Sacred forests and groves are primeval woodlands that different faith communities around the world have safeguarded for centuries as abodes of the spiritual or the divine.

Thousands of sacred forests have survived. They're the church forests in Ethiopia's highlands, hillside groves considered holy by Catholics in Italy, woodlands revered by Shinto practitioners in Japan and Indigenous people in Siberia, Australia, the Americas and India.

Parts of the Pacific Northwest were under an ice storm warning through Wednesday morning, threatening to add to the damage brought by a powerful winter storm that hit the region over the weekend.

Area of southwest Washington and western Oregon — including that state's largest cities of Portland, Salem and Eugene — were expecting to see a quarter-inch to an inch (6 to 25 millimeters) of ice, while freezing rain was forecast in the Seattle area.

Heavy snowfall and freezing rain across Germany on Wednesday caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains, crashes on icy roads and school closures.

At Frankfurt airport, Germany's biggest, more than 500 flights were canceled, while in Munich over 250 arrivals and departures were canceled. In western Germany, Saarbruecken airport closed for the day, and Duesseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports were also affected by delays and cancellations.

Ukraine's hard-won economic stability is under threat again as the government faces a large budget hole and its two biggest allies and sponsors — the United States and the European Union — have so far failed to decide on extending more aid.

Without pledges of support by the start of February — when EU leaders meet to decide on aid — and if no money arrives by March, that could risk the progress Ukraine has made against inflation. It has helped ordinary people keep paying rent, put food on the table and resist Russia's efforts to break their society's spirit.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the need for a "pathway to a Palestinian state" Wednesday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, saying that Israel would not "get genuine security absent that."

If Israel can be brought into the fold of the Middle East, Blinken said, the region would be coming together to isolate Iran, which he called "the biggest concern in terms of security," as well as its proxies, which include Yemen's Houthi rebels who have been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Russia fired two missiles at Kharkiv city in northeastern Ukraine during the night, hitting apartment buildings and a medical center and injuring 17 people, officials said Wednesday, in Moscow's latest strikes on civilian areas in the almost two-year war.

The S-300 missiles landed after dark Tuesday, Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.

The top diplomats of Iran and the United States sit down for public — and separate — one-on-one chats while the U.N. chief and leaders of France, Argentina and Spain will deliver speeches as the World Economic Forum's annual meeting saunters into a busy second day on Wednesday.

The elite gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos takes a turn toward the environmental and climate concerns that have animated plea after plea from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the world to come together do take more united action against global warming — after a record-hot year in 2023.

The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a U.S. official.

The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel's military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a point of showing his leadership hasn't faded in more than two hours of answering questions at a news conference in which he promised a stronger France to face the world's challenges.

"I still have three years and a half in office," he said, describing an ambition to both change the daily life of the French and tackle global crises.

The United States, South Korea and Japan conducted perhaps their biggest-ever combined naval exercises in a show of strength against nuclear-armed North Korea, South Korea's military said Wednesday. The three allies' senior diplomats were to meet in Seoul to discuss the worsening standoff with Pyongyang.

The training in waters off South Korea's Jeju island, which involved an American aircraft carrier, was aimed at sharpening the countries' combined deterrence and response capabilities against North Korean nuclear, missile and underwater threats, and also training for preventing illicit maritime transports of weapons of mass destruction, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It didn't specify whether the training reflected concerns about North Korea's alleged arms transfers to Russia to help that country's war in Ukraine.