Top story: Boris seeks to spoil Putin’s ballot

Good wintry morning to you all, Graham Russell here with a list of things worth thinking about today.

Boris Johnson will today seek to convince the EU foreign affairs council to join him in fresh condemnation of Russia after his explosive claims that Moscow has been creating and stockpiling nerve agent novichok and working out how to use it for assassinations. Scientists from the UN-backed Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons arrive today to analyse samples of the agent used to poison the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

The foreign secretary made his claims after Russian EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov issued blanket denials and said British agents might have used their stockpiles at Porton Down. As the row enters its third week, Johnson dismissed Chizhov’s comments, saying they were “not the response of a country that really believes it’s innocent”. On Sunday, Vladimir Putin, fresh from a profoundly unsurprising electoral victory, denied any such nerve agents existed and said the idea of carrying out such a killing during an election campaign would be “rubbish, drivel, nonsense”.

The latest theory to gain prominence is that the Skripals were poisoned via his car’s ventilation system. The report, from ABC news in the US, came as counter-terrorism police renewed their appeal for sightings of Skripal’s burgundy BMW 320D saloon car on 4 March. ABC also reported that at least 38 people in Salisbury had been identified as having been affected by the nerve agent.

Analyse this – Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the company that worked with Donald Trump’s election team, have been accused of misleading MPs after the Observer revealed that more than 50m Facebook profiles were harvested and used to build a system that may have influenced voters in the 2016 US presidential race. Conservative MP Damian Collins, who heads the parliamentary committee investigating fake news, said he would call the heads of both companies to give further testimony. Cambridge Analytica head Alexander Nix, he said, needed to explain why he had told MPs last month his company had not received data from Facebook. Collins also called on Mark Zuckerberg to testify rather than send more lowly executives who “claimed not to know the answers”.

Spring bloom (-ing cold) – The prospect of even more transport chaos than usual on a Monday looms today after much of Britain woke up to ice and snow warnings with parts of the south-west forecast to receive flurries up to 30cm deep. Parts of the A30 have been closed and Highways England urged motorists to drive with caution and pack snow kits in the worst-affected areas. Hundreds of flights were cancelled yesterday, sports events were called off and police and rescue teams had to dig dozens out of snow drifts on major roads. Don’t worry, on Tuesday it will be back to normal. Time to prepare for an Easter wonderland? Surely not.

British woman killed fighting in Syria – A 26-year-old Briton has died while fighting for Kurdish forces in northern Syria, her commanders have said. Anna Campbell, from Lewes, East Sussex, was killed by a Turkish missile on Friday. Her father, Dirk Campbell, described her as a “beautiful and loving daughter” who “would go to any lengths to create the world that she believed in”. Her military commanders in the US-backed Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) praised her “revolutionary spirit, which demonstrated the power of women”. Kurdish militants have vowed to wage a guerrilla war against the Turkish military and their Syrian rebel proxies after the latter swept into the northern Syrian city. Tens of thousands have already fled Afrin in recent days.

You cannot be serious – Martina Navratilova has taken aim at the “good old boys’ network” at the BBC and revealed that fellow Wimbledon pundit John McEnroe was paid at least 10 times more than she was last year. Navratilova said she was told she was getting paid a comparable amount, adding: “We were not told the truth, that’s for sure.” BBC Sport said McEnroe’s role was of “a different scale, scope and time commitment” and was therefore not comparable.

Lesson for us all – A teacher from Brent who learned snippets of Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil to bond with her pupils has been crowned the world’s best teacher. Andria Zafirakou was handed $1m at a ceremony in Dubai for her work at a school in Alperton, a poor area with pupils from a wide variety of backgrounds. The arts and textiles teacher is the first British winner.

Lunchtime read: Secrecy at the heart of the palace

How much did the Queen know about her governor general’s plan to use his colonial-era powers to dismiss Australia’s elected prime minister? The answer is, we don’t know, and we won’t until the Queen decides to release the letters she exchanged with him, something that underlines why Australia should ditch her, writes Jenny Hocking. The events of 1975 might have largely faded from memory in the UK but still resonate in Australia as one of the “most controversial and tumultuous events” in its modern history. Those are the words of Justice John Griffiths, a federal court judge who ruled on Friday that the communications with governor general, John Kerr, discussing the ejection of Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam must remain secret. Amid a political stalemate at the time, Kerr had raised the prospect of sacking Whitlam with Prince Charles and then with the Queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris.

Hocking, the historian who sought to force the release of the letters, said the court verdict was deeply disappointing for Australia’s history and its independence. The palace letters will remain embargoed on the instruction of the Queen, which Hocking described as “an absurd and humiliating situation for any nation”.

Sport

A day supposedly to confirm Tiger Woods’s status as the returning hero instead belonged to Rory McIlroy, who rose above the heckles to deliver a stunning final round and claim victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. At the BNP Paribas Open, Juan Martín del Potro rallied from three match points down in the third set to beat top-ranked Roger Federer 6-4, 6-7, 7-6, handing the world No1 his first loss of the year.

Pedro’s extra-time header took Chelsea past Leicester and into the FA Cup semi-finals, where they will meet last season’s losing finalists, Southampton. In the other semi, Manchester United will face Tottenham Hotspur. And an unexpectedly one-sided Six Nations Championship has made two things crystal clear: there can be no disputing that Ireland are the European side best placed to succeed at the Rugby World Cup; and unless England absorb some harsh lessons, the chances of them prospering in Japan are on a par with Eddie Jones holidaying in Wales.

Business

The CBI is concerned that Britain will lose out on as much as €1bn (£880m) in annual European funding for research and development because of Brexit. The business lobby group wants the government to renew its membership of the scheme to safeguard investment.

In Asia overnight, shares were in the red as investors fretted about the prospect of the US Fed outlining a series of rate rises after its meeting on Wednesday. The FTSE100 is due to fall 0.2% at the open. The pound is worth $1.392 and €1.134.

The papers

Fallout from the Observer’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica features strongly on the front pages today.

The Guardian leads on the growing calls for investigations and hearings into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. The story also makes the front page of the FT, with the headline: “Facebook feels the pressure over claims its data helped Trump win.” The Daily Telegraph takes the issue into its new technology series, with Matt Hancock, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sports, saying the “wild west” era for technology firms is over. The Times reports that Facebook is being urged to “come clean” over the leaking of data on 50 million users but leads on the gambling watchdog backing away from tough curbs on the maximum betting amounts allowed on some addictive machines.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail continues its plastics pollution investigation, this time looking into the spread of airborne plastics. The i devotes its front page to Putin’s win in the Russian election and his claim that allegations he ordered the poisoning of Sergei Skripal are “nonsense”. The Daily Mirror touts an exclusive about TV presenter Ant McPartlin and a car crash. Awkwardly, the Sun has the same exclusive. The Daily Express has its own exclusive about Theresa May considering targeting Russian football club owners living in the UK as part of the widening row with Moscow.

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