementing policies to keep them out of the hospital and not getting infected.

>> Comes back to leadership and policy, speaking of which as far as legislative activity, a couple of bills passing and I know you were opposed to both and one, in particular, it bans mask requirements and what universal mask requirements without consent of parents and something along these lines.

>> Just this afternoon.

>> It will be going to the governor's desk and it says, not for now, because this isn't until 90 days but the next time we ever need to use masks as an intervention in schools, if that ever happens in the future.

And what it says is, that a school district can't require masks -- can't require kids to wear masks in the classroom until the parent sent in a permission slip requiring them to wear masks.

There's a process where schools would have to collect permission slips.

Plus, you would have several or many of the students not wearing masks and the whole purpose was to get to universal masking because the masks stop particles and they're not great filters in the other directions and you have to have everyone masked and it passed ten minutes ago.

>> There was another bill that banned cities and down for staff.

>> That's a poke in the eye to Tucson.

>> Is that what that was?

>> Yes.

>> Poke considered done.

Before we go and we're talking Covid in particular, where are we with this and I'm seeing more people wearing masks and more people concerned about this subvariant of BA2 and are we ready to panic again.

>> I'm not.

Look, the BA2 took over from BA1 and the dominant strain in Arizona now and we're not seeing a big influx into the hospitals.

The hospitals are looking really good right now and catching up on the old procedures there are some hospitals that don't have any Covid patients at all.

So we're in a good state right now and I'm not saying we won't have another increase in cases when all of the antibodies and the immunities wear off that people got through the last few months, maybe in the summer.

They'll be a rise in cases and the data suggests that it's not going to translate into hospitalizations.

So it becomes increasingly less lethal overtime because people are better prepared with the antibiotics through vaccination or previous infection and the virus itself has become less lethal than it used to be.

>> Become closer to living with it.

>> It with never go away and we're in the epidemic phase and unless something radical happens, it's going to be with us and we need to get used to it.

The people with the compromised immune systems, but there's influenza and all kinds of things.

>> Also the vaccines for influenza and everybody takes it once aware and will we get that with with Covid?

>> Yeah, once a year.

>> Always a pleasure.

>> Take care, goodbye.

>> Up next, why the Arizona democratic party wants an investigation into the recent redistricting of legislative maps.

the Arizona democratic party is asking the attorney general to investigate repeats changes to redistricting maps with a claim that some of the boundary lines were drawn to reap republican candidates in safe G.O.P districts.

Jeremy Duda is covering the story.

Axios-phoenix, good to talk -- I guess it's good to talk about the redistricting commission.

[ Laughter ] >> I thought this was ought over and done with.

They file a request with the attorney general and what's going on here?

>> The Arizona democratic party is asking the attorney general's office to investigate the commission alleging that it violated a provision of the state constitution that prohibits the redistricting commission from considering where incumbents or candidates live when they draw district lines and the point of the commission is to get the legislators drawing the line out of that business and protected themselves, of course, from friends that is a big part, do not have that happen and alleging that happened in three particular legislative districts.

>> Demanding a state investigation here and they're basically claiming that there was a conspiracy among, what, republicans on the commission and to divide it up so certain folks get a break?

>> That they made changes to three districts to benefit incumbent republican senators.

One down in Tucson creating the eastern areas of the Tucson areas and one in northern and central Arizona that took Wendy Rogers into a republican one and one out in the west valley that moved Kurr into a republican one.

>> With Wendy Rogers, wasn't there casual conversation among commissioners regarding this?

>> Yes, this was an unusual situation and they were making last changes to the two districts at the request of the Navajo nation, putting Flagstaff into the native district into the tribes and the purpose about district is to have native American representation and back and forth all morning moving lines around in Flagstaff and everybody was good and they came back and the republican commissioner for Tucson said, hey, one more quick change, remove this line.

It turned out with a small area in Flagstaff moving Wendy Rogers into the republican district.

We learned from a democratic conditioners that they wanted to make one more change saying, as a joke, don't tell me it's for an incumbent and is it's a joke and not?

>> That's key because you're not supposed to consider incumbency.

>> The democratic parties, they want attorney general Brnovich to do something and can they prove it and they said, hey, we want to move it from that to this and sure thing, buddy.

You may suspect it and hey, senator Rogers lives here and this would be silly if you're for a commissioner and how do you prove that.

Same with with the other two districts.

>> Open meeting laws and mentioning that, as well.

What's that about?

>> Potentially, saying, hey, coming back to make a change and I don't know that would violate open meeting law and obviously, this is two of the five and I don't know if there were specifics discussed.

That's nothing new and hadn't heard that before.

>> What about state resource for political purposes?

>> I think that's something that was bothering the republican caucus earlier this year and I guess last year, that senator Vince Leech, in this new republican leaning Tucson district, he had senate staff helping to contact mayors in the area, the mayor of Miran, that he signed his name onto, urging the adoption of this map for the Tucson area, including this republican district.

And certainly that raises questions about whether using senate staff and that's about electoral politics, about the district where he'll be elected and guess we'll see.

Why not file this?

>> That was my next question, why now?

Why so late?

The election is coming up around the corner and this new information did the Democrats receive?

One of the commissioners heard that joke is long time ago.

>> I got that quote a long time ago.

They said, oh, we wanted to wait until the filing deadline and no question about the districts would look like and if they had the evidence and needed to show that the commissioners drew and they would have gone to court a few months ago.

Perhaps they just wanted to see if Brnovich had documents they couldn't get and I couldn't get this and you turned over the phone records and whatnot from these commissioners who acknowledged being contacted.

>> It could be the Democrats just basically wanted to put Brnovich in a tight spot because what will he do?

He won't do anything.

>> Again, they can show these lines were drawn in a way that benefits incumbents, especially, I think Wendy Rogers and Kurr, but didn't present any evidence and they drew that line there and same thing for Kurr, oh, we got calls from lunch asking to move this community of liberty into this district and out of this one.

Maybe this suspected this is because the incumbent -- after all, just happened to have cell phone numbers during a lunch break and can they prove it and didn't include anything that says these people knew it.

Will Brnovich do anything?

I don't know.

>> Any responses?

>> Not enough of anything.

>> Jeremy Duda, great job covering the redistricting commission and never seems to end.

Thank you for coming in and sharing.

>> Happy to come in.

Thank you.

Tonight, mental strike, a western Ukrainian city that has been a safe haven for refugees.

>> The Arizona corporation commission recently voted against the expansion of a national gas plant near the small town of Randolph, a black community south of Coolidge and residents fought against the expansion and won.

They joined Randolph residents.

Sandy Bahr, welcome and good to see you in person and we're talking about the expansion and how they were shot down and give us an overview and we'll get to the particulars.

>> They were going to add a huge expansion and at the Coolidge station, they really rushed it through the process and rushed it through their board after announcing it.

It went to the power plant and committee that approved it.

And then next up was the Arizona commission and that's where in this certificate of environmental compatibility went and it was rejected on a 4-1 vote and the commission is supposed to look at whether something is in the public interest and look at the impact on the environment and that's why it's called the certificate of environmental compatibility.

The commissioners found that it would have caused significant harm, was not in the public interest and that SRP really hadn't done a good job with, you know, preparing for this and providing information to it rate payers, to the people of Randolph and, ultimately, the commissioners.

>> Randolph is located where?

>> Basically, it's south of the phoenix area and it's right next to Coolidge and Pinal county and Coolidge has annexed land around Randolph.

Randolph is an unincorporated area and an historic area and it is redominantly people of color.

It's a historic black community.

This is where people came from places like Oklahoma and Texas to work in the cotton fields and a lot of them weren't allowed to live in Coolidge.

They lived in Randolph.

So it has a long history and it's a community that wants to continue to exist.

And they said no to this and I believe the Arizona corporation commission period them.

>> Yes, indeed, 4-1 vote and one billion dollars expansion and that's huge out there.

>> Yes, that's a lot of money.

That's the other thing.

Salt river project didn't look at the cheaper, cleaner alternative that we had hoped they would look at.

They basically said we'll build a gas plant and took it to their board and kept plowing forward with this and that's a whole a lot of money to spend without doing, you know, what we call an all source request for proposal.

>> The residents of Randolph, the environmental hazards, the health hazards, that's what was cited or we don't need this or never asked for this and don't want this.

>> The environmental and health was the cited and impacts on air quality, in an area that violates the health-based standards for particulates and pinal county is in there for climate change and the people for Randolph have experienced a lot of harm.

There's an existing plant and other industrial facilities and they have fought them and, unfortunately, they went forward anyway and this time, they pushed hard and they spoke up and, again, the commission heard them and that is, I think -- I think that's what's different.

It's not different that these kinds of polluting facilities are pushed upon communities of color.

What's different is that they were heard.

>> SRP says that more capacity is needed to maintain grid reliability.

>> The commission acknowledged that they needed more, but that there were other ways they could get there and that was true of the experts that testified before the power plant and line siding committee, looking at additional solar and there are other ways to get here, increasing energy efficiency and they didn't have to just say we're going to build a huge gas plant.

>> Justin Olson said it was needed to support it and was alone a consenting voice and how do you respond?

>> Wind and solar are very reliable and interintermittent and you need to look at your facilities in different locations and if there's a cloud over here, there probably isn't one over there and that's why the experts that testified said you really should be looking at storage.

>> So what happens next?

Will there be no expansion and what are the plans?

>> Well, SRP has not indicated yet what they plan to do?

They could challenge this decision.

They could ask for a rehearing.

Although, it would be a little bit odd, consider it was a 4-1 vote.

They could come back with something less or they could do what they should have done in the first place and that is do a request for proposal, an all-source one, and really look at who else and how else this could be provided instead of, you know, forcing this type of polluting facility on the small community of Randolph.

>> The corporation commission doesn't have authority over SRP, but when it comes to power plant construction, that is where the commission steps in and said know.

Sandy Bahr, thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you.

that is it for now and thank you for joining us.

You have a great evening.

Coming up, how one group is working to relocate and protect burrowing owls.