Global overnight updates: Iran drills, Kishida to resign, warehouse blaze

It happened while you were sleeping. Here is what global agencies reported during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.

• Iran announced that it conducted sudden military exercises in the Caspian Sea. Teheran said in a statement that the public should not be worried about the sounds of explosions. According to the semi-official Mehr news agency, the exercises organized by the Navy took place in the Caspian Sea in the Gilan province in the north of the country. The news reported that the exercises were organized to increase the defensive readiness of the Naval Forces. On August 11-13, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps also conducted a three-day training in the country's west.

• Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to step down next month, succumbing to pressure from his party, demanding a departure from unpopular leadership. This is a major shake-up at the top of the government and the Liberal Democratic Party, which controls both houses of parliament. According to Japanese media, including the national television station NHK and Kyodo News, Kishida has already informed his associates.

• Warehouse fire near Bucharest. Twenty firefighting units have been battling a large fire since Tuesday evening in Afumati, near Bucharest, the capital of Romania. According to Romanian civil defense, despite the quick intervention of the fire brigade, one of the warehouses engulfed by the fire was almost completely burned down, and most of its structure collapsed.

• A New York judge ruled that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will not appear on state ballots in November after falsely claiming in his election documents that he had lived in a friend's house in New York, the "Washington Post" reported on Monday. Although Kennedy claimed he lived in an extra bedroom at his friend's house in Katonah, New York, he spent only one night there last month after a lawsuit was filed challenging his residency, wrote Christina Ryba, an Albany County Supreme Court judge, in her decision.

• Several hundred Russian conscripts who refused to fight in defense of the Kursk region were forcibly sent to the area of operations. The soldiers were given weapons and transported by air to Kursk.