Arizona voters headed to the polls Tuesday to settle an unexpectedly feisty Republican U.S. Senate primary battle marked by accusations of hypocrisy, broken promises and flip-flopping.

Arizona voters could get a chance this year to tell the federal government to butt out of what we do with our air, land, water and wildlife.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is banning new hard rock mining on more than a million acres near the Grand Canyon, an area known to be rich in high-grade uranium ore reserves.

WASHINGTON – The House voted Wednesday to swap more than 2,400 acres of copper-rich federal land in Pinal County with a mining company that plans to develop the third-largest undeveloped copper resource in the world.

WASHINGTON - A House subcommittee Thursday voted to nullify the Interior Department’s recently extended ban on new mining claims on more than 1 million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon.

More than 1 million acres of government-owned land surrounding the Grand Canyon is off-limits to new mining claims until Dec. 20.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK – Deep within the canyon, a few miles removed from the mule trains of the popular Bright Angel Trail, Horn Creek creates a ribbon of green vegetation here before plunging toward the Colorado River.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday endorsed a U.S. Department of the Interior proposal to withdraw more than 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon from mining for the next 20 years.

Gov. Jan Brewer wants more nuclear plants in Arizona and more uranium mining in the state to fuel them.

FLAGSTAFF — Environmental groups sued the federal Bureau of Land Management on Monday over its decision to allow a uranium mine to reopen north of the Grand Canyon.

Compromise is possible on a proposed copper mine in southeastern Arizona that's thought to contain the largest undeveloped deposit of high-grade copper in the world, Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar said after touring the site on Friday.

GALLUP, N.M. -- The name Poison Canyon offers a hint of what's faced by those trying to clean up abandoned uranium mines in the West.

GENEVA — The Grand Canyon, the Matterhorn and the Great Barrier Reef are competing with 25 other spectacular natural landmarks in the final phase of the global poll to choose the "New 7 Wonders of Nature."

WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department announced Monday it is temporarily barring the filing of new mining claims, including for uranium, on nearly 1 million acres near the Grand Canyon.

BAD AROLSEN, Germany - In the locked attic of a German archive is a dusty file that harks back to a long forgotten chapter of the Cold War — a humanitarian endeavor that, it now emerges, also had a covert side.

PHOENIX - Three environmental say they're suing U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for authorizing uranium exploration across one million acres of public land near the Grand Canyon.

It may be four weeks until tourists can return to stare at towering waterfalls cascading into blue-green pools near an American Indian village in a canyon west of Grand Canyon National Park headquarters.

Neal Haddad hardly can think of a more beautiful place.

WASHINGTON - One million acres of public land around the Grand Canyon would be off limits to any new mining for three years under an emergency resolution adopted by a House committee.

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TUCSON - An Arizona congressman sponsoring a bill to ban uranium mining near the Grand Canyon will hold a congressional field hearing Friday on the issue.