More than 300 prisoners in Afghanistan are believed to be on the run after an attack by Islamic State militants on a prison in the eastern city of Jalalabad. It began on Sunday night with the suicide car bombing outside the prison gates. Gunmen then entered the compound while others occupied a nearby shopping mall. Nearly 30 people, mainly civilians, were killed, along with 10 militants. Our Afghanistan correspondent is Secunder Kermani.
ISIS are less powerful than the Taliban in Afghanistan. And in fact, in recent months, they'd lost much of the territory they once controlled. Many of their senior leadership figures have either been detained or killed. But they clearly still retain the ability to carry out deadly attacks like this. It is probably their most ambitious. And the fighting raged throughout the night and into today. An official said that around a thousand of these inmates have managed to escape but have now been recaptured. But around 300 remain missing.
Thousands of children in northeast Germany have become the first in Europe to return to school following the lockdown due to the pandemic. Classes in Mecklenburg, Western Pomerania, which has one of the lowest infection rates, began again on Monday. Damien McGuinness reports.
This is the first time since March that schoolchildren in Germany will be at school again every day. But it's not yet clear to what extent children may spread the virus. The school days are shorter, class sizes are smaller, and lesson times are staggered to reduce the risk of contacts. There's also debate about face coverings. And because in Germany, the regions run education policy, things might be different in each state.
Iran has reported its latest figures for the number of coronavirus deaths, saying that just over 17,000 people have now died. But this is far below the number of about 42,000 revealed by a BBC Persian service investigation, around two and half times more than the official figures suggest.
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi is being investigated for possible manslaughter charges in connection with the deaths of four babies whose mothers took its anti-epilepsy drug. It's been found to carry a high risk of birth defects if taken by pregnant women. Sanofi has already denied charges of supplying false information about the drug. Hugh Schofield is in Paris.
In France, Sanofi is the object of a long-running class action lawsuit over its marketing of Valproate or Depakine, a drug which is widely prescribed around the world under different names to combat epilepsy and other forms of seizure. It's been known for many years that the drug should not be given to pregnant women because of the high risk of it causing malformations or autism. This latest development means that in addition to the original charges of providing misleading information, Sanofi could also be held responsible for the deaths of four babies whose mothers took Depakine.