Nigeria

Sudan government, rebels sign accords on Darfur

The Sudanese government and rebel representatives signed accords Tuesday in Abuja aimed at ending hostilities in the troubled western region of Darfur and guaranteeing aid groups access to 1.6 million civilians uprooted by the conflict.

For the first time, Sudan agreed to creation of “no-fly zones” over Darfur, banning military flights over rebel-held territories.

Sudan signed under international pressure including threat of U.N. sanctions, after 21 months of conflict that have driven 1.8 million people — most of them non-Arab villagers — into camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad.

California

NASA to test super-fast jet

They call it a “scramjet,” an engine so blindingly fast that it could carry an airplane from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in about 20 minutes — or even quicker. So fast it could put satellites in space. So fast it could drop a cruise missile on an enemy target, almost like shooting a rifle.

Next week, NASA plans to break the aircraft speed record for the second time in 7 1/2 months by flying its rocket-assisted X43a scramjet 110,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean at speeds close to Mach 10 — about 7,200 mph, or 10 times the speed of sound.

Unlike rockets, which must carry oxygen with them as a “combustor” to ignite the fuel supply, scramjets take oxygen from the atmosphere, offering a huge savings in aircraft weight.

New York City

Fathers protest mocking ad

A TV ad showing a computer-illiterate father getting chided for trying to help his Internet-savvy daughter with her homework has roused the anger of fatherhood activists, who are calling on Verizon to take it off the air.

“Leave her alone,” says the wife/mother in the Verizon DSL ad, ordering her befuddled husband to go wash the dog as the daughter, doing research on the computer, conveys a look of exasperation with her father.

John Bonomo, a Verizon spokesman, said Tuesday the ad had been running for several months. But only a few days ago did it come to the attention of Glenn Sacks, a commentator who hosts a weekly radio show aired in Los Angeles and Seattle that is sympathetic to the fathers’ rights movement.

After watching the ad, Sacks began urging listeners of “His Side” to protest to Verizon — contending that the company would not have commissioned a comparable ad with the parents’ genders reversed.