Two people fall critically ill near UK nerve poisoning town

AMESBURY, United Kingdom: Two people are critically ill in hospital after suspected exposure to an “unknown substance” near the English town where a former Russian spy was poisoned with a nerve agent, officials said Wednesday. Counter-terrorism police, who the led the investigation into the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, said they were assisting local police in the investigation which has been declared a “major incident” by the emergency services. Scientists at Britain’s defence laboratory at Porton Down are carrying out tests to try and establish if there is any connection between the two incidents, British media reported. The couple, a man and a woman in their 40s, were discovered unconscious at a house in a quiet, newly-built area in Amesbury, a village near the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge. Local man Sam Hobson, 29, told AFP he was a friend of the pair, identifying them as Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess.