@photocrati – Thanks. Unfortunately I have tried what you suggested of deactivating all plugins and also trying different themes and the problem still persists.
Could it be a host issue? I noticed this note in the .htaccess file that may possibly be around the time things went wrong (but I don’t know for sure) stating a php update:
# Use PHP54 Single php.ini as default
# Changed PHP handler from application/x-httpd-php54s to application/x-httpd-phpbetas on Mon Nov 23 12:09:45 MST 2015.
AddHandler application/x-httpd-phpbetas .php
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress