World/Nation
• Two students hurt in New Mexico school shooting
ROSWELL, N.M. - A 12-year-old New Mexico boy drew a shotgun from a band-instrument case and shot and wounded two classmates at his middle school Tuesday morning before a teacher talked him into dropping the weapon and he was taken into custody, officials and witnesses said.
A boy was critically injured and a girl was in satisfactory condition following the shooting at Berrendo Middle School in Roswell.
Gov. Susana Martinez said the students were in the gym, where they typically hang out before classes start during cold and inclement weather. The 12-year-old opened fire with the shotgun there at 8 a.m.
However, he was "quickly stopped by one staff member who walked right up to him and asked him to set down the firearm, which he did," Martinez said at a news conference.
Superintendent Tom Burris said the school's faculty had participated in "active shooter" training, and they responded appropriately Tuesday.
• Compromise can happen on huge spending bill
WASHINGTON - A chastened Congress is putting aside the crisis-driven budget battles of the past three years, embracing a $1.1 trillion spending bill that restores or smooths the sharpest edges of the automatic cuts imposed as a result of its own dysfunction.
The huge election-year legislation preserves the downward trajectory on government spending demanded by Republicans. Yet the bipartisan measure steaming through Congress also preserves President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and stricter regulation of financial markets - and deflects the most significant attempts by Republicans to rewrite environmental rules and force other changes.
Lawmakers hope the compromise will show disgruntled voters before next fall's midterm election that Washington - especially its unpopular Congress - can perform its most basic function of responsibly funding the government. The bravado that prompted tea party Republicans to force a government shutdown in hopes of derailing "Obamacare" is long gone, replaced by an election-year desire to focus attention on the administration's troubled rollout of the health care law instead of lurching from crisis to crisis.
• Egypt's vote lays bare new, post-Morsi divisions
CAIRO - A referendum on a new constitution laid bare the sharp divisions in Egypt six months after the military removed the elected Islamist president, with pro-army voters lining up Tuesday outside polling stations, singing patriotic songs, kissing images of Egypt's top officer and sharing upbeat hopes for their troubled nation.
Sporadic violence flared across much of the country, leaving 11 dead, with protesters burning tires and pelting police with rocks and firebombs creating just enough tension to keep many voters at home.
Still, the first of two days of voting yielded telling signs that the national sentiment was overwhelmingly behind military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose possible presidential run later this year has grown more likely by the day.
• Argument over texting leads to fatal shooting
WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. - Chad Oulson was described by friends as a man who loved dirt bikes and his baby daughter. Curtis Reeves was a retired Tampa police officer with numerous commendations who liked riding his motorcycle with his wife.
The men's lives collided in a movie theater altercation that left Oulson dead and Reeves in jail. Oulson was texting his daughter's daycare, friends said, and Reeves got mad. Authorities said Reeves shot and killed Oulson with a handgun after the men exchanged words.
"He must have just snapped," neighbor Joe D'Andrea said of Reeves, describing him as friendly, "stand-up" guy. "I'm trying to put all of this together."
• Judge strikes Oklahoma same-sex marriage ban
TULSA, Okla. - A federal judge struck down Oklahoma's gay marriage ban Tuesday, but headed off any rush to the altar by setting aside his order while state and local officials complete an appeal.
It was the second time in a month that a federal judge has set aside a deeply conservative state's limits on same-sex marriage, after Utah's ban was reversed in December.
U.S. District Judge Terence Kern described Oklahoma's ban on same-sex marriage as "an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit."
The ruling drew criticism from the governor, attorney general and other elected officials in this state known as the buckle of the Bible Belt. A state lawmaker who once said gay people posed a greater threat to the nation than terrorism blasted rulings from "activist judges."
- The Associated Press