MOSCOW ENVOY: POISON CLAIMS ARE “ANTIRUSSIAN HYSTERIA”

» A top Russian diploMOSCO W mat on Thursday denounced British accusations that Russian military intelligence agents poisoned a former spy in England, calling them base untruths aimed at whipping up hostility toward Moscow.

The statement by Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia to a session of the U.N. Security Council came hours after Britain’s security minister said Russian President Vladimir Putin is ultimately responsible for the nerveagent poisoning in March of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the city of Salisbury.

Britain produced an “unfounded and mendacious cocktail of facts” and is refusing to cooperate with Russia in investigating the poisoning “to unleash a disgusting antiRussian hysteria and to involve other countries in this hysteria,” Nebenzia said.

Mexican prosecutors find 166 skulls in mass graves.

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» Investigators said Thursday they have found 166 skulls in clandestine burial pits in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, one of the biggest mass graves discovered so far in Mexico.

Veracruz state prosecutor Jorge Winckler said that for security reasons he would not reveal the location of the site.

Mexican drug cartels frequently use clandestine pits to dispose of their victims.

Winckler said the bodies were buried at least two years ago.

Inquest: Cranberries singer O’Riordan drowned after drinking.

LONDON» Cranberries singer Dolores O’Riordan accidentally drowned in a bathtub after drinking, a coroner’s inquest concluded Thursday.

A police officer told the inquest at Westminster Coroner’s Court that a pajamaclad O’Riordan was found submerged in her bathtub at a London hotel on the morning of Jan. 15.

The 46yearold singer didn’t leave a note and there was no evidence of selfharm.

Five miniature alcohol bottles and a bottle of champagne were found in the room, and toxicology tests revealed bloodalcohol content four times the legal limit for driving.

“A horrific situation”: Four dead in shooting.

TI» A gunman carrying enough ammunition to cause “a bloodbath beyond imagination” killed three people and wounded two others Thursday morning at a highrise office building in the heart of Cincinnati before dying in a hail of police gunfire.

The shooting at the 30story Fifth Third Center sent people running for cover across the city’s Fountain Square amid cries of “Shooter!” Police responded within seconds, and four officers opened fire, bullets smashing through glass doors and the gunman falling to the floor, authorities said.

Police identified him as Omar Enrique Santa Perez, 29, but said they don’t know what motivated the attack.

Amway founder and Orlando Magic owner Richard DeVos dies at age 92.

DETROIT» Billionaire Richard DeVos, cofounder of directselling giant Amway, owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic and fatherinlaw of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, died Thursday. He was 92.

Family spokesman Nick Wasmiller said DeVos died at his home in western Michigan of complications from an infection.

DeVos was born in Grand Rapids, not far from Ada, the community about 140 miles west of Detroit where he later lived and died.

— Denver Post wire services