USA

An overseas trip for President Bush was being hurriedly organized, White House aides said, although they declined to indicate where it would take him. The word came as the administration acknowledged that the president was open to another brief delay in voting by the UN Security Council on a new resolution authorizing military force to compel Iraq to disarm.

Well-wishers celebrated the return of adbucted teenager Elizabeth Smart to her suburban Salt Lake City home after she had been missing for more than nine months. Police found her Wednesday walking with homeless drifter Brian Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee, after receiving a tip from people who saw a man with two females wearing veils. Mitchell and his wife are to be investigated for aggravated kidnapping.

The Supreme Court granted Delma Banks a stay of execution preventing him from becoming the 300thinmate executed in Texas since it resumed the practice in 1982. Lawyers for Banks, who is black, told justices he was poorly represented at trial and that prosecutors improperly kept other blacks off the jury. Prosecutors said they'd continue to seek his execution.

The US has prepared a list of 18 individuals and 10 companies or charities in Southeast Asia whose funds will be frozen in the hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists, diplomats said. The list would be the first that the Treasury has issued for the region.

New York's City Council easily approved a resolution opposing war with Iraq. The 31-to-17 vote came after months of debate about whether the council should take a position, given the city's symbolic status in the counterterrorism war. "We, of all cities, must uphold the preciousness and sanctity of human life," said Manhattan Councilman Alan Gerson (D), who voted for the resolution and whose district includes the World Trade Center site.

Two former Enron executives were charged with using accounting tricks to generate $111 million in false earnings from the bankrupt energy trader's failed attempt to start an Internet movie-on-demand service with Blockbuster Inc. Kevin Howard and Michael Krautz, who were still Enron employees when they surrendered to the FBI Wednesday, were charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, and lying to the FBI.

A Norwegian firefighter won the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, beating out three-time champion Jeff King. Robert Sorlie is only the second non-Alaskan to win the 1,100-mile event.