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NORTH CAROLINA

Army ousts hospital chief after deaths

The Army ousted the commander of one of its busiest hospitals and suspended three top deputies Tuesday after two patients in their 20s who had visited the hospital’s emergency room died unexpectedly in the previous 10 days. The shake-up at the hospital, Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., came amid a public furor over delays in treatment in the separate health care system serving the nation’s military veterans. Late Tuesday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered a review of all military hospitals and clinics, to ensure that their patients are not facing similar problems.

LIBYA

U.S. urges Americans to leave

The State Department recommended that Americans leave Libya immediately and is warning U.S. citizens against any travel to the North African country. The department said the security situation in Libya “remains unpredictable and unstable,” with crime on the rise and various groups calling for attacks against U.S. citizens. The department in December warned U.S. citizens against all but essential travel to Tripoli.

MICHIGAN

Minimum wage to reach $9.25 an hour

Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed legislation Tuesday gradually raising the state’s minimum wage to $9.25 an hour by 2018 to preclude a pending ballot initiative to increase the hourly minimum to $10.10. The current hourly wage is $7.40. The Republican-led House voted 76-34 and the GOP-controlled Senate 24-12 Tuesday to send the bill to Snyder.

WASHINGTON

Obama lawyer to look into CIA officer revelation

President Barack Obama’s top lawyer will look into how the name of the CIA’s top official in Afghanistan was accidentally revealed to thousands of journalists, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Tuesday. Hayden said chief counsel Neil Eggleston will also make recommendations for how to ensure such a disclosure doesn’t happen again. The officer’s name was included by U.S. Embassy staff on a list of American officials who met with Obama Sunday during a surprise visit to Afghanistan. The intentional disclosure of the name of an operative is a crime under the U.S. Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and Republicans were calling Tuesday for prosecution of those responsible.

NEW YORK

Hacker who helped feds gets no more time in prison

A computer hacker who helped the government disrupt hundreds of cyberattacks on Congress, NASA and other sensitive targets and cripple the hacktivist crew known as Anonymous got a hero’s welcome Tuesday at his sentencing in federal court, where prosecutors hugged him. U.S. District Chief Judge Loretta A. Preska credited Hector Xavier Monsegur’s “extraordinary cooperation” before saying he won’t serve more than the seven months he spent in prison two years ago. Federal sentencing guidelines had called for more than 20 years in prison.

COLORADO

Search called off for 3 missing after mudslide

Authorities on Tuesday called off the search for three ranchers who disappeared after a huge mudslide in a remote part of western Colorado. Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey said the slide remained too unstable to continue looking for the men. They were checking on problems with an irrigation ditch caused by an initial slide Sunday when a second, much larger slide hit. Authorities say the slide is a half-mile long and about 3 miles long.

EGYPT

Authorities scrambles to raise turnout in presidential vote

Egypt’s military-backed government showed signs of panic Tuesday at the low voter turnout in the presidential election that was expected to confer new legitimacy on the rule of Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a former army field marshal. On the second of two scheduled days of voting, the government rushed to get more Egyptians to the polls and took the extraordinary step of extending the voting by an additional day. Officials said that the government would fine those who did not vote up to $70 — a large sum for most Egyptians — and, unlike in the past, that the fines would be enforced. El-Sissi ousted of the nation’s democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, last summer, and his supporters had counted on a decent turnout this week to vindicate his claim to represent a majority of Egyptians.

NIGERIA

Impasse in rescue of Nigerian girls

Nigeria’s military chiefs and the president were apparently split Tuesday over how to free nearly 300 schoolgirls abducted by Islamic extremists, with the military saying use of force endangers the hostages and the president reportedly ruling out a prisoner-hostage swap. The defense chief, Air Marshal Alex Badeh, announced Monday night that the military has located the girls, but offered no details or a way forward. “We can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back,” he said. Previous military attempts to free hostages have led to the prisoners being killed by their abductors. A human rights activist close to mediators said a swap of detained extremists for the girls was negotiated a week ago but fell through because President Goodluck Jonathan refused to consider an exchange. T

VATICAN CITY

Abuse victims’ leader: Pope’s meeting a ‘gesture’

Pope Francis says his plan to meet with a group of sex abuse victims is part of an effort to move forward with “zero tolerance” in confronting and preventing clergy abuse. But David Clohessy, head of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, the main U.S. victims’ group, on Tuesday dismissed the upcoming session as meaningless. “The simple truth is this is another gesture, another public relations coup, another nice bit of symbolism that will leave no child better off and bring no real reform to a continuing, scandal-ridden church hierarchy,” he said.

BELGIUM

EU reels from protest vote

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recurring complaint that the European Union is “too big, too bossy, too interfering” gained traction at an EU summit on Tuesday, after election results that underscored voter hostility forced government leaders across the bloc to consider profound change. Protest voters turned out in droves for European Parliament elections — giving a massive thumbs-down to how the EU functions. The anti-EU UK Independence Party topped the polls in Britain, and in France the extreme-right National Front overwhelmed all its rivals. Cameron said that “Europe should concentrate on what matters — growth and jobs — and not try to do so much.”

CALIFORNIA

Anonymous “HiddenCash” creates social media frenzy

Someone is dropping envelopes full of cash across San Francisco — and causing an international frenzy on social media. An anonymous man with the Twitter handle @HiddenCash has been hiding money throughout the city since Friday, leading scores on a scavenger hunt. His Twitter following exploded from a few hundred Friday to more than 80,000 and counting by midday Tuesday. Hidden Cash’s anonymous creator said his giveaways are a “social experiment for good.” He claims to make his money off San Francisco’s hot and lucrative real estate market and hopes that winners also “pay it forward.”

LIBYA

Extremist group vows to fight Libyan general

An Al-Qaida-inspired group on Tuesday vowed to fight a Libyan renegade general who is waging an offensive against Islamists, accusing him of being an “American agent” who wants to replicate last year’s military overthrow of an elected government in neighboring Egypt. Mohammed al-Zahawi, the leader of Ansar al-Shariah, said his group would combat Gen. Khalifa Hifter’s so-called “Dignity Operation,” which began more than 10 days ago and is aimed at crushing Islamist militias and their political backers. Hifter has won the support of politicians, diplomats, army units and tribes who want him to impose order and rein in the country’s unruly militias three years after the toppling and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.