Officials say Saturday July 7, 2018, that a police officer is being tested ... more

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on the nerve agent poisonings in England (all times local):

British police say a woman who was exposed to a nerve agent in southern England has died. Dawn Sturgess, 44, was one of five people who became seriously ill after being exposed to the nerve agent in the Salisbury area. Police said Sturgess and 45-year-old Charlie Rowley, who remains in critical condition in hospital, were exposed to Novichok, the same type of nerve agent used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury In March. Her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, 45, also fell ill on June 30 and remains hospitalized in critical condition, police said. According to the Metropolitan Police, the couple was exposed to Novichok “after touching a contaminated item with their hands.” They have not yet determined the “source of contamination.” Though they were exposed to the same substance as Skripal, there is no indication that they knew him or went to the same location where the Skripals were exposed to Novichok. Read more: Opinion: Dealing with Russia, Theresa May finds herself alone at home

Experts at the nearby Porton Down military laboratory are so far not certain if the nerve agent came from the "same batch that the Skripals were exposed to," according to the Metropolitan Police's assistant commissioner of specialist operations, Neil Basu. It was developed in secret by the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s as a means of countering US chemical weapons defenses, but was revealed to the world by former Soviet scientist and whistleblower Vil Mirzayanov.
A British woman dies after being exposed to the Novichok nerve agent several days earlier in Amesbury.