Arizona In Focus Cronkite News

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.