PARIS (AP) - Former French prime minister Edouard Philippe will appear before the Court of Justice of the Republic on Oct 24, as part of the judicial investigation over the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, the French daily newspaper Le Figaro reported. Edouard Philippe has been summoned by three magistrates of the CJR on account of “endangering the lives of others” and “voluntary non-participation to fight a disaster,” according to the report. According to the daily newspaper Le Monde, he will have to explain why he had held the first round of municipal elections on March 15, 2020 despite mounting COVID-19 infections.

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BANJUL (Reuters) - The deaths of 69 children from acute kidney injury in Gambia is linked to four cough syrups made in India and imported into the West African country via a U.S.-based pharmaceutical company, the Gambian police said in a preliminary investigation report. World Health Organization (WHO) investigators had already found “unacceptable” levels of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, which can be toxic, in four products made by New Delhi-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd. The police report did not name Maiden directly but listed the company’s same four products that were mentioned by the WHO: Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup. Atlanta-based Atlantic Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd, which has permission to export medicines into Gambia, ordered a combined total of 50,000 bottles of those syrups, according to the police report.

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LONODN (Reuters) - A court in military-ruled Myanmar on Wednesday sentenced deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison on charges of accepting a bribe, a source with knowledge of the matter said. The 77-year-old Nobel laureate, a figurehead of opposition to military rule, faces charges for at least 18 offences ranging from graft to election violations, carrying combined maximum terms of nearly 190 years. Suu Kyi has called the accusations against her absurd and denied any wrongdoing. She is being held in solitary confinement in the capital, Naypyitaw, and her trials have been conducted in closed courts.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - San Antonio police have arrested one of their own recently fired officers and charged him with two counts of aggravated assault by a public official for shooting an unarmed 17-year-old who was eating in a fast-food parking lot. Police body-camera video of the Oct. 2 shooting went viral on social media, showing then-officer James Brennand opening the driver’s side door with his weapon drawn, demanding the driver exit the vehicle. The officer could then be seen opening fire as the teen drove away.

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s space agency said a rocket carrying eight satellites failed just after liftoff Wednesday and had to be aborted by a self-destruction command, in the country’s first failed rocket launch in nearly 20 years. The Epsilon-6 rocket was not in the right position to orbit around the Earth and its flight had to be aborted less than seven minutes after takeoff from the Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency President Hiroshi Yamakawa told an online news conference.