New federal rules for the Colorado River officially went into effect Oct. 1, but they won’t change the amount of water flowing to Arizona quite yet. A land developer and film producer wants to turn 13-hundred acres in Maricopa County into a complex featuring a film studio, amusement park, and golf course. ASU is placing its head hockey coach on paid administrative leave just days before the start of the season. Plus the latest Fronteras Desk, metro Phoenix, and indigenous affairs news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I’m Tiara Vian, and here are this week’s stories you don’t want to miss.
This is the podcast that’s designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of Sept. 28, 2026.
Arizona has worked to attract record-breaking investments from Taiwan-based TSMC in its own efforts to become a hub for making computer chips. But at the same time Arizona has built up those partnerships with Taiwan, China has ramped up its military posturing against the island. For KJZZ’s original series “All In: The High Stakes of Arizona’s Big Bet on Semiconductors and Its Partnership with Taiwan,” Greg Hahne has more.
GREG HAHNE: In early August, the Diamondbacks hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chase Field. The Dodgers won, but for the Taiwanese community in Arizona, it offered something more.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you to everyone at the ballpark tonight celebrating Taiwanese Heritage.
GREG HAHNE: The Diamondbacks regularly celebrate different cultures, and this game was its third Taiwanese Heritage celebration. Wen Huang leads a Taiwanese trade organization in Phoenix, which was a partner for the event. She noted the recent growth in Arizona’s Taiwanese population after living in the Valley since the ’80s.
WEN HUANG: I always wish that I have friends, new friends from Taiwan, but I waited my whole entire life until I’m almost retired, and then here comes TSMC. All of a sudden, I run into Taiwanese people all the time.
GREG HAHNE: To support an influx of migrants, the Taiwanese government is opening a new office in Phoenix. Its director, Kevin Chia, threw the game’s ceremonial first pitch.
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome Kevin Chia, director general of the brand-new Taipei Economic and Cultural Office here in Phoenix.
GREG HAHNE: That office will provide consular services to Taiwanese nationals here, but those plans have angered the Chinese government, which claims Taiwan as its own. KJZZ has obtained multiple letters addressed to Gov. Katie Hobbs from China’s L.A. Consulate protesting the office and asking the state to stop building political ties with Taiwan. One of the letters accuses the office of lending support to Taiwan’s independence from China. Lily McElwee is president of the Phoenix Committee on Foreign Relations and says the letters—
LILY MCELWEE: —very much adhere to Beijing’s firm stance that it will do whatever it takes to reduce Taiwan’s international space.
GREG HAHNE: The same month the office was announced, China tested a long-range ballistic missile, and Taiwan’s military also reported a record number of Chinese government and naval ships approaching the island. McElwee says these are gray-zone tactics, which are designed to fall just short of triggering military intervention from other countries—
LILY MCELWEE: —but still be effective in terms of their effects on public opinion and political will within Taiwan.
GREG HAHNE: Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego says she and other political leaders are keeping an eye on potential conflict in the region as the state has ramped up its economic and cultural partnerships with Taiwan.
KATE GALLEGO: We certainly watch the Taiwan Strait and political developments very, very closely and try to plan ahead.
GREG HAHNE: This summer, TSMC said it would invest $265 billion to expand its manufacturing of advanced semiconductors and computer chips in the state. Gallego says dozens of TSMC’s vendors are building up in Arizona as well, helping to secure supply chains.
KATE GALLEGO: We talk regularly with folks in the national security world and in TSMC to just make sure we prepare for what we can.
GREG HAHNE: Meanwhile, many living in Taiwan move about their days normally. David Huang is a researcher at the National Tsing Hua University on the island and says he’s grown accustomed to China’s threats of invasion.
DAVID HUANG: We believe that there is lack of real motivations for China to do so unless they really wanted to demonstrate something very political.
GREG HAHNE: While Huang doubts there’ll be an invasion soon, he hopes the growing partnerships with Arizona will go beyond business deals and cultural exchange. He would like to see the state support Taiwan’s independence as China’s authoritarian government works to cut the island from the global stage.
DAVID HUANG: The Taiwanese society today actively needs many societies or voices to support its fight for democracy.
GREG HAHNE: Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly says what the state can officially do beyond its ongoing business deals is limited. He says while Taiwan is an ally, the U.S. can’t officially recognize the island in order to maintain relations with China.
MARK KELLY: We don’t want to do something that might compel them to take some action that is not in the best interest of Taiwan, not in our best interest.
GREG HAHNE: As a senator for the state with TSMC’s growing investments, I asked if he would support U.S. military intervention to help protect democratic Taiwan from a potential invasion. He declined to comment.
MARK KELLY: We have a policy that there is one China.
GREG HAHNE: But he didn’t say whether that China included Taiwan. Greg Hahne, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: You can find the whole series at aztaiwan.kjzz.org.
In education news, ASU is placing its head hockey coach on paid administrative leave just days before the start of the season. This comes after a student-athlete collapsed from life-threatening heatstroke during the team’s first practice in August. Katherine Davis-Young reports.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Matthew Mayich has been hospitalized since the Aug. 20 practice and is not expected to recover. Head Coach Greg Powers told reporters last week he believed he was still the right person to lead the team following the incident. But Mayich’s parents and members of the team have called for Powers and other coaching staff to be put on leave until an investigation can be completed. ASU says assistant coach Mike Corbett will lead the team as the season opens this weekend, and an interim coach will be named soon. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. Thanks for listening.
In public radio, our mission is to be here for our listeners. And “here” can be anywhere—your kitchen, the laundromat, out for a walk. Stream us live at kjzz.org.
In water news, new federal rules for the Colorado River officially went into effect Oct. 1, but they won’t change the amount of water flowing to Arizona quite yet. Alex Hager reports the state is still working on an agreement to spread out the pain of cutbacks.
ALEX HAGER: Arizona is slated to take the biggest cuts under the new rules, but it’s close to a deal with California and Nevada to soften the blow. State officials say it’s hung up while they figure out which specific cities and farms will use less water. John Berggren studies water policy at the non-profit Western Resource Advocates.
JOHN BERGGREN: That’s what they’re hoping to find agreement on is not only do we agree each state how much we’re going to take, but within each state who’s going to actually take the shortages.
ALEX HAGER: Arizona’s top water official told KJZZ that Nevada’s decision to sue the federal government over its new river rules also extended negotiations between the states, but he’s very optimistic about the deal, which must be signed before Jan. 1. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In Fronteras news, two years after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, her government reported significant reductions in the homicide rate. But cases of missing people in Mexico are high and ticking up. Their loved ones say the administration isn’t doing enough to find them. From the Fronteras desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky reports.
NINA KRAVINSKY: In Hermosillo, the faces of the disappeared look out from missing posters plastered on electrical poles and memorials in the main plaza, and from the long-sleeved white T-shirts of their searching mothers. On the way to search for the remains of their loved ones in the desert, a group of Madres Buscadoras de Sonora—Searching Mothers of Sonora—bumps down the road in a packed white pickup truck. It’s not yet 9 a.m., and the conversation is heavy: How to believe in God when your child is missing? For Ana Luz Juárez, the search has shaken her faith.
ANA LUZ JUÁREZ: Porque ya va a cumplir cuatro años mi hijo. ¿Y dónde? No lo he encontrado, no he tenido información de él.
NINA KRAVINSKY: “Because my son has been gone for four years,” Juárez says. “We don’t have any information about where he is.” Driving down winding dirt paths on the outskirts of Hermosillo, we’re followed by a truck of armed Mexican National Guard troops for protection. The search begins before the shovels are even out of the truck bed. We park next to a rolled-up black garbage bag tied with decaying rope. One of the mothers drives a sharp metal pole into the bag. She takes it out and sniffs the tip.
MOTHER: Huele feo.
KRAVINSKY: “It smells bad,” she confirms. This is their main tool for locating the missing: thrusting a sharpened rod into a suspected grave and determining whether the end smells like dirt or like death. Another member of the search party, a father looking for his son, cuts open the bag with his switchblade. The remains of a dog, they conclude, not a missing person. The number of missing in Mexico has ballooned to about 130,000 amid years of cartel violence. During that time, civilian search groups have formed throughout Mexico to do what they say the government won’t.
CROWD: ¡Presidenta! ¡Presidenta!
NINA KRAVINSKY: When Sheinbaum was sworn into office two years ago on Oct. 1, she inherited a massive murder problem.
CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM: En materia de seguridad, garantizaremos la disminución de los delitos de alto impacto.
NINA KRAVINSKY: In her inaugural address that day, she promised to reduce high-impact crimes like homicide. And by her own government’s metrics, she has. The administration claims a more than 50% decrease in murders since that day, according to state and local crime data that tristles up to the federal government. That’s meant, they say, 46 fewer homicides per day. But crime and security analysts urge caution.
DAVID SAUCEDO: Yo no lo creo, no creo que sea más seguro, sin embargo...
NINA KRAVINSKY: Security analyst David Saucedo doesn’t believe Mexico is actually safer now. While most experts agree there likely has been some reduction in the murder rate, reports of other crimes like extortion have increased. Sheinbaum’s government has gone after high-profile drug lords and regularly publicizes drug busts and arrests—an end to her predecessor’s so-called “hugs, not bullets” strategy for dealing with organized crime. But as Sheinbaum looks to show a decrease in murders, the Madres Buscadoras keep digging. Back in the desert, Alicia Salmón brings the sharp end of a metal pole to her nose and sniffs. An anonymous tipster told the Madres her son could be buried here. He’s been missing for two years. The only smell on the end of the pole this time is wet earth.
ALICIA SALMÓN: A ver... Decepción, tristeza, porque lo que queremos es encontrar.
NINA KRAVINSKY: It’s disappointment, sadness that there’s nothing there after hours and days of searching in the hot sun. In the more than two years since she started looking for her son, she thinks of him constantly.
ALICIA SALMÓN: Pero para mí, el gobierno no sirve para nada.
NINA KRAVINSKY: “The government is completely useless,” Salmón says. She, like many Madres Buscadoras, feel officials haven’t done enough to search for the missing.
ALICIA SALMÓN: Eso es lo que ellos tienen que hacer, su trabajo. Mira qué andamos nosotros buscando, porque ellos no hacen su trabajo.
NINA KRAVINSKY: “Look at us out here searching,” she says, “because they won’t do their job.” This day, the search yields nothing. But not all do. Other searching mothers found skeletal remains of two people in Hermosillo the same weekend. Shovel in hand, Salmón and the other mothers trek deeper into the pathless desert. They’ll keep going, they say, until they find them all. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
TIARA VIAN: This is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast.
In business news, a land developer and film producer wants to turn 1,300 acres in Maricopa County into a complex featuring a film studio, amusement park and golf course. The plans also include a large-scale data center. Taylor Griffith has more.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: Alongside the 300-acre data center and technology campus would be a massive film lot, which the developer, Anita Verma-Lallian, says could become the largest in the country.
ANITA VERMA-LALLIAN: The project started more as a film studio, and I think the data center component came later on. The why I like this for a film studio is mainly because of the location. It’s close to Burbank. It’s right off the freeway going between Phoenix and L.A.
TAYLOR GRIFFITH: The project is located in APS’s service territory and the Phoenix Active Management Area, but utility plans remain unclear. Maricopa County supervisors approved the zoning earlier this month. Once approved, Verma-Lallian says construction may begin within two years. Taylor Griffith, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In Indigenous affairs, earlier this month, a federal audit found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Missing and Murdered Unit is understaffed and its few special agents are spread thin, handling unmanageable workloads. As Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, it’s something one mother from the Phoenix Metro personally knows as she continues searching for her missing daughter. It’s part of the ongoing series, “Confronting Violence in Indian Country.”
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Phoenix ranks in the top 10 of U.S. cities with the most unsolved missing persons cases. Violet Rose is one of them. The 31-year-old mother was reportedly last seen here, near the corner of 32nd Street and East McDowell Road in 2021, the same year the BIA Missing and Murdered Unit was formed. Originally from the neighboring Gila River Indian Community, Violet later enrolled with the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe on the Arizona-California border, further complicating efforts to find her. She spent much of her 20s behind bars for assault and drug convictions. The all-female Perryville prison in Goodyear was her home.
ARLENE VAVAGES: The last time she got out, we picked her up over there in Perryville. We had a good day. We ate and all that.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s Violet’s mother, 60-year-old Arlene Vavages from the Gila River Indian Community.
ARLENE VAVAGES: And we went to Walmart. She got clothes because she didn’t have no clothes, and then we went home.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That stay was short-lived.
ARLENE VAVAGES: It was hard for her on the reservation to do anything because the city life, there’s buses, there’s more transportation to take. So, she said she was going to go, and I was kind of sadden by that, but I knew she had to do what she had to do and meet with her PO.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Coincidentally, Arlene and Violet would bump into each other on a bus in Mesa weeks before she went missing.
ARLENE VAVAGES: And she looked at me, and she said, “Mom!” And I said, “Violet!”
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: They sat together, chit-chatted, and hugged. Arlene was heading to grab groceries in Chandler while Violet was working at Goodwill and on her way to a nearby hotel.
ARLENE VAVAGES: To me, when I heard Motel 6, I’m like, “Oh no, that’s a red flag. I know what she’s going to do there. She’s probably going to go get high, go do drugs. What is she doing out here when she should be working?” And that’s the last time I seen her.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: August marked five years since Violet vanished. According to the Arizona Department of Corrections, she absconded, meaning Violet vacated her assigned housing and stopped communicating with her parole officer. To this day, Violet is technically considered a fugitive in the eyes of the state. As part of the search, photos posted online, including some from prison, detail Violet’s identifying tattoos. But Arlene remembers her daughter very differently from the person depicted in those mugshots.
ARLENE VAVAGES: One time we went out on 19th Avenue, there’s this Ross. She bought some tennis shoes, and then she took them off, she put on her new shoes. And I guess that’s what they do, they leave their shoes out there for the next homeless person who may need those shoes. She was caring, and she could help you out if she could.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Her case is among close to 80 others listed by the BIA’s Missing and Murdered Unit. Aaron Summers, one of three special agents based in Phoenix, is overseeing the case along with a dozen more in Arizona. Arlene says she last spoke with him years ago.
ARLENE VAVAGES: And he said he couldn’t locate her, and it’s just like, that’s it. Just recently I tried to call him, and I didn’t get no response, no call back, nothing.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: And when I emailed him, Special Agent Summers replied that he doesn’t discuss open cases. As for the BIA, a statement sent on behalf of Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs William “Billy” Kirkland reads in part that the agency is taking the federal audit findings, quote, “very seriously,” which also found a backlog of almost 400 pending referrals as of late 2024. Now the BIA says it has already adopted many audit recommendations to ensure that the Missing and Murdered Unit is equipped to deliver meaningful results. Meanwhile, worried mothers like Arlene can only wait and hope for answers.
ARLENE VAVAGES: Violet Rose, we love you so much. Want you to come home. You have grandkids, you have your kids. We’re still a big family. We really need you home.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: You can contact the BIA MMU with a tip by texting 847411.
And finally, from KJZZ’s original production, The Show: How much are private businesses investing in Arizona’s water future? Here’s co-host Lauren Gilger.
LAUREN GILGER: We’ve all heard how dire the future of the Colorado River is, especially for us who rely on its water here in Arizona. But just how much would it cost to help save it, and who should be ready to foot the bill? Well, the state and just about every municipality in it are getting ready to shell out a whole lot in water conservation efforts. And now one big player in the private sector is stepping up, too: Amazon. The online retail giant has pledged $20 million to water-saving efforts in Arizona and California as part of a longer-term effort. KJZZ’s Alex Hager joins us now with more on the plan and the role of private business in our collective water futures. Good morning, Alex.
ALEX HAGER: Good morning, Lauren. Thanks for having me.
LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for coming on. So, tell us more first, Alex, about this plan from Amazon to spend money on saving water here. What are they going to do?
ALEX HAGER: Yeah, so what we know so far is that it’s $20 million out the gate that’s going to fund a few different water conservation projects. Perhaps most notably here, they’re going to upgrade irrigation efficiency with a tribe in Northern Arizona that they did not name, citing some ongoing negotiations. And that is also part of a longer-term plan where they are creating this collaborative—I believe they’re bringing together a few different companies to join these efforts, and the goal there is raising $100 million for water conservation over the course of two years. And just to put this into context a little bit, this is a fairly significant amount of money from the private sector. I can’t say conclusively that it is the single largest corporate tranche of money for water conservation, but it is certainly the largest in recent memory for me.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you about this quote from Amazon that you reported, Alex. They told you that, quote, “Companies that benefit from being in that basin have an opportunity and really a responsibility to help solve those problems.” So, I want to talk about that responsibility from the private sector, what it means. How much have private businesses gotten involved, for example, in helping with kind of the water shortage on the Colorado River, Alex? Like, which really impacts businesses, too, right?
ALEX HAGER: Yeah, we’re seeing it more lately. And, you know, I was skeptical of this sort of thing initially, both Amazon’s announcement and when I started hearing other companies do this a few years ago. You know, it’s not every day that large corporations act purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. So, I talked about this with the head of a group called Business for Water Stewardship. It’s an organization that really is focused on rallying money from private companies for this kind of thing, for water conservation. And over about five years, they rallied about $30 million for water conservation projects. And the head of that group told me they’re mainly doing it for two big reasons: They see risk. And the first is operational risk. Basically, if you are building big factories or shipping hubs or any kind of large industrial infrastructure, if you’re putting it in a place where you want it to operate long term, it is going to be a problem if there is not a long-term water supply. So, the first thing is they’re trying to mitigate that risk. The second thing is reputational risk. And the idea there is that as this water crisis is getting bigger, it is attracting more attention and a lot of hard opinions. We’re seeing it showing up in campaign ads now, right? And I think the idea there is that companies know that if the water crisis becomes big enough that everyone has an opinion about it, they want to be part of the solution rather than the problem. I mean, we’re seeing this with data centers right now, right? I mean, there’s companies that now have a significant amount of risk in terms of setting up data centers in communities because those communities are so concerned about their impact to the water system that they might protest the construction of that. So, companies, I think, are looking to make sure that they can operate for a long time and then people will let them operate for a long time.
LAUREN GILGER: A balance there, for sure. Okay, so let’s put this into context though in terms of how much money this is, right? Like, this is, as you say, a significant investment from the private sector, $20 million, part of a larger thing overall, right? But how much money might it take, Alex, to really save enough Colorado River water to like make a dent? It’s so dire, right?
ALEX HAGER: It is going to take a lot of money. When we talk about saving Colorado River water, there’s a few big ways that we do it. Typically, it is paying farmers, very large agricultural users of water, to just pause growing. A lot of times, it is paying cities to save maybe a little less water by making their systems more efficient or reducing leaks in some of their pipes. All of those programs cost billions of dollars. We saw the Inflation Reduction Act under the Biden administration spent—or allocated $4 billion for those. That money is still on its way out the door in some cases, and we have just seen new calls for another $2 billion. So, $20 million is a relative drop in the bucket. But the federal government might not be able to foot this bill by itself, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more money from more places kind of chip in to this water conservation work.
LAUREN GILGER: So, most of that money, as you’re saying, comes from government, taxpayers, things like that. I mean, like, you mentioned some of the ways in which we can and are paying people to save money in various ways in city or ag, right? But, I mean, like, can you save enough? Like, how much is it just that we are too many people and too much going on in this region?
ALEX HAGER: That is the big question. You know, right now one of the big questions for the Colorado River going forward is how much can we cut back on water through a voluntary basis where people get to choose how much they cut and when and then get paid for it, and how much is this problem big enough and expensive enough that it will be significantly easier for big governments to find some way, through a way that doesn’t get them sued, to force people and businesses to use less water?
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Okay, so Amazon says that this plan, they know, like, isn’t going to solve the whole problem here, but it does seem like it’s part of this bigger effort. Talk a little bit about their long-term goal. They use the word momentum.
ALEX HAGER: Yeah, I think the big thing that we see in that regard is, you know, it’s sort of the “teach a man to fish” approach, right? Is that one of the ways that we can save water is by paying people right now to guarantee that they will use less water for, say, two years. Or you can give them money for some sort of project that kind of guarantees repeated savings. So, instead of just using less, it is coming up with infrastructure that just uses less by itself, like programs that are more effective at detecting leaks, or sprinklers that use less water to grow the same amount of crops or grass on someone’s lawn, that kind of thing. So, I think what they’re alluding to here is the idea that they could get a lot of value out of putting money into these projects that have kind of year-after-year returns.
LAUREN GILGER: Is water augmentation a part of this conversation ever, Alex, from the business side?
ALEX HAGER: Not that I have heard yet. Most of this seems to be concerned with saving water in places that are already using it. I’ve seen other companies give water for, you know, agricultural equipment that is automated, so instead of having to go out into the field and turn a crank to shut off the water, you can do it with the touch of a button and you save water in the amount of time it takes you to do that. But I have not yet heard of corporate money going towards augmentation projects.
LAUREN GILGER: All part of this larger conversation. All right. KJZZ’s Alex Hager, thank you so much for coming on, Alex. Appreciate it.
ALEX HAGER: Thanks for having me.
TIARA VIAN: And this has been the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast, made possible in part by the Katina Foundation, BASIS Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.
Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I’m Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
