By Svitlana Vlasova and Caitlin Danaher, CNN

(CNN) — Two police officers and a third person were killed early Wednesday by a bomb in Moscow, close to the scene of a car bombing that killed a top Russian general two days ago.

The two police officers approached a suspicious person who detonated an explosive device near a police car, Russia’s investigative committee said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Investigators and forensic experts from the Moscow Investigative Committee are continuing to examine the scene of the incident,” Svetlana Petrenko, a representative for the investigative committee, said in the statement.

Police are also studying CCTV and interviewing witnesses in an attempt to uncover the perpetrator, the statement added.

The deadly blast comes just days after a Russian general was killed by a car bomb on a neighboring street in the Russian capital.

Lt. Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who ran the armed forces operational training department, died after an explosive device installed under the chassis of a car exploded on Monday morning, investigators said.

Russian officials suggested Ukraine could have behind the apparent assassination of the senior military officer. “Investigators are pursuing various motives for the murder. One of the theories is that the crime was organized by Ukrainian special services,” the investigative committee said Monday.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Sarvarov, but several prominent Russians have been killed in Moscow in attacks blamed on the Ukrainian security services since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The investigative committee did not comment on whether the two incidents are linked.

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By Toni Odejimi, CNN

(CNN) — Lottery hopefuls can try their luck for the estimated $1.7 billion Powerball jackpot in Wednesday’s drawing after no winners took home the grand prize Monday night.

Monday night’s winning numbers were 3, 18, 36, 41 and 54, with a Powerball of 7 and a Power Play multiplier of two, meaning most prizes were doubled in a separate drawing if people paid $1 more, according to a Powerball press release.

The jackpot is the fourth-largest in Powerball history and the second- largest this year, rivaling September’s jackpot of an estimated $1.787 billion, split between two winners in Missouri and Texas. The lottery game has generated some of the largest jackpots in US history, including the record $2.04 billion in 2022.

If it seems as if this jackpot has been rising for a long time, it has — with a record 46 drawings in the current series, according to Powerball. Wednesday’s drawing will be the 47th.

Though no one took home the big check, some winners got an early Christmas present of $1 million by matching all five white balls on Monday. These nine tickets were sold in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Multiple jackpots have been won either on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, according to Powerball, but none of them have ever reached $1 billion.

If someone won tonight’s jackpot, it would be the first ticket to do so.

Lottery winners won’t see every cent of that $1.7 billion. That value — and the estimated $781.3 million lump sum — are before taxes, though a handful of states don’t tax their lottery winnings.

Jackpot winners have two options to get paid: either through an annuitized prize plan, with one upfront payment and 29 yearly payments increasing by 5%, or through one lump sum payout. The annuitized prize plan takes interest into account. Most lottery winners take the lump sum.

Before scrambling to buy a ticket, know that the odds for winning the jackpot are 1 out of 292.2 million, but odds improve for smaller prizes, some as low as $4. A ticket to play is $2.

The drawings are scheduled for every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 ET.

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By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — When the Justice Department released a first batch of Jeffrey Epstein files on Friday that included photographs of former President Bill Clinton, White House officials raced to amplify the importance of the new documents.

But days later, amid a second trove that contains several references to President Donald Trump, the White House is pushing a different view: Don’t believe everything you see.

Trump officials on Tuesday downplayed the latest disclosure of more than 30,000 files related to Epstein, dismissing the significance of the materials and suggesting that some that mentioned Trump were unverified or even outright fabricated. Even as the rest of Washington pored over records showing Trump repeatedly flew on Epstein’s plane, White House aides sought to highlight other matters the president is more eager to talk about.

The messaging shift — the latest in a largely unsuccessful effort by the administration to seize control of the story — has spawned frustration in Trump’s orbit and parts of the White House, where some saw the scrambled response over the last few days as just the latest stumble in a year of Epstein-related blunders and baffling communications mishaps.

“It’s just been confusing and compounding,” Matthew Barlett, a GOP strategist and former first-term Trump appointee, said of the administration’s contradictory messaging. “It’s perpetuated this news cycle, continues to give the White House and administration a massive headache of their own making, and I don’t see any remedy any time soon.”

The new records renewed debate over the comprehensiveness of the DOJ disclosures and the extent to which the administration has complied with the law demanding their release. The Justice Department seemed to try to get ahead of any unflattering revelations for Trump, issuing a call for skepticism in analyzing the new materials — at least when it came to claims about the president.

“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the Justice Department said, adding that “if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

A White House official declined to comment beyond the DOJ’s statement. As for Trump himself, the voluble president spent half the day on the golf course before making a quiet return to Mar-a-Lago. By 2 p.m. ET, officials had declared a lid, meaning Trump would not be seen or heard from for the rest of the day.

The near-total silence from Trumpworld represented a stark contrast compared to just a few days ago, when aides and allies rushed to circulate the numerous photos of Clinton in the Epstein files as part of a bid to put fresh pressure on Democrats.

And it underscored the White House’s ongoing struggle to manage a saga that has frustrated Trump and his top aides and wounded him politically — even as his MAGA base remains deeply invested in the Epstein case, and the controversy shows no signs of going away.

“This is horrifying. Trump called me a traitor for fighting him to release the Epstein files and standing with women who were raped, jailed in stalls, and trafficked to men,” GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X Tuesday, referring to an image from the latest document dump. “Only evil people would hide this and protect those who participated. I pray for these women.” Once a strong Trump ally, Greene has broken with the president in recent months, in part over the Epstein case.

After the administration spent Friday and much of the weekend highlighting Clinton’s appearances in the files, Trump on Monday undercut the campaign by expressi

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