Powerball says a $457 million winning ticket was sold in Pennsylvania

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If you bought some Powerball tickets in a St. Patrick’s Day haze on Saturday, check your pockets.

A single ticket sold in Pennsylvania matched the drawing for an estimated $456.7 million, the Multi-State Lottery Association said. The winning numbers were 22-57-59-60-66, and the Powerball 7.

There were other tickets that scored big payouts too. A ticket sold in Texas won $2 million after a player or players opted to chip in an extra dollar. Two tickets sold in California and Missouri matched the numbers for a $1 million payout.

The jackpot was the eighth largest in the game’s history, the lottery association said, growing after 19 rolls since a woman in New Hampshire claimed a $560 million jackpot in a Jan. 10 drawing. She fought and won a legal battle to remain anonymous, a judge ruled March 12.

If the winner or winners in Pennsylvania wants to keep their identity secret, they would likely face a similar legal hurdle. The Pennsylvania Lottery requires winners to be named to ensure the system operates with “integrity and transparency.”

But past winners have argued the raised profile makes them targets.

Judge Charles Temple, who ruled in favor of the New Hampshire woman, concluded that revealing her name would be an invasion of privacy, in part because lottery winners in general are subject to “repeated solicitation, harassment, and even violence,” he wrote.

He cited how a past lottery winner received a bomb threat, how another had received nonstop phone calls and how several others had received requests from strangers who wanted handouts.

[ All she has to do to collect a $560 million lotto jackpot is make her name public. She refuses. ]

Less than three years ago, an individual’s chances of becoming an instant millionaire were 1 in roughly 175 million after starting with a $2 ticket. Now, the odds are 1 in roughly 292 million.

Tweaks to the game in October 2015 increased the number of total balls, from 59 to 69, from which players need to pick five. It may seem like a modest change, but the odds of winning the jackpot plummeted even though the number of Powerball numbers declined from 35 to 26.

The effect of decreasing the number of Powerballs was a rise in winners that just match that number, with a payout of $4. Even matching two numbers and the Powerball will net you just $7.

So now it’s even harder to strike it rich with Powerball, leading to fewer chances of big payouts, which in turn results in ballooning jackpots. When a drawing is held and there’s no winning ticket, the prize pool rolls over — and expands, drawing even more players.

In turn, the jackpots become bigger and bigger, making winnings of half a billion dollars — like this one — almost feel routine.

But that won’t stop the next round of jackpot chasers. The winning sum has reset to $40 million, with the next drawing Wednesday night.

As for the other big jackpot game, Mega Millions, no winning tickets were sold on Friday. The next drawing is Tuesday for an estimated $377 million.

Marwa Eltagouri, Eli Rosenberg and Cleve R. Wootson Jr. contributed to this report.

Read more:

Legend says a load of Union gold went missing during the Civil War. Did the FBI just find it?

Winner of a $560 million Powerball jackpot can keep the money and her secret, judge rules

How Powerball tweaked the odds to make another massive jackpot

How Mega Millions changed the game so everyone gets rich — except you

Democrats Regain Double-Digit Advantage Over GOP in Voter Sentiment Poll

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Democrats have regained a double-digit advantage over Republicans as the 2018 midterm congressional campaign intensifies and the GOP works to persuade voters of the benefits of the tax cut it passed three months ago, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found.

Asked which party should control Congress, registered voters picked Democrats by a 50%-to-40% margin, the second time in three months the party claimed a double-digit advantage.

…

US and British lawmakers demand answers from Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg

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Lawmakers in the United States and Britain are calling on Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to explain how the names, preferences and other information from tens of millions of users ended up in the hands of a data analysis firm connected with President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The demands came in response to news reports Saturday about how the firm, Cambridge Analytica, used a feature once available to Facebook app developers to collect information on 270,000 people and, in the process, gain access to data on tens of millions of their Facebook “friends” — few, if any, of whom had given explicit permission for this sharing.

Though both companies have been embroiled in investigations in Washington and London for months, this weekend’s demands have taken on a more personal tone, focusing explicitly on Zuckerberg, who has not testified publicly on these matters in either nation.

“They say ‘trust us,’ but Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about what Facebook knew about misusing data from 50 million Americans in order to target political advertising and manipulate voters,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Saturday night.

[ Facebook bans Trump campaign’s data analytics firm for taking user data ]

On Sunday morning, British lawmaker Damian Collins, who has been leading an investigation into political influence in which officials from Cambridge Analytica and Facebook have testified, suggested that neither company has been sufficiently forthcoming.

“I will be writing to Mark Zuckerberg asking that either he, or another senior executive from the company, appear to give evidence in front of the Committee as part our inquiry,” Collins said in his statement. “It is not acceptable that they have previously sent witnesses who seek to avoid asking difficult questions by claiming not to know the answers. This also creates a false reassurance that Facebook’s stated policies are always robust and effectively policed.”

Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the calls for Zuckerberg to testify. It has said previously that the company has made changes to privacy policies to prevent similar data loss without explicit consent from users.

Zuckerberg has kept a low profile as controversy over the political uses of the Facebook platform — especially by a Russian disinformation campaign during the 2016 U.S. presidential race — have intensified. He has written blog posts and spoken by video link from Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. But Zuckerberg has not yet been exposed to the rough-and-tumble of legislative questioning, designating that job to senior attorneys such as general counsel Colin Stretch.

[ Trump campaign consultant took data about millions of users without their knowledge ]

And on Sunday, the tech giant faced fresh criticism for its failure to be forthcoming with lawmakers investigating the matter.

“Sometimes, these companies grow so fast, and get so much good press, they get up high on themselves, that they start to think perhaps they’re above the rules that apply to everybody else,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The new controversy stems from the actions in 2014 and 2015 of a Russian American professor, Aleksandr Kogan, working for Cambridge Analytica. His app, called thisisyourdigitallife, offered personality predictions and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.”

It gave Kogan access to demographic information about Facebook users — including the names of users, their “likes,” friend lists and other data. Once obtained by Cambridge Analytica, political campaigns could use those profiles to target users with highly tailored messages, ads or fundraising requests.

Facebook suspended Kogan, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica and one other former Cambridge Analytica employee from the social media platform on Friday, hours ahead of news reports on the extent of the data grab. Cambridge Analytica has repeatedly denied wrongdoing or improper use of Facebook data.

“We worked with Facebook over this period to ensure that they were satisfied that we had not knowingly breached any of Facebook’s terms of service and also provided a signed statement to confirm that all Facebook data and their derivatives had been deleted,” Cambridge Analytica said in a statement Saturday.

Facebook has acknowledged that its user data was collected on a vast scale, but it has declined to confirm or deny reports in the New York Times and the Observer of London that information from 50 million users was accessed. Facebook has said that changes it implemented in 2014 and 2015 sharply restricted the ability of app developers to collect data in this way.

The company also has worked hard in recent days to cast the data collection by people affiliated with Cambridge Analytica as not a “breach” because Facebook’s systems were not compromised and the app developer worked within the company’s terms of service, at least initially. Facebook has said Cambridge Analytica later violated terms by improperly sharing and then failing to destroy the data, despite assurances that it would do so.

But the idea of a “breach” seems have taken root in the public debate and in some news reports. Klobuchar’s statement refers to a “major breach.”

Among the thorny issues facing Facebook is its 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission. That agreement specified that Facebook must give consumers clear and prominent notice and obtain their express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established.

In a statement Saturday, Facebook said, “We reject any suggestion of violation of the consent decree. We respected the privacy settings that people had in place. Privacy and data protections are fundamental to every decision we make.”

[ Fiery exchanges on Capitol Hill as lawmakers scold Facebook, Google and Twitter ]

U.S. lawmakers last fall questioned Facebook and fellow tech giants Google and Twitter over the ways in which Russian agents used major social networking platforms to spread disinformation during the 2016 election.

The hearings emboldened many lawmakers, including Klobuchar and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), to call for new regulation of political advertisements that appear on those sites. Their bill has not yet advanced amid sharp partisan divisions over Russia’s role in the election.

In February, British legislators visited Washington to question Facebook, Google and Twitter about “fake news” and the extent of Russian disinformation online, particularly in the wake of Britain’s vote to exit the European Union. Members of the House of Commons repeatedly criticized Facebook for failing to answer questions, at times threatening regulation.

One member of Parliament, Jo Stevens, said Facebook’s relationship with its users’ personal data “reminds me of an abusive relationship where there is coercive control going on.” At another point in the hearing, fellow lawmaker Rebecca Pow questioned whether Facebook was a “massive surveillance operation.”

In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had requested documents from Cambridge Analytica, including copies of emails of any company employees who worked on the Trump campaign. On Saturday, a day after Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) said she was opening a probe into Facebook in response to news reports about Cambridge Analytica.

Allentown Police: Kevin Esterly arrested, Amy Yu located in Mexico

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Esterly, Yu found in Mexico

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A 45-year-old man who allegedly ran off to Mexico with a 16 year-old Allentown girl has been arrested and the girl he was with located by authorities, according to Allentown police.

Kevin Esterly and Amy Yu were both taken into custody Saturday, according to Allentown police. It ended a search dating back nearly two weeks.

“Esterly was placed into custody by Mexican authorities.  Amy is unharmed and in good health,” states a release from Allentown police. “They will be escorted back to the United States to Miami Florida by Homeland Security Investigations agents and United States Marshall Service deputies.   Once back in the United States, arrangements will be made to get Amy back to Allentown to be reunited with her mother.   Esterly will be turned over to the Miami Police Department and then the extradition process will begin to bring him back to Allentown.”

Yu and Esterly were flown to Miami, Florida Saturday.  Esterly is in custody in Miami pending extradition.

Yu arrived at the Philadelphia Airport  early Sunday morning and was transported back to Allentown, Allentown Police said. 

On February 9th, Yu’s mother went to pick her up from Lehigh Valley Academy Charter School and was told by school officials that Yu’s stepfather signed her out earlier that day.

But there was no step father.

Police said it was 45-year-old Kevin Esterly who picked Yu up.

On February 15th,  Yu family members said Esterly and his wife Stacey came to the Yu’s 18th Street home.

John Yu, Amy’s brother, said a fight ensued in which Stacey accused Kevin and Amy of having an affair.

Police were called, and the Esterlys were told not to have contact with Amy.

On February 20th, Amy Yu told police she added Esterly to her emergency contacts list as her stepfather.

The school revealed Esterly signed Amy out 10 times since November.

In the days that followed, Amy’s friends said she sent snap chats saying she was done with this place and done with people who did not like her.

On March 5th, Amy left her bus stop.

Allentown police believed Esterly’s 1999 Red Honda was left later that day somewhere in the Philadelphia area.

At 2:40 that afternoon Yu and Esterly boarded American Airlines flight 877 from Philadelphia to Dallas, where a local resident spotted them and notified law enforcement officials.

Yu’s family said Yu had her mother’s passport and $10,000.

Police said Esterly took $4,000 from his wife’s bank account.

On March 6th, police were contacted, and Esterly was charged with Custodial Interference.

The search began.

Authorities said Esterly and Yu were already aboard a one-way flight to Cancun – just  as Yu’s mother was reporting the girl missing -after she failed to come home from school.

The Mexican government on March 15 issued an Amber Alert for the pair.

Esterly is charged with custodial interference, a third degree felony.

Stay with 69 News and wfmz.com for updates on this breaking story.

Trump Assails Mueller, Drawing Rebukes From Republicans

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“If he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we’re a rule-of-law nation,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been an ally of the president, said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “When it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him, and I think it’s very important he be allowed to do his job without interference, and there are many Republicans who share my view.”

Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, said if the president was innocent, he should “act like it” and leave Mr. Mueller alone. Mr. Gowdy warned of dire repercussions if the president tried to fire the special counsel, which might require him to first fire his attorney general or deputy attorney general.

“The president’s going to have a really difficult time nominating and having approved another attorney general,” Mr. Gowdy said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I would just counsel the president — it’s going to be a very, very long, bad 2018, and it’s going to be distracting from other things that he wants to do and he was elected do. Let it play out its course. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible.”

The shift in tone comes just days after The New York Times reported that Mr. Mueller has subpoenaed records from the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump’s lawyers met with Mr. Mueller’s team last week and received more details about how the special counsel is approaching the investigation, including the scope of his interest in the Trump Organization specifically.

A president cannot directly fire a special counsel but instead can order his attorney general to do so, and even then has to give a cause like conflict of interest. Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a former campaign adviser, has recused himself from the Russia investigation, to Mr. Trump’s continuing aggravation, the job would then fall to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein.

But Mr. Rosenstein has said as recently as last week that he sees no justification for firing Mr. Mueller, meaning that he would either have to change his mind or be removed himself. The third-ranking official at the Justice Department, Rachel Brand, decided last month to step down. The next official in line would be the solicitor general, Noel Francisco, a former White House and Justice Department lawyer under Mr. Bush.

Mr. Trump sought to have Mr. Mueller fired last June but backed down after his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, threatened to quit. The president told The Times a month later that Mr. Mueller would be crossing a red line if he looked into his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia. The White House made no assertion last week that the subpoena to the Trump Organization crossed that red line, but Mr. Trump evidently has grown tired of the strategy of being respectful and deferential to the special counsel.

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John Dowd, the president’s private lawyer, signaled the shift in approach in a statement given to The Daily Beast shortly after Mr. Sessions fired Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy F.B.I. director who worked closely on the Russia investigation with James B. Comey, the bureau director fired by Mr. Trump last year.

“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the F.B.I. Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt dossier,” Mr. Dowd said.

When Mr. Mueller assembled his team, he surrounded himself with subject-matter experts and trusted former colleagues. As the team filled out, Republican allies of Mr. Trump noted that some high-profile members had previously donated money to Democratic political candidates. In particular, Republicans have seized on donations by Andrew Weissmann, who served as F.B.I. general counsel under Mr. Mueller, as an example of bias. Mr. Weissmann is a career prosecutor but, while in private law practice, he donated thousands of dollars toward President Barack Obama’s election effort.

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In his Sunday morning Twitter blasts, Mr. Trump also renewed his attacks on Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe, who like Mr. Mueller are also longtime Republicans. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey last May, at first attributing the decision to the F.B.I. director’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server but later telling an interviewer that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he made the decision.

Mr. Sessions, under intense public pressure from Mr. Trump, fired Mr. McCabe on Friday after the former deputy F.B.I. director was accused of not being candid with an inspector general about authorizing department officials to talk with a reporter about the Clinton inquiry in 2016.

“Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked ‘have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?’” Mr. Trump wrote. “He said strongly ‘never, no.’ He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.”

Mr. Trump went on to dismiss reports that Mr. McCabe kept detailed memos of his time as deputy F.B.I. director under Mr. Trump, just as Mr. Comey did. Mr. McCabe left those memos with the F.B.I., which means that Mr. Mueller’s team has access to them.

“Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?”

Mr. Trump, who admitted last week that he made up a claim in a meeting with Canada’s prime minister and who is considered honest by only a third of the American people in polls, stayed this weekend at the White House, where he evidently has spent time watching Fox News and stewing about the investigation. After his Twitter blasts on Sunday morning, he headed to his golf club in Virginia.

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In suggesting that Mr. Comey lied under oath to Congress, Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to a comment by Mr. McCabe that the former director had authorized the media interaction at the heart of the complaint against him. The president’s Republican allies picked up the point on Sunday and pressed their case for the appointment of a prosecutor to look at the origin of the Russia investigation.

“So we know that McCabe has lied” because the inspector general concluded he had not been fully candid, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House majority leader, said on Fox News. “Now he’s saying about Comey — Comey may have lied as well. So I don’t think this is the end of it. But that’s why we need a second special counsel.”

Other Republicans, however, suggested that the Trump administration was going too far. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida criticized the decision to fire Mr. McCabe on a Friday night shortly before his retirement took effect, jeopardizing his pension.

“I don’t like the way it happened,” Mr. Rubio said on “Meet the Press” on NBC. “He should’ve been allowed to finish through the weekend.” Speaking of the president, he added: “Obviously he doesn’t like McCabe and he’s made that pretty clear now for over a year. We need to be very careful about taking these very important entities and smearing everybody in them with a broad stroke.”

The president has repeatedly argued that Mr. McCabe was tainted because his wife ran for the Virginia State Senate as a Democrat in 2015 and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from an organization controlled by Terry McAuliffe, then the governor and a longtime friend of Hillary and Bill Clinton. Jill McCabe lost the race, and Mr. Trump reportedly told Mr. McCabe that she was a “loser.”

Mr. McCabe has characterized his firing as an attempt to impede Mr. Mueller’s investigation, which beyond collusion is also focused on whether the president has attempted to obstruct justice by firing Mr. Comey. “This is part of an effort to discredit me as a witness,” Mr. McCabe said on Friday.

The Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee has concluded that there was no systematic collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign and shut down its investigation, a decision that the Democrats on the panel objected to. The Senate Intelligence Committee is still actively investigating even as Mr. Mueller’s team is.

Mr. Mueller has established that Russia tried to interfere in the election to benefit Mr. Trump and indicted three Russian organizations and 13 Russian individuals in the effort, although the indictment included no allegation that the president’s campaign was involved. Mr. Trump’s administration last week sanctioned those organizations and individuals.

Follow Peter Baker on Twitter: @peterbakernyt


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Who Is Adrian Lamo? Former Hacker Who Turned in Chelsea Manning Dies

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Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned Chelsea Manning in to the FBI, died on Friday, according to Facebook posts from his family.

“With great sadness and a broken heart I have to let know all of Adrian’s friends and acquittances that he is dead. A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son,” Lamo’s father, Mario Lamo, wrote in a Facebook group page. 

Mic reporter Jack Smith IV took a screenshot of the post.

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The former hacker was known for infiltrating systems like Microsoft, Yahoo and The New York Times. He was more widely known for his involvement in giving information to whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who was a former U.S. Army soldier. The two became friends and Manning reportedly told Lamo that she had planned on leaking classified information.

Lamo and two of his friends who were in military intelligence turned Manning in, which lead to her arrest. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. Manning was released in 2017.

Lamo’s cause of death had not yet been released.

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Engineers Gave Briefing on Crack Hours Before Florida Bridge Collapse, University Says

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Hours before a new pedestrian bridge collapsed Thursday in Miami, killing at least six people, one of the project engineers briefed representatives of the builder, Florida International University and the state Department of Transportation about a crack in the structure, according to the university.

The engineer “concluded that there were no safety concerns and the crack didn’t compromise the structural integrity of the bridge,” the university said in a statement early Saturday morning. FIU said it is cooperating with officials…

Russia to expel 23 British diplomats, close consulate in escalating row over poisoned ex-spy

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MOSCOW — Russia will expel 23 British diplomats and close the British consulate in St. Petersburg in as part of its response to London’s decision to expel Russian diplomats in an escalating row over the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter in Britain earlier this month.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Saturday that “23 diplomatic personnel from the British Embassy in Moscow have been declared persona non grata” and have one week to leave. The closure of the consulate in St. Petersburg was not given a firm deadline, with the Foreign Ministry saying only that consulate employees will be given sufficient time to finish their work.

The move comes a day before Russia’s presidential elections, which President Vladi­mir Putin is expected to win.

Britain on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats, many of whom were said by Prime Minister Theresa May to be Russian intelligence officers, after Moscow ignored an ultimatum to provide an explanation for how a Russian nerve agent came to be used in the poisoning of a former spy on British soil.

The spy, 66-year-old Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found slumped on a park bench in Salisbury on March 4. After several days of investigation, British authorities determined that they were poisoned with a nerve agent known as Novichok, which is believed to be unique to Russia.

The Skripals are reported to be in critical condition, but British authorities have provided no further information about their status. Russia has demanded consular access to Yulia Skripal, a Russian citizen, and complained that Britain has not responded to that request. Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case Friday into Yulia’s attempted murder.

[Perspective: What a brave Russian scientist told me about Novichok]

The British government said that it was expecting the retaliatory expulsions from Russia.

Speaking at her party’s spring forum in London, May said that Britain would “consider our next steps in the coming days, alongside our allies and partners.”

“We will never tolerate a threat to the life of British citizens and others on British soil from the Russian government,” she said, prompting applause.

The Foreign Office offered its own harsh words.

“Russia’s response doesn’t change the facts of the matter — the attempted assassination of two people on British soil, for which there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable. It is Russia that is in flagrant breach of international law and the Chemical Weapons Convention,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.

Russia was slow to respond to May’s decision, spending Thursday and Friday promising a swift and strong response. When Moscow finally made its announcement Saturday, it went slightly beyond strictly reciprocal measures.

The Foreign Ministry said it would also order an end to all activities of the British Council, Britain’s international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities, and warned London that “if any further unfriendly actions are taken against Russia, the Russian side reserves the right to take other retaliatory measures.”

This is not the first time the British Council, an organization that promotes cultural exchange, has been caught up in retaliations. In 2008, the British Council’s regional offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg were closed, leaving only the head office in Moscow open.

The closure of the offices, ordered by Russia’s foreign ministry, followed the expulsion of Russian diplomats in Britain over the 2006 poisoning of ex-KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Stephen Kinnock, a British lawmaker who was the director of the British Council in St. Petersburg before it closed, told the BBC that the latest move shows “how mean-spirited and vindictive the Putin regime really is.”

Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, told Moscow-based Interfax news agency that the British Council was used as a cover organization for British intelligence officers.

“Those measures should sober British politicians up,” Dzhabarov said, “primarily Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who dared to make an offensive statement regarding the head of a great state, virtually accusing him of ordering the poisoning of Skripal.”

Johnson on Friday had said it was “overwhelmingly likely” that it was Putin’s decision “to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K.”

[Britain’s top diplomat accuses Putin of being behind Russian spy poisoning]

Alexei Chepa, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said Saturday that he expected additional measures to be taken by the British government in response to Russia’s actions today. “Now we are warning the [British] that we will respond in an adequate manner to all further steps of this nature.”

Britain had been widely expecting a robust response from Russia, but it was immediately unclear whether would be further retaliatory moves.

When asked what Britain should do next, Tom Tugendhat, a Conservative lawmaker and chair of the foreign affairs select committee, told the BBC: “I think what we got to do is focus entirely on the Putin regime, the Putin family, and the Putin henchmen and focus on their money, much of which is hidden in Western Europe.”

Others warned against a drawn-out standoff.

Roderic Lyne, Britain’s former ambassador to Russia, told the BBC: “I don’t think it would be sensible to get dragged down into a mud-wrestling battle with a gorilla.”

Karla Adam contributed to this report from London.

Read more:

Former Russian spy critically ill in Britain after suspected poisoning

U.S., France and Germany join Britain in saying Russia likely responsible for chemical attack against former spy

Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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No. 16 UMBC completes biggest upset in NCAA tournament history

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UMBC players celebrate beating Virginia in the first round of the NCAA tournament in Charlotte Friday night. (Peter Casey/USA Today Sports)

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They did it. And it wasn’t even close.

UMBC, the Retrievers, the America East champions, just scored the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament, routing No. 1 overall seed Virginia, 74-54. The Cavs looked slow and out of it from the start, and after coming out of the locker room locked in a 21-21 tie at halftime, the Retrievers took advantage.

UMBC outscored Virginia 53-33 in the second half, raining three-pointers on the Cavs while stifling the Virginia offense. The Retrievers outworked, outhustled and completely outplayed U-Va. They deserved to make history.

Jairus Lyles made nine of his 11 field goal attempts, scoring a game-high 28 point to lead UMBC, which next faces Kansas State on Sunday. Holy cow.

Florida State does it with defense

Missouri never really had a chance. The No. 8 Tigers trailed 42-20 at halftime and were completely stymied by the No. 9 Seminoles, shooting 33 percent en route to a 67-54 loss. Florida State got at least eight points from five different players in rolling to a win, and will take on the West’s top seed, Xavier, on Sunday.

Michael Porter Jr., the Mizzou phenom who missed the entire season with a back injury before coming back last week for the SEC tournament, had 16 points and 10 rebounds for the Tigers, but shot just 4-of-12 to do it.

Clemson win sets up a Tiger vs. Tiger showdown

The Tigers won Friday night. Their next opponent? The Tigers!

No. 5 Clemson knocked off No. 12 New Mexico State, 79-68, behind Shelton Mitchell’s 23 points and another 22 from Gabe DeVoe in San Diego, ending the day’s games in the Midwest Region. The Tigers led 44-32 at halftime, and rode some hot shooting to the win. Clemson hit on 56 percent of its field goal attempts, including 43 percent from deep, with Mitchell and DeVoe combining to make four of eight threes.

New Mexico State, something of a trendy upset pick having entered the game at 28-5 on the season, never really got into a rhythm and finished the night shooting just 39 percent from the floor. Senior guard Zach Lofton led the Aggies with 29 points.

Which brings us back to the Tigers, who get to face the Tigers on Sunday. The Auburn Tigers to be exact, in a 4-seed vs. 5-seed, SEC vs. ACC matchup. May the best Tigers win.

‘Cuse earns an upset of its own

It didn’t have the shock factor of UMBC’s toppling of Virginia. Not even close. But Syracuse, one of the last teams into the tournament, plays on after a 57-52 win over No. 6 TCU in the Midwest Region. The Orange uglied things up, winning on defense by holding the Horned Frogs to 39.6 percent shooting.

Marek Dolezaj (17 points) and Oshae Brissett (13 points, nine rebounds, three blocks) carried No. 11 Syracuse, which moves on to face Michigan State on Sunday.

Auburn ends year of the 13s

Never in NCAA tournament history have three No. 13 seeds advanced past the round of 64, yet through the 2018 tournament’s first weekend, it looked as though this was the year the 13s — spots normally reserved for bubble at-large teams or mid-major automatic qualifiers — would have their way.

Buffalo throttled Arizona. UNC-Greensboro pushed Gonzaga to the edge. Marshall upset Wichita State.

And then there was Charleston, somehow tied with Auburn at the half, and up again with four minutes to play, and Auburn sputtering and confused, its offense hiccuping, its defense disjointed. But this still will not be the year of the 13s. The Tigers, Southeastern Conference regular season champs, righted themselves in the waning moments and survived with an ugly 62-58 win.

Bryce Brown and Jared Harper hit back-to-back Auburn three-pointers to move the Tigers ahead by three with a little more than a minute remaining, and Charleston (26-8) had no answer.

Jarrell Brantley led the Cougars with a game-high 24 points. Mustapha Heron paced the Tigers with 16. Auburn will face the winner of Clemson and New Mexico State in the round of 32.

Michigan State outlasts Bucknell

Michigan State could never quite pull away from No. 14-seed Bucknell. Even when the Spartans made runs, the Bison was right there to punch back, led by senior forward Zach Thomas’s 27 points and 20 more from Stephen Brown.

But Michigan State is a title favorite for a reason, and when the Spartans’ physical defense meshed with their athletic and precise offense, well, it’s no wonder Coach Tom Izzo has such a good record in March.

The result was an 82-78 win in Detroit on Friday night. Michigan State will face winner of TCU and Syracuse in the round of 32. Miles Bridges led the Spartans with a game-high 29 points. Joshua Langford chipped in 22.

Kansas State runs away from Creighton

Creighton and Kansas State, the No. 8 vs. No. 9 game in the South region, was a close game that tilted toward the Wildcats in the second half. Kansas State ran away with things late for a 69-59 win.

Junior guard Barry Brown led the team with 18 points and six rebounds. The Wildcats (23-11) will face the winner of Virginia and UMBC.

More updates to come as the madness continues.

Nevada tops Texas in overtime

Nevada was technically the higher seed in its first round match-up against Texas, but the Wolfpack walked off the floor looking like improbable upset kings.

After Texas star center Mohamed Bamba fouled out at the end of regulation, Nevada got hot in overtime and pulled off an 87-83 win in Nashville. Now the Wolfpack will face Cincinnati in the round of 32.

Five Nevada (28-7) players scored in double figures, including 22 points from guard Kendall Stephens. Texas’s Kerwin Roach II led all scorers with 26 points. Bamba had 13 points and 14 rebounds.

The Longhorns (19-15) led almost wire-to-wire; Nevada led the game only twice: 5-2 in the very early going, and 78-77 after Caleb Martin’s three-pointer with 2:28 in overtime.

A bizarre finish nearly gave Nevada a chance to win the game in regulation. Jordan Caroline split a pair of free throws to tie the game with 3.8 seconds left, but Texas’s inbound pass was sloppy and got tipped out of bounds in front of the Wolfpack bench with 1.6 seconds on the clock. Nevada’s buzzer beater was no good, but it seized the momentum heading into the extra session and transformed the game into a battle of guard play with Bamba on the bench.

A four-point play for Roach gave Texas an early lead in overtime, but Martin made a pair of threes, then dished a pass to his brother, Cody Martin, for a layup to seal the game with just less than a minute to play.

Nevada Coach Eric Musselman was amped to share the win with his team.

West Virginia rolls over Murray State

Jevon Carter scored 21 points and No. 5-seed West Virginia turned up the heat on defense in an 85-68 romp over No. 12-seed Murray State on Friday night in San Diego.

The Mountaineers (25-10) will face Marshall, which upset Wichita State earlier in the day, in the round of 32. Senior forward Terrell Miller Jr. led all scorers with 27 points and 17 rebounds for the Racers (26-6).

Another upset as Marshall stuns Wichita State

Down goes another No. 4 seed. Marshall’s Jon Elmore scored 27 points to lead the 13th-seeded Thundering Herd to an 81-75 win over Wichita State in San Diego. It was Friday’s first upset, and it was a big one.

Marshall earned its first-ever tournament win in its sixth appearance, and denied the Shockers a sixth consecutive trip to the second round. The upset came on the heels of No. 13 seed Buffalo’s 89-68 win over No. 4 seed Arizona Thursday night. It’s the first time since 2008 that two 13 seeds have won first-round games.

Wichita State led 37-34 at halftime, but Marshall, coached by Houston Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni’s older brother, Dan, wouldn’t go away. (D’Antoni looked fly as heck in his usual blazer and T-shirt getup on the sideline.) Oh, and the last Marshall player to score 25 or more points in the tournament? That would be Mike D’Antoni, back in 1972, according to ESPN.

“I like these guys, I like riding with them,” D’Antoni said during the postgame news conference. “They’re fun to be on a trip with and they’re fun to watch play, and it’s real fun when we win, so we’re going to try to do that one more time.”

Marshall will play the winner of No. 5 West Virginia and No. 12 Murray State.

Elmore’s standout performance featured four three-pointers, including one in the second half that he launched from Los Angeles. The Steph Effect is real.

Marshall took a 78-72 lead with 2:01 to play on a C.J. Burks steal and dunk, but Wichita State responded with a Conner Frankamp three-pointer with 45 seconds remaining. A dunk by Ajdin Penava pushed the Marshall lead back to five and the Shockers, who made only 8 of 29 shots from three-point range, couldn’t buy a bucket in the closing seconds. Frankamp led Wichita State with 27 points in defeat. Marshall, meantime, will play the winner of Friday’s West Virginia-Murray State game for a berth in the Sweet 16.

[Marshall’s NBA style sparks a Cinderella run that might have legs]

Bad news for the Boilermakers: Following its blowout win over Cal State Fullerton, second-seeded Purdue announced that 7-foot-2 center Isaac Haas will miss the rest of the tournament after fracturing his elbow while going for a rebound in the second half.. Haas, who averaged 14.9 points and 5.6 rebounds during the regular season, had nine points and 10 rebounds on Friday.

Schedule and results

Evening (All times Eastern):

  • No. 9 Kansas State 69, No. 8 Creighton 59
  • No. 3 Michigan State 82, No. 14 Bucknell 78
  • 7:20 p.m. No. 1 Xavier vs. No. 16 Texas Southern (TBS)
  • No. 4 Auburn 62, No. 13 Charleston 58
  • No. 16 UMBC 74, No. 1 Virginia 54
  • No. 11 Syracuse 57, No. 6 TCU 52
  • No. 5 Clemson 79, No. 12 New Mexico State 68
  • No. 9 Florida State 67, No. 8 Missouri 54

Afternoon results:

  • No. 7 Texas AM 73, No. 10 Providence 69
  • No. 2 Purdue 74, No. 15 Cal State Fullerton 48
  • No. 13 Marshall 81, No. 4 Wichita State 75
  • No. 2 Cincinnati 68, No. 15 Georgia State 53
  • No. 2 North Carolina 84, No. 15 Lipscomb 66
  • No. 10 Butler 79, No. 7 Arkansas 62
  • No. 5 West Virginia 85, No. 12 Murray State 68
  • No. 7 Nevada 87, No. 10 Texas 83 (OT)

North Carolina pulls away: The second-seeded Tar Heels disposed of  Atlantic Sun champion Lipscomb, 84-66, setting up a second-round game against Texas AM. The teams went back and forth throughout the first half, although the Tar Heels ended the half with a 10-1 spurt to take a nine-point lead. They were never seriously threatened in the second half, taking a first step toward defending their national championship. All five starters scored in double digits for North Carolina, led by Kenny Williams with 18 points. Theo Pinson flirted with a triple-double and finished with 15 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists.

Arkansas digs out of an enormous hole, loses anyway: Butler jumped out to a 21-2 lead against Arkansas, but the seventh-seeded Razorbacks clawed back to within 36-31 at halftime. The deficit was five points with 8:02 remaining before the No. 10 Bulldogs pulled away. Kelan Martin and Kamar Baldwin led Butler with 27 and 24 points, respectively. The Bulldogs outrebounded the Razorbacks 45-25. They get Purdue next.

Texas AM starts slow, finishes strong against Providence: Seventh-seeded Texas AM overcame a brick-filled start to down Providence, 73-69, in Friday’s first game. Admon Gilder paced four Aggies in double figures with 18 points to send the No. 10 Friars and their delightfully creepy mascot home. Texas AM advances to play the winner of Friday’s second game in Charlotte between No. 2 seed North Carolina and No. 15 Lipscomb.

The Aggies missed shots every which way in the early going, but especially via brick and air ball. In fact, it took them more than six minutes to score a point. Finally, at the 12:43 mark of the first half, they managed a field goal after missing their first 10 shots. They also had five turnovers at the game’s outset. It wasn’t pretty.

Fear not, though. With just more than 11 minutes left in the first half, the Aggies had tied the score at 9, and by halftime, they led, 28-27. They finished the game shooting 50 percent from the field.

Senior Rodney Bullock led the Friars with 22 points in defeat, and Providence Coach Ed Cooley managed to make it through the game without ripping his pants.

Cincinnati holds off stool-free Ron Hunter and Georgia State: Georgia State was back in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2015, when the Panthers busted more than a few brackets with a first-round upset of third-seeded Baylor. That game provided one of the tournament’s shining moments. Georgia State Coach Ron Hunter, who tore his Achilles’ tendon celebrating the Panthers’ Sun Belt conference championship a week earlier, tumbled off of the stool he was using on the bench after his son, R.J., sank the game-winning three-pointer.

“I really want to get our team to the Sweet 16,” Hunter told reporters this week. “I wasn’t healthy before. We couldn’t get to the Sweet 16 because I was on a scooter. But I’ve got both my feet. I’m ready to go. I’m healthy right now, man. I can go dunk if I want to. I’m on cloud nine.”

Hunter doesn’t need the stool for support anymore, but Georgia State packed it anyway for good luck. After leading second-seeded Cincinnati by as many as seven points in the first half, the Panthers trailed 35-30 at halftime. The Bearcats pulled away in the second half for a 68-53 win behind 27 points from Jarron Cumberland.

Purdue rolls on: Second-seeded Purdue cruised to a 74-48 win over No. 15 Cal State Fullerton.

And the Boilermakers had a novel way of subduing the Titans early in their first-round game Friday.

Making only their third-ever NCAA tournament appearance and first since 2008, the Titans led 12-11 with 10:14 remaining in the half before the Boilermakers reeled off nine straight points. Purdue had a nine-point lead at halftime, and dominated the second half. Carsen Edwards and Vincent Edwards — no relation — led the Boilermakers with 15 points apiece.

Brackets are burning: The first full day of the NCAA tournament is in the books, and the results weren’t pretty for most brackets, which were badly bruised by Buffalo’s upset of fourth-seeded Arizona in one of the last games of the session.

But a new day dawns, hope springs eternal, yada yada, and there’s still life left to be wrung from your brackets — even if your name is Charles Barkley. Just know that you are not alone. Out of 17.3 million brackets submitted to ESPN, only .00036 remain perfect, so maybe set the bar a little lower than perfection. (That works out to just 6,306 perfect brackets) By comparison, after the first day of games  in 2014, .4 percent out of 11 million still remained perfect — more than 41,000 brackets. And nearly 5 percent of entrants picked Arizona to win the tournament, according to ESPN, which was more than backed higher seeds Xavier, Purdue, Cincinnati, Michigan, Tennessee or Texas Tech.

The NCAA tracked tens of millions of brackets through six major online games last year, and found that only one bracket remained perfect through 39 games. It fell by the wayside on the final matchup of the third day of games Saturday.

[Arizona’s stunning loss to Buffalo eliminated the NCAA’s biggest headache from the tournament]

As for opening night 2018, the big stunner Thursday was Buffalo’s 89-68 rout in Boise, Idaho, a victory that gave the Bulls — not to be confused with the Bills — their first NCAA tourney victory and established #BullsMafia as a worthy companion to the NFL’s #BillsMafia. No. 4 seed Arizona led 46-45 with 17:22 left, but Buffalo went on a surreal 44-22 stampede and posted the second-largest win by a 13 seed over a 4 seed since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Catch up on the other results here.

Count Barkley among those with brackets that are closing in on Hindenburg status. He had Arizona losing to Michigan State in the championship game. “Man, I got a whole lot of Xs up here now,” was his astute observation during Friday’s pregame show. Barkley went on to say that SEC is the best basketball conference and — pssst — his bracket has Rhode Island beating Duke.

Now, what games seem ripe for upset on Friday? Here are four matchups for favorites to fear: No. 4 Wichita State vs. No. 13 Marshall; No. 2 Cincinnati vs. No. 15 Georgia State; No. 5 Clemson vs. No. 12 New Mexico State and No. 6 TCU vs. Syracuse.

Keep an eye out for Bill Murray: The actor, a March Madness fixture, will most likely turn up at an Xavier game, given that his son, Luke, is an assistant coach there. The Musketeers tip off against Texas Southern at 7:20 (Eastern) in San Diego. His other option is to head to Nashville for Charleston’s tip-off against Auburn. Why Charleston, you ask? Murray, who co-owns the city’s RiverDogs minor league baseball team, also has a house there and turned up last week for a Cougars game.

Pac-12 sadness: Arizona’s loss means that, for the first time since 1986, the Pac-10/12 will not have a team in the NCAA round of 32.

Deserting the desert: After Arizona’s loss to Buffalo, two of the team’s stars wasted no time in announcing their plans for the future. Deandre Ayton and Allonzo Trier officially declared for June’s NBA draft.  “I learned a lot and built relationships on this team,” Ayton, the 7-foot freshman who could be the first player chosen, said (via ESPN). “This is the only team that I actually loved. Being a Wildcat is amazing. I think it’s the right thing to do, right now. I think I’m ready for the NBA. … I just have to finish off school right and just work this summer and play for the draft.”

Trier, a junior guard, said he wasn’t worried about making the jump to the pros. “I’m closing the book on this chapter and looking forward to the next one in my life. It’s a pleasure to be coached by [Sean Miller] and be a part of him and this program for three years.”

Top story lines

— Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr. and Texas’s Mo Bamba, freshman and future NBA lottery picks, have radiant personalities that will almost certainly be missing from next year’s NCAA tournament. Asks The Post’s Chuck Culpepper, “Is there enough time for a college legacy, for players such as Porter and Bamba, in this tournament flicker?”

— Every tournament needs a villain and luckily for this year’s event, Duke’s Grayson Allen has made peace with his role. The Blue Devils advanced with a victory over Iona and Allen took a razzing in Pittsburgh. “It would be really surprising to me if I didn’t get booed as I walked out onto the court,” Allen said. “I’ve kind of just accepted it. I feed off of it. I’m not only used to it, but I own it now.”

— No. 1 overall seed Virginia is trying to reach its first Final Four since 1984, and the Cavaliers will have to do so without ACC sixth man of the year De’Andre Hunter. Virginia will turn in part to 6-foot-9 reserve Mamadi Diakite, who moved to the U.S. from Guinea four years ago speaking no English. And while Virginia’s path “became significantly more complicated,” The Post’s Jerry Brewer argues that ” this should be considered just the first test of whether it has the flexibility to survive.”

— Virginia’s opponent, 16th-seeded UMBC, is a prohibitive underdog in just its second NCAA tournament appearance, and the Retrievers are embracing the moment. Don’t forget that Coach Ryan Odom spent part of his childhood in Charlottesville, where he occasionally would slip on a Virginia T-shirt and hang out with his father at University Hall. Linchpin Jairus Lyles turned down the chance to transfer into big-time college hoops so that he could max out his legacy at the Catonsville school, as John Feinstein wrote earlier this season.

— Arizona’s stunning loss eliminated the NCAA’s biggest headache, and ended the collegiate career of star big man DeAndre Ayton, the potential No. 1 pick in this year’s draft. Teammate Allonzo Trier also said he will leave school and head to the NBA.

— Neil Greenberg will be updating his live round-by-round odds for each team to advance throughout the tournament. Thursday’s biggest surprises — upset losses by Miami and Arizona — give Kentucky a 73 percent to make the Sweet 16, and Tennessee a 67 percent chance to do the same.

— The most important thing you’ll need to know over the first two days of the tournament — the absolute most essential information is how to find truTV, the Turner channel that assumes a lofty status along with CBS, TNT and TBS for this part of the March Madness. Here’s everything you need to know about how to quickly find it.

— Barack Obama isn’t letting a little thing like being out of office keep him from his annual “Barack-etology” efforts. Spoilers: he has Michigan State winning the men’s title and UConn (again) winning the women’s championship.

— And don’t forget about the other March Madness — a rush for vasectomies during the NCAA tournament.

Tournament history

One crying moment View Graphic

One crying moment