the mystery deepens
Police: Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, daughter poisoned at their front door
Police in Britain say Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, first came in contact with the nerve agent that poisoned them at the front door of their house.
Earlier this month, the Skripals were found unconscious on a bench outside a mall in Salisbury. Sergei Skripal was once a Russian military intelligence officer, later convicted of passing along information on Russian spies to Britain; he was released from jail as part of a spy swap in 2010, and moved to Salisbury. British Prime Minister Theresa May has said the Skripals were poisoned by a nerve agents developed by Russia, from a group known as Novichok agents, and there is "no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable."
The agent used in the attack may have delivered through a "gloopy substance" smeared on the front door's handle, the BBC reports. Sergei and Yulia Skripal both remain in critical condition, and his niece, Viktoria Skripal, said doctors gave them "a very small chance of survival."