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TEMPE – The typical college dorm doesn’t have 3-D printers, laser cutters and Bluetooth-enabled washers and dryers on-site. But the new Tooker House on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus touts the kind of technology and innovation the students living there hope to one day create.

WASHINGTON – Despite posting a sharp decrease in its poverty rate over the last two years, Arizona continued to have some of the highest poverty in the nation in 2016, the latest Census numbers show.

PHOENIX – Wastewater. We use it to irrigate fields, to flush toilets and to make one of America’s favorite beverages – beer.

PHOENIX — As the weeks go by, DACA recipients know time is running out. That’s why on Wednesday morning, several of them walked into the Phoenix offices of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA). They wrote their names on a sign-in sheet and carried folders of paperwork. They took seats next to volunteers.

SCOTTSDALE – What’s the biggest threat to the future of the United States economy? Former White House economic advisor Todd Buchholz said it’s not global warming or the debt – it’s the lack of postsecondary education.

Democratic Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Tucson was arrested Tuesday morning during a protest in front of the Trump Tower in New York City, according to information from his campaign office.

CASA GRANDE — Italian pasta chefs are known for crafting dishes that are as much local culture as they are food. What is less well-known is that Arizona’s desert durum wheat is a common ingredient in Italian pasta.

PHOENIX — “It’s like another board game for them. Both the Democrats and the Trump administration. It’s always a game and they’re gambling with our lives,” Francisco Luna said.

PHOENIX – Wages in the Phoenix metro area increased more than anywhere else in the United States in the past year, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

PHOENIX – Diane Douglas, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, discussed her lukewarm attitude toward the AzMERIT test and seemed puzzled when asked about Proposition 305, a ballot measure asking voters to stop the expansion of school vouchers in Arizona. Recent AzMERIT results showed a slight improvement over the previous year.

PHOENIX – Expect more online scams after the latest online hack at Equifax compromised the personal information of as many as 143 million Americans, Arizona experts said.

WASHINGTON – It was the greatest political deal that was – until it wasn’t. Unless it still is. After Democratic leaders said Wednesday night that they had reached a deal with President Donald Trump to preserve DACA, without a border wall requirement, social media exploded – along with some Republican members of Congress.

SCOTTSDALE – Business owners in Scottsdale horrified by a string of wrong-way collisions in Arizona have developed new technology designed to help motorists stay safe.

PHOENIX – Tall corporate buildings, brand new modern apartment complexes and fancy restaurants compose most of Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix. However, just a few miles down, south of Salt River, it’s a different story. Small, family-owned businesses, abandoned buildings and empty lots become the scenery.

WASHINGTON – Hispanic House members took a page from President Donald Trump’s playbook Friday, saying they are willing to risk a government shutdown later this year if they cannot get a vote on the DREAM Act.

PHOENIX — On Thursday evening, Arizona State University students crowded into a makeshift conference room, pulling chairs into a circle. When there wasn’t any room left, some students sat on the floor in the middle. They took turns introducing themselves – sharing their names, their majors and their fears about the repeal of DACA.

PHOENIX — After President Donald Trump’s official DACA decision was announced earlier this week, DREAMers now turn their focus to what could be next for them.

BUCKEYE — Local leaders say salt cedar trees are invading the Gila River, causing flood andfire hazards and choking native vegetation and wildlife habitats. They say it’s time for the trees, planted a century ago to slow erosion, to make their final stand.

WASHINGTON – The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality got $315 million in funding for specific federal programs over the past five years – funding that could be endangered by proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget.

WASHINGTON – Three Arizona lawmakers were among the scores of House and Senate members who filed a court brief Thursday defending the Colorado cake shop owner who was sued for refusing to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

PHOENIX — It’s a blindingly bright Tuesday morning in Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row arts district. Despite the lack of people on the sidewalks, it is anything but quiet. The sounds of construction fill the air at the intersection of Third and Roosevelt streets, and a promotional sign for the new Broadstone Roosevelt Apartments, which formerly read.

PHOENIX – Levi Conlow and Nathan Cooper have been “boarding” all their lives — skateboarding, wakeboarding and snowboarding.

CHANDLER – Leaders of the Phoenix area chapter of the Little People of America are upset organizers of a Chandler festival hired and promoted an “extreme midget wrestling” event, saying the term is derogatory, painful and may violate federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

PHOENIX — Through DACA, Lili Sanchez has been able to obtain work as a licensed real estate agent and provide for her two young children. The fate of her profession and source of income now rests entirely in the hands of President Donald Trump. If the program is repealed, Sanchez will have few options left.

PHOENIX – The city is hiring an outside firm to conduct an independent review of the controversial police response to protesters after last week’s presidential rally.

TEMPE – More than a million international students attend American colleges and universities, but often struggle with homesickness, learning the nuances of the English language and making friends outside of people from their home country.

On this episode of In Focus, we discuss wrong-way driving and the new technology that the Arizona Department of Transportation is installing on the Interstate 17. Digital Producer Alexis Kuhbander speaks to someone who barely avoided a wrong-way collision, along with a public safety official and vehicle-detection system expert, who highlight the importance of the.

PHOENIX – Women plan travel and men go along with the plans, according to new marketing research that also shows generational differences among millennial, Gen X and boomer women who travel.

GRAND CANYON – An aging pipeline bringing water to residents, resorts and 6 million visitors a year at the Grand Canyon has broken about 80 times since 2010 and needs a multimillion-dollar replacement, park officials say.

PHOENIX – Arizona universities are working to drive up Arizona college graduation rates, smoothing the way for students transferring from community college, offering financial aid and adding online classes to draw non-traditional students.

PHOENIX — Jonathan Meldrum, a former offensive lineman at Syracuse, struggled through his sophomore year in college.

PHOENIX – In the rising heat of a recent summer morning, teenage boys congregated on Phoenix Christian School’s football field, waiting to take turns going long for passes.

PHOENIX – The driver who was at the heart of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s contempt of court case said the sheriff’s guilty verdict shows “justice is being served,” but he is still affected by the encounter seven years ago.

TEMPE — Despite an eye-opening study about trauma found in the brains of deceased NFL players, it won’t keep them from playing the sport they love, several Arizona State athletes said.

WASHINGTON – When Sen. John McCain took to the Senate floor last week to lecture his colleagues about governing, it reminded John Fer of similar conversations he’d had with McCain – in a North Vietnamese prison.

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security invoked a waiver of environmental and other regulations Tuesday to speed construction of border projects, a decision that critics said will “endanger wildlife and people.”

PHOENIX – Climate change that brings rising temperatures could lead to more grounded flights, according to a Columbia University study.

WASHINGTON – Arizona conservatives’ reaction to Sen. Jeff Flake’s claim that the Republican Party has lost its way appeared to be as divided Monday as the party itself.

PHOENIX – Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is guilty of criminal contempt for deliberately defying a court order arising from a racial profiling case, a federal court judge ruled on Monday.

PHOENIX – A new driver’s license manual now includes a safety section detailing best practices for drivers who get pulled over by law enforcement.

PHOENIX – Republican state Rep. Bob Thorpe is drafting a bill this summer that would ban out-of-state college students from voting in Arizona elections, sparking criticism from other public officials.

SCOTTSDALE – Traci Temple St. John suppressed the trauma of her childhood for years. Adults said they loved her, then physically and sexually abused her, she said.

PHOENIX – The Interstate 17 bridge that crosses over 19th avenue was among more than 200 bridges in Arizona considered “structurally deficient” in a national safety report but has since been repaired, an ADOT spokesman said.

PHOENIX – Sen. John McCain on Thursday vowed to be “be back soon” in Washington, even as former presidents and longtime Arizona residents sent messages of support after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.

News that Arizona Sen. John McCain is battling brain cancer brought reaction from the White House, former presidents, allies and past opponents.

PHOENIX – City courts in Arizona have a conflict of interest that costs taxpayers, according to a Goldwater Institute report that says municipal judges are motivated to levy fines and fees to keep courts operating.

PHOENIX – David Barnard felt a pain in his chest. His vision blurry and his left arm limp, he turned to his friend.

TEMPE – Chronic pain grips Lauri Nickel every day, day after day.

WASHINGTON – Sounds of toddlers laughing and playing echoed around her, but on stage the message from a Mesa teen was serious: Act on climate change, or we will suffer.

PHOENIX – Dena Wilson never doubted what she wanted to do with her life while growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

PHOENIX – Some Muslims who want to live out their faith in Arizona can have a difficult time finding certain businesses that cater to their needs.

WASHINGTON – Tim Rogers, 39, is scheduled to graduate next week with dual bachelor’s degrees, in social work and in public service and public policy, one of 649 veterans who applied for graduation at Arizona State University this semester.

Arizona is one of the fastest growing states, ranking eighth in the country in terms of percentage population growth and fifth in numeric growth between 2015 and 2016, according to census data. But with the rapid expansion comes growing pains, including traffic congestion and “brain drain.”

With proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts in the billions of dollars, the National School Lunch Program – a fundamental part of Arizona’s school day – is facing new uncertainty.

PHOENIX — Being 15 years old isn’t easy for a lot of people. You’re a freshman in high school and really starting to come into your own. You’re trying to figure out where you belong and what you want to do with your future.

WASHINGTON – Sunny Price knows what it’s like to try to keep up with college studies when you don’t have enough to eat.

PHOENIX – Distracted driving and walking is contributing to a 20-year high in pedestrian deaths, according to data collected in the first half of 2016 by the Governors Highway Safety Association. The preliminary report estimates that the 2016 total could rise to almost 6,000 pedestrian fatalities.

NOGALES — Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, share something more meaningful than their city name. They also share a source of water that is vital to their region of the border.

PHOENIX – Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton reflects on the city’s three-year streak for hosting mega sporting events like the 2015 Super Bowl, the 2016 College Football Championship and this year’s Final Four in an interview with Cronkite New’s Jake Garcia.

Cronkite News special: Borderlands reporting

PHOENIX – Valley Parkinson’s patients are turning to non-contact boxing to help punch back at their disease.

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WASHINGTON – Despite pledges to look for alternatives, closing the Navajo Generating Station in Page could devastate the local economy, where hundreds of jobs rely on the plant and affiliated coal mine and where experts see few, if any, workable solutions.

WASHINGTON – Seishi Oka was 5 and his sister, Mitzi, only 3, when their family was loaded on to a train and taken from their Salinas, California, home to the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona.

Cronkite News is developing a story about President Donald Trump’s border wall plan and its effect on the environment, especially for border states.

Jessika Reed has eight children, including seven who are adopted and four who have special needs. As if that wasn’t enough, Jessika has also cared for many foster kids during the past 15 years, constantly welcoming children in need into her home.

PHOENIX – Larissa Brewington channels a black woman from seven decades back, demure in a black polka-dotted dress with a doily collar and cat-eye glasses perched on her nose, convincing her way into a whites-only Oklahoma law school in 1940s’ America.

KAYENTA – Electrical power lines are nowhere in sight from Helen Salazar’s home. She lives on a dirt road in Monument Valley, part of the Navajo Nation. Throughout her life, Salazar has adapted to the challenges of living in a remote, off-grid home.

NACO,SONORA – Children who painted a mural on a section of the border fence in Mexico gathered to take a final look at their artwork before the structure is torn down to make way for a new border barrier.

PHOENIX – A recent state audit found the state’s Vocational Rehabilitation program, which helps thousands of people with physical or mental disabilities prepare for and find work, spends significantly more per person on average than similar programs in other states – about 2.5 times the amount.

PHOENIX – With President Donald Trump’s executive order to move forward with construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, people across the country are turning their gazes south. Cronkite News journalists report from communities on both sides of the border. Here is a gallery of photos from their travels.

WASHINGTON – Thirty states claim to consider student growth a “significant” factor in teacher evaluations, but a new study finds that evaluations in 28 of those states, including Arizona, “fail to live up to promises.”

PHOENIX – Armed with clipboards, surveys and layers of clothing, hundreds of volunteers loaded into cars before 5 a.m. on Tuesday with a mission to connect with the homeless as part of the the Point-in-Time homeless count in Phoenix.

TEMPE – Police wearing body cameras can promote a good relationship between the community and police, including members of the public saying police officers treated them with respect, early results of an ongoing Arizona State University study show.

PARADISE VALLEY – In a poorly-financed education system, Arizona teachers are battling low salaries, the pressures of mandatory testing and a lack of respect for their profession, making it harder for the state to entice and retain teachers, advocates say. One Paradise Valley mentoring program is trying to grow teachers at home and repair a.

TEMPE – Pristine white lab coats hang on a wheeled rack. Handwritten measurements and equations are crammed on whiteboards. And a long line of freezers are filled with containers of super-concentrated human waste.

PHOENIX – The Arizona health community distributed 305 million pain reliever pills last year – enough to provide 24-hour medication for every adult in the state for two weeks straight, according to the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.

QUEEN CREEK – When she was 5, Berenice Zendejas scribbled down the answer to her kindergarten teacher’s question.

PARKER – The high was 96 degrees on the day the tap went dry at Terry Mestas’ house. Mestas was among several hundred residents who endured heat that climbed to 106 degrees over three days in August, when five water-line breaks and a weak pressure valve shut down the water.

PHOENIX – Rhama Majid raced into the gym at David Crockett Elementary School and found her favorite set of gear: pads, a helmet and a skateboard. She strapped on her protective equipment, put down her skateboard and pushed away like she’d done it a thousand times before.

WASHINGTON _ Neighbors of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport filed 24,247 complaints about noise at the facility in 2015, one of the highest rates among airports studied in a recent George Mason University report.

Taryn Martin, 21, grew up in Vail, a small town in Pima County with approximately 10,000 residents. Her family’s land stretched across the countryside. She rode horses during the day and enjoyed starry skies at night.

PHOENIX — As President-elect Donald Trump and the 115th Congress take control in January, immigration reform is expected to be a top priority, and Arizona is among the states with the most at stake.

PHOENIX – In September, Angel Diaz bought a house.

Cassidy Hancock drives 20 miles each way, Monday through Friday, to attend Tombstone High School, where she is currently a senior. Hancock is taking nursing classes through the school and volunteers at Quiburi Mission Samaritan Center, a nursing home in Benson.

BUCKEYE – Arizona farmland has declined over the decades, leaving one generation of a Buckeye farming family concerned and another content.

NOGALES, AZ – Manuel Pelayo, 25, crosses the border from Mexico to Arizona at least twice a week to buy groceries and other household items for his wife and three children. But following the U.S. presidential election he said he may shop on the U.S. side less often.

PHOENIX – Michael McDowell, who was born in Phoenix and raised in Glendale, recently learned that he now owns a little piece of NASCAR racing history.

PHOENIX – One Phoenix hair stylist is using his customers’ discarded hair to help the environment.

Republican Donald Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON – Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is expected to be among the 10 busiest airports in the nation this Thanksgiving, when as many as 27.3 million people are expected to board a U.S. airline for their holiday travel.

TUCSON – The aroma of hot pizza fused with lingering marijuana smoke and Mick Jagger’s repeated cadence of “I can’t get no… sa-tis-fac-tion.”

WASHINGTON – Was Sen. John McCain’s decision to withdraw his endorsement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a principled stand by a political maverick or the calculated move of a career politician?

PHOENIX – The pumpkins are among us, waiting to be carved, baked and displayed around the Valley. But once the glow of jack-o’-lantern hearts fade to black, they usually are tossed out with the garbage.

WASHINGTON – A state task force said Arizona has thousands more untested rape kits than originally thought, a problem that advocates fear could undermine efforts to get victims to come forward while giving serial offenders a “free pass.”

PHOENIX – It seems like a normal room: There’s a can of hairspray by the mirror, a red trash can by the desk, an extension cord plugged into the wall and a teddy bear wearing a tie-dye shirt on the bed.

WASHINGTON – At least 800 Syrian refugees were resettled in Arizona over the last year, more refugees than all but three states in the nation, according to the most recent data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.

Cronkite News wants to know how politics does or doesn’t play a role in your relationships. While partisanship may dominate this presidential election, we want to know where and how people are coming together.

WASHINGTON – A south Phoenix congressional district posted one of the nation’s largest decreases in people without health insurance since the start of the Affordable Care Act, according to a recently released analysis of Census Bureau data.

2016 U.S. Senate debate: McCain and Kirkpatrick

Arizona Sen. John McCain and challenger Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick faced off Monday in a debate hosted by Arizona PBS and The Arizona Republic. The candidates discussed a range of issues, including the presidential race, immigration, health care and congressional gridlock.

TUCSON – Pima County’s Medical Examiner reported 17 fentanyl-related deaths last year, up from seven in 2014 – a deadly trend involving one of the most potent synthetic opioids in the world.

FLAGSTAFF- Running 800 miles may seem like insanity to some people, but Michael Versteeg knew he’d get around to trying it one day.

WASHINGTON – Immigration has risen sharply over the past 20 years and immigrants have accounted for a larger portion of the workforce in that time, but that competition is actually helping Americans in the long run, a new report says.

PHOENIX – Jarvis Johnson admits he was driving too fast in his rented Dodge Charger on Labor Day when a police officer signaled him to pull over.

WASHINGTON – Navajo Nation locals joined Utah lawmakers Wednesday to express opposition to any attempt to designate land around the Bears Ears site in southeastern Utah as a national monument.

SIERRA VISTA – Dozens of hummingbirds congregate near a house in southeastern Arizona, delighting families who interact with the birds and the specialists who believe the creatures’ migration may help solve the mysteries of environmental health.

PHOENIX – Despite Arizona’s national reputation as a hardline immigration state, most “likely voters” in the Grand Canyon State oppose deporting all undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to a poll of Arizona registered voters released today. The Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News Poll also found that a majority of likely voters opposed building a wall.