A Republican-led U.S. Senate panel on Thursday voted to hold the country's former top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, in an escalation of efforts to blame him for potential pandemic missteps.

On the advice of lawyers Fauci last week had invoked his constitutional right to stay silent under antagonistic questioning from Republican senators, as they probed him over unsubstantiated claims that the origins of the pandemic were covered up.

Hiroshima on Thursday marked the 81st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japanese city, with its mayor criticizing major powers for waging wars and urging them to stop justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as a method of deterrence.

"Downplaying the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and accepting the use of force to pursue one's own prosperity risk cycles of violent retaliation that could ultimately result in another Hiroshima or Nagasaki," Mayor Kazumi Matsui said.

North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward the waters off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, the latest in a series of weapons tests by North Korea this year.

The military detected the launch from North Korea's eastern coastal Wonsan area around 5 p.m. (0900 GMT), the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Ukraine hit more oil facilities deep inside Russia in nighttime attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, as Kyiv kept up its campaign to undermine Moscow's wartime economy and embarrass the Kremlin.

The repeated strikes have caused fuel shortages and rattled Russians while heartening Ukrainians who are enduring regular Russian barrages that Kyiv's weakened air defenses are struggling to counter.

The director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly wounded when his car exploded, news reports said Wednesday.

The state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said that Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalized in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow. It didn't immediately give details of the explosion or say who could be responsible. There was no immediate comment from the authorities.

A drone with an explosive device was found at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport, a major freight hub, and a detonator was removed from the object, authorities said Wednesday.

Both the airport's runways were closed and several flights, including one passenger plane, were diverted to other airports after a flying object was sighted near the airport shortly before midnight, police said, and an anti-explosives robot was deployed to check an object near the south runway.

Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed 17 people and wounded 44 others overnight into Wednesday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles, four other missiles identified as either hypersonic Zircons or supersonic Oniks, and 115 drones, many of them jet-powered, in the attack. Zelensky said the strikes mainly targeted warehouses belonging to civilian businesses, as well as infrastructure and a railway station, hitting sites that he described as "with no connection to the war" — including a brewing company, building materials warehouses and civilian logistics facilities.

A cargo vessel was struck by an "unknown projectile" in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman, a British maritime agency said on Tuesday, without giving specifics on damage or injuries.

U.S. President Donald Trump said that negotiations with Iran were ongoing despite Tehran's denials and the Islamic Republic was facing a "last chance before decapitation."

What is very likely to be the last reelection bid of Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was confirmed on Sunday by his Workers' Party as the 80-year-old leader faces increasing pressure from foreign leaders ahead of October's elections. It will be his seventh race for the top job.

Lula's rival, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, has enjoyed open support from members of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, Argentina's President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.