NATION IN BRIEF

Long-Absent Bison Return to Colorado

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- After an absence of more than a century, wild bison were returned to Colorado's Front Range on Saturday in full view of Denver's skyline.

Sixteen buffaloes from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana were released in an enclosed 1,400-acre section of a wildlife refuge that formerly was the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where nerve gas and other chemical weapons were manufactured.

"The release went very smoothly. We would say this was a tremendous success," said Matt Kales, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said the animals were released in an area that was never used for the manufacture of weapons.

The 17,000-acre arsenal is being cleaned up and transformed from a chemical weapons and pesticide manufacturing center into the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge, about 10 miles from downtown Denver, is now home to deer, bald eagles and hundreds of other species.

* * *

· CHICAGO -- A 2-year-old Indiana boy and his mother contracted a rare and life-threatening infection from his soldier father's smallpox vaccination, the Chicago Tribune reported. The boy developed a virulent rash over 80 percent of his body earlier this month after coming in contact with his father, who had recently been vaccinated for smallpox before he was to be deployed overseas by the Army, the paper said. Physicians stressed that the boy was not suffering from smallpox, but from an infection with the related vaccinia virus that is used to convey immunity to the much deadlier disease.

· FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- A 101st Airborne Division soldier avoided a possible life sentence in the deaths of three Iraqi detainees when a military jury found him guilty late Friday of lesser homicide charges. Army Staff Sgt. Ray Girouard was accused of premeditated murder in ordering his squad to release the detainees and then to shoot them as they fled. Girouard, 24, testified that he did not give the fatal order but that upon finding the detainees had been shot, tried to protect his soldiers by faking an attack.

· WILMINGTON, Del. -- A sixth-grade science teacher who was accused of having sex with a 13-year-old student has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Rachel L. Holt, 35, had pleaded guilty to second-degree rape. She sobbed in court Friday as Superior Court Judge Calvin L. Scott gave her the mandatory minimum sentence.

· BOULDER, Colo. -- A man has apologized for sending hundreds of volunteers on a search for a friend who supposedly got lost but in fact ran away to avoid returning to his Marine unit. The search in August and September for Lance Cpl. Lance Hering, 21, took five days and cost $33,000. Hering is still missing. Steve Powers, 21, was convicted of misdemeanor false reporting and was ordered to write the apology, which he submitted to a court on Friday. Hering, who was in a unit allegedly involved in the April 2005 shooting death of a 52-year-old Iraqi, was on leave from Camp Pendleton, Calif.

· NEW YORK -- An ice storm wiped away the traditional green stripe painted on Fifth Avenue, but it could not keep thousands from celebrating St. Patrick's Day at the city's parade. "We came to party!" declared Una Murray of Dublin, who carried green, white and orange balloons and sported fake green braids. Revelers came to watch the 246th parade, pressing against police barricades to cheer marching bands and men and women in uniform. By late morning, Fifth Avenue pubs were packed with people wearing green hats, green boas, green ponchos and flashing green necklaces. People walked the sidewalks with green hair and eyebrows.

-- From News Services