Dusting of snow helps Colorado firefighters

BAILEY, Colo. -- A dusting of snow and cooler temperatures Saturday helped crews battling a 2,500-acre wildfire that has threatened homes and forced residents to evacuate.

The fire about 35 miles southwest of Denver was 50 percent contained, officials said, while about 150 homes remained off-limits to residents. Containment was expected Sunday if favorable weather continued.

"We've had two days of real offensive work on the fire and today will be a third day of favorable weather conditions, adequate resources, and just good, hard firefighting work," Forest Service spokesman Dave Steinke said.

Authorities have questioned three teen-agers, who were not identified, and said they may have been smoking behind a high school.

Yugoslavia gets pushed for greater cooperation

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush said Saturday that Yugoslavia's president should cooperate more with the U.N. war crimes tribunal and that such help is critical to the country's integration with Europe.

Bush praised recent steps by Yugoslavia "to meet its international obligations" but appealed for President Vojislav Kostunica, a moderate nationalist who opposes the tribunal, to do more.

"To continue on the path to European integration, Yugoslavia's full cooperation with the court and your leadership on the issues is essential," Bush wrote in a letter dated Saturday, sent to mark the country's Statehood Day.

NRA leaders take credit for Bush's election win

RENO, Nev. -- National Rifle Association leaders took credit for President Bush's election Saturday, saying they're taking aim next at unseating gun control advocates in Congress and defeating campaign finance reform in court.

"You are why Al Gore isn't in the White House," NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told more than 4,500 delegates at the NRA's 131st annual meeting.

"No other group could have done what we did collectively in 2000, and now it's time to finish the job," NRA lobbyist James Jay Baker said. "The Senate is the hole in our armor."

Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, the first Democrat to give the NRA's keynote address in more than a decade, agreed that Gore's stands on gun rights cost him key states, including Arkansas, West Virginia and Tennessee.

"I recall the surprise of national Democratic leaders at losing those states in the presidential election," Miller, a longtime NRA member, said in remarks prepared for Saturday night's banquet.

New show at Whistler museum has only nudes

WASHINGTON -- Americans remember James McNeill Whistler for the painting of his heavily gowned, elderly mother. A new show at the world's biggest collection of his art, the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery, celebrates his interest in young female nudes.

"Arrangement in Gray and Black," as Whistler called his mother's portrait, belongs to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, rarely travels and is not in this show. For its exhibits, the Freer relies on more than 1,200 Whistlers that it owns.

--From wire reports