Arizona

Arizona health officials said two workers employed at poultry farms have recovered from mild cases of bird flu while the public health agency in Marin County, north of San Francisco, said it was investigating a possible bird flu infection of a child. If confirmed by the CDC, the U.S. total for bird flu infections would rise to 61 people in eight states this year.

Two Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee, Reps. Tom O’Halleran of Arizona and Cindy Axne of Iowa, are in uphill fights for re-election against Republicans, according to political handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

It’s 1 a.m. and the stars are out as hundreds of people shuffle slowly along the wall that forms the border with the U.S. in the small Mexican city of San Luis Río Colorado, Esther Honig reports in FERN's latest story produced with the Nation magazine. In heavy boots and wide-brimmed straw hats, almost everyone here is headed to work in the vegetable fields of Yuma County, Arizona. Bundled against the frigid November air in puffy coats and fleece blankets, they carry thermoses of hot coffee and mini coolers packed with breakfast and lunch, often small, tightly rolled meat burritos. The wait to get through the small port of entry averages two hours but on some days can take as many as four. (No paywall)

Arizona's farmers are facing a water crisis, as the state diverts scarce Colorado River resources to booming population centers, reports Stephen R. Miller, in FERN's latest story with National Geographic. To deal with the situation, farmers are drilling deeper into aquifers or selling off land, but pressures will only mount with climate change.

In Tucson, the Iskashitaa Refugee Network is helping refugees heal from trauma by gleaning fruit from backyards across the city. “Iskashitaa — which means 'working cooperatively together' in Somali Bantu, the ethnicity of many early volunteers — provides more than just healthy food,” writes Jonathan Bloom in FERN’s latest story, published with NPR’s The Salt.

The Pima County Public Library system was one of the first in the nation in 2012 when it began to circulate seeds, says High Country News, an approach patterned on the traditional lending library that makes available to readers. "Aspiring gardeners can look up varieties electronically, put seeds on reserve and check out 10 packs at a time."

A synthetic cannabis drugmaker that has been investigated for alleged improper marketing of a highly addictive prescription painkiller donated a lot of money to the campaign opposing legalization of marijuana in Arizona, the Washington Post reports.

Earlier this year, Tucson, Arizona, became the first and only place in the U.S. to be named a City of Gastronomy by the United Nations’ Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, better known as UNESCO, says the New York Times. The desert city of 500,000 joined 17 others, including Parma, Italy; Bergen, Norway and Ensenada, Mexico to carry the designation.

Farmers in the arid Southwest are turning to aquaponics, an indoor system that combines hydroponics with fish farming to conserve water and use fish excrement to nourish plants, according to The Guardian.

“If you eat a green salad between Thanksgiving and April, whether in Minnesota, Montreal or Modesto, odds are good some of it was grown in or around Yuma [Arizona],” says the Los Angeles Times in a story about the competing demands for water that drain the Colorado River. “Nearly 40 million …

Once hunted as nuisances, beavers "are being welcomed into the landscape as a defense against the withering effects of a warmer and drier climate" in the U.S. West, says the New York Times.