Every other hour, another packed train from Poland arrives at Berlin's main train station filled with hundreds of Ukrainian refugees, mostly mothers and their children looking for a safe place away from the brutal war in their home country.

As they spilled out of the trains on Tuesday, loudspeakers blared in Ukrainian and English: "Dear refugees from Ukraine, welcome to Germany, please follow the instructions of the volunteers in the yellow and orange vests."

A year ago, Naftali Bennett was struggling for his political survival as Israel headed toward its fourth consecutive election. Today, the Israeli prime minister is at the forefront of global efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Just as Bennett took advantage of unique circumstances to become the most unlikely of prime ministers, he has managed to leverage Israel's good relations with both Ukraine and Russia and his personal rapport with their leaders to turn himself into an unexpected mediator.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy summoned the memory of Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in appealing Wednesday to the U.S. Congress to do more to help Ukraine's fight against Russia. President Joe Biden said the U.S. is sending more anti-aircraft, anti-armor weapons and drones.

Zelenskyy, livestreamed to a rapt audience of lawmakers on a giant screen, acknowledged the no-fly zone he has sought to "close the sky" to airstrikes on his country may not happen. Biden has resisted that, as well as approval for the U.S. or NATO to send MiG fighter jets from Poland.

A United Nations appeal for Yemen Wednesday is aiming at raising $4.27 billion to alleviate what it describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with 161,000 people likely to experience famine there in 2022.

The virtual pledging conference is co-hosted by Sweden and Switzerland. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will address donors on the dire needs of the Arab world's poorest country.

Four Bengal tigers rescued from years of captivity in a train carriage in Argentina have been released into open-air enclosures in South Africa.

After a journey of more than 70 hours from Argentina, the tigers stepped from their crates into open-air enclosures at the Lionsrock Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa's central Free State province.

Both Russia and Ukraine projected optimism ahead of another scheduled round of talks Wednesday, even as Moscow's forces rained fire on Kyiv and other major cities in a bid to crush the resistance that has frustrated Kremlin hopes for a lightning victory.

In the encircled seaport of Mariupol, a Russian airstrike destroyed a theater building where hundreds of people were sheltering, the city council said. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national who has been detained in Iran for nearly six years, has left Tehran's airport after being freed with another fellow detainee, Anoosheh Ashoori, British officials said Wednesday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, on a trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, tweeted that he was pleased that the two's "unfair detention" had ended.

The Council of Europe on Wednesday expelled Russia from the continent's foremost human rights body in an unprecedented move over Moscow's invasion and war in Ukraine.

The 47-nation organization's committee of ministers said in statement that "the Russian Federation ceases to be a member of the Council of Europe as from today, after 26 years of membership."

Japanese prosecutors filed an appeal Wednesday against the verdict in the trial of former Nissan executive Greg Kelly, who recently was cleared of almost all charges he had faced related to alleged under-reporting of his former boss Carlos Ghosn's pay.

The Tokyo District Court handed down a six-month sentence suspended for three years earlier this month. It found Kelly, an American, guilty of under-reporting former Nissan Chairman Ghosn's compensation for just one of the eight years cited in the charges.

Saudi Arabia's octogenarian monarch underwent medical tests had the battery of his pacemaker changed, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported Wednesday.

King Salman will rest for several days following the procedure and "successful medical tests," the news agency said. Government-produced images showed the king leaving the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the capital, Riyadh, hunched forward and using a cane, but otherwise walking unassisted.