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.

But the handful of people allowed to camp in this splendid isolation receive a warning with their permits: Don’t drink the water when Horn Creek is flowing. It’s radioactive.

At Arizona’s public universities, incoming resident students will pay from $8,474 to $9,716 a year in tuition and fees come fall thanks to state funding cuts. That’s an increase of 45 percent to 72 percent since the 2008-2009 school year, depending on the university.

But at Grand Canyon University, a private Christian institution, tuition, while higher at $16,500 a year, isn’t changing and hasn’t since 2009.

If a federal government shutdown closes Grand Canyon National Park, Gov. Jan Brewer won’t follow the playbook of her predecessor, who vowed keep the park open with state resources – and National Guard troops – if necessary.

For businesses in Flagstaff, a city surrounded by national parks and monuments that draw tourists from all over the world, the possibility of a shuttered Grand Canyon National Park is hard to swallow.

Park Service rangers mounted horses, jumped aboard motorized rafts, and set out on foot and in helicopters to clear visitors from the Grand Canyon. They searched backcountry and rafting permits to find visitors throughout the 1.2 million-acre park and told them they had to leave within 48 hours.

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.

Public meetings are being held this week on proposals to address mining around the Grand Canyon.

Arizona’s forests must be thinned to address overgrowth that harms watersheds and endangers wildlife and surrounding communities, the state’s top forestry official told lawmwakers Thursday.

A community college and American Indian tribe in northern Arizona will benefit from federal funds to expand opportunities for distance learning and broadband access.

A year before Arizona celebrates 100 years of statehood, legislators finally approved a bill that designates “The Grand Canyon State” as Arizona’s official nickname.