Arizona In Focus

MaRTy is an instrument that collects data about, and scientists use the information to help cities like Tempe and Phoenix understand what makes for the best shade.

Bobbi Lancaster is a transgender woman who lived most of her life hiding who she was. She found solace in golf, but at some point, she had to live as herself, off the course.

Travis Bagent is a professional arm wrestler from West Virginia who came to the desert in June to showcase his sport at the Arizona Arm Wrestling Championship.

Bagent, who’s one of the organizers of the championship, also participated in it. He helped promote the event by talking to local news media and sometimes doing-off-the wall promotional events to boost the profile of the championship and the organization that runs it, the National Armwrestling League. When Bagent wasn’t competing, he played host and color commentator for other bouts.

The event filled a showroom at Talking Stick Resort and Casino with dozens of contestants over two days.

In this episode of Arizona in Focus, Cronkite News talks with Bagent, 43, about how he became a professional arm wrestler, and the super heavyweight wrestling champion of the world.

This episode begins with Bagent’s beginnings in West Virginia, where he grew up poor with a father who wasn’t around much.

Firefighters are controlling a wildfire near Flagstaff, but unusual circumstances complicate process.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department is making “fish cities” to help fish that live in lakes around the state.

School’s out for summer, but high school football players are sweating it out to prepare for fall games. And that can put their lives at risk in Arizona’s sweltering heat.

Garth Paine, who co-leads Arizona State’s Acoustic Ecology Lab, studies how sounds can help understand the environment and potentially help predict climate change.

In this episode of Arizona in Focus, Paine discusses his latest research and where he hopes to take it.

People who live in Imperial Beach, California, in Naco and Nogales in Arizona and in Texas communities along the Rio Grande all say the same thing: When it rains, it stinks.

On this episode of Arizona in Focus, we bring you a conversation with the team of Cronkite News reporters who spent four months working to understand the complexities of wastewater treatment along the border.

In this episode of Arizona in Focus, we explain how upgrades to the Sterling Springs Hatchery will help save water and money in the state’s multibillion dollar sports-fishing industry.

Milwaukee Brewers lefthander Brent Suter is encouraging his team to go green by replacing plastic water bottles with reusable glass bottles.