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Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Mar 14, 2008

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DAKAR, Senegal - The presidents of Sudan and Chad signed a peace agreement Thursday to suppress attacks by armed groups operating along their shared border, a move toward stability in Chad and the battered Darfur region of Sudan.

The pact, signed by Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Chad's Idriss Deby, is meant to end cross-border attacks in the Darfur frontier region and comes even as Chad accused Sudan of backing a new rebel advance into its territory. Sudan denied the charges.

"We hope that this accord will open a new page in the relations between the two countries," al-Bashir told reporters after the signing in Senegal's capital, Dakar.

NATION

CONGRESS ENDORSES TAX HIKES: Both houses of Congress endorsed the idea of tax increases for millions of Americans on Thursday as Democrats pressed ahead with budget plans that would allow some or all of President Bush's reductions to die after he leaves office.

All three major presidential candidates interrupted their campaigns to cast votes on the budget planning, which is nonbinding but highlights the difficult choices facing the next president and Congress. Binding votes on the expiring Bush tax cuts will be left to his successor and the Congress that is elected in November.

As for the $3 trillion federal budget plans, the House version would provide generous increases to domestic programs but bring the government's ledger back into the black by letting all of Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 as scheduled. That five-year plan passed the House on a 212-207 vote, with Republicans unanimously opposing it over what they argued was $683 billion in tax increases.

Reps. Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore, both D-Kan., voted in favor of the resolution. Reps. Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt, both R-Kan., voted against it.

RETAIL SALES, DOLLAR PLUNGE WHILE OIL PRICES SURGE ANEW: Oil hit a record high, the dollar sank again, and consumers stopped buying pretty much everything.

Stocks kept gyrating, too, on Thursday, swinging between gloomy recession evidence and rising hopes that all the bad news would bring another aggressive cut in interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets next week.

The Bush administration, conceding the economy was facing "difficult" times now, rushed out new proposals aimed at next time - plans to fix various problems that have led to a severe crisis in credit markets.

Administration officials predicted an economic rebound once the impact of the Fed's credit cuts and the recently passed economic stimulus package begin to be felt.

STUDY: MOST NATIVE AMERICANS CAN TRACE SOME DNA BACK TO 6 WOMEN: Nearly all of today's Native Americans in North, Central and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around 20,000 years ago, a DNA study suggests.

Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about 95 percent of Native Americans, researchers said.

The finding doesn't mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.

AMTRAK EXPRESS TRAIN KILLS TRACK INSPECTOR: An Amtrak express train struck three workers inspecting the tracks, killing one Thursday, just outside a Providence, R.I., station .

The northbound train was traveling below the area's 55 mph speed limit when it hit two Amtrak workers and a contractor, the railroad said. No information was available on the person who was killed. The injured workers were sent to a hospital and appeared to have serious injuries, Amtrak spokesman Cliff Cole said.

WORLD

COMMANDER FAULTS IRAQI LEADERS FOR LACK OF POLITICAL PROGRESS:Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.