1.The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that North Korea launched a ballistic missile toward the East Sea at around 5:30 a.m., but the missile exploded midair. The military said there is a possibility that the North could have test-fired a hypersonic missile.

2.Health Minister Cho Kyoo-hong and head of the Korea Medical Association Lim Hyun-taek met for the first time on Wednesday while attending a parliamentary hearing on the ongoing medical crisis at the National Assembly.

3.According to data compiled by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, the number of babies born in South Korea marked on-year growth for the first time in 19 months in April, as the country is struggling to boost its ultra-low birth rate. A total of roughly 19-thousand babies were born in April this year, up 2.8 percent from a year earlier.