USA

President Bush, for whom military leadership is a key reelection issue, visited Fort Campbell, Ky., on the eve of Friday's first anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Bush planned to thank about 20,000 soldiers who've returned from Iraq. Fort Campbell has lost 60 soldiers in the conflict, more than any other military base. Meanwhile, John Kerry, Bush's presumed Democratic presidential rival, was beginning a five-day respite from campaigning at his Idaho vacation home.

By 2050, the nation's Asian and Hispanic populations will roughly triple in size, according to the latest US Census projections, released Thursday. By then, the bureau said, whites will fall from the current 69 percent of the population to 50.1 percent.

The Pentagon announced it will withhold 15 percent, or potentially $300 million over the next six months, in payments to Halliburton Co., a major oil field services provider, because of disputed charges to the US military in Iraq and Kuwait.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from a case brought by the Sierra Club against Vice President Cheney's energy task force. Environmenalists and other critics have raised questions about Scalia's impartiality because of his recent duck-hunting trip with Cheney.

Secretary of State Powell said the US is elevating Pakistan, which is considered crucial in the counterterrorism war, to the status of a "major non-NATO ally," making it eligible for priority delivery of defense materials.

Love Canal, the polluted Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood at the center of environmental cleanup efforts in the 1970s, is ready to be removed from the federal Superfund list, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday.

Accused spy Susan Lindauer, who pleaded innocent earlier this week of being a paid Iraqi intelligence agent, told the Associated Press she was simply trying to head off war. She said she hoped to encourage Saddam Hussein's regime to allow UN weapons inspections. A former congressional aide, the Takoma Park, Md., resident faces a possible 25-year sentence if found guilty at trial.

An asteroid 100 feet in diameter was expected to come closer to Earth - 26,500 miles - Thursday than any other known asteroid has.