U.S. hospital intensive care units in many parts of the country are straining to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients. These hospital units take care of the sickest of the sick. Some are running out of space and supplies, while scrambling to pay the soaring rates of temporary traveling nurses. Hundreds of ICUs are struggling at the same time, with many clustered in the South and West. An Associated Press analysis shows that since November, the share of U.S. hospitals nearing the breaking point has doubled. More than 40% of Americans live in areas running out of ICU beds.

How to make sure the world is never so devastated by another pandemic?

Health officials from around the globe have been vigorously discussing that question over the past week at the annual meeting of the World Health Organization's Executive Board. The members, whose nine-day-long, mostly virtual gathering concludes on Tuesday, have heard recommendations from four separate panels.

The Senate quickly confirmed Janet Yellen to be Treasury secretary on Monday, days after she won unanimous backing from both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee.

Yellen will be the first woman to lead the Treasury Department and will spearhead the Biden administration's response to the coronavirus recession. The Senate confirmed her with an 84-15 vote.

A Uganda judge has ordered state security forces, who have kept the losing presidential candidate Bobi Wine detained in his home since mid-January, to stop surrounding Wine's residence.

Wine, 38, a popular singer whose real name is Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, was the main opposition candidate in the Jan. 14 presidential election. President Yoweri Museveni was reelected to a sixth term, winning 58% of the vote to Wine's 34%, according to election officials. Wine disputes the results.

A few months ago, South Dakota was in the news for its rising coronavirus case numbers and deaths. It's a rural, less populous state. But the disproportionately high caseload strained the health care system.

Now, as daily case numbers continue on a downward trend nationwide, the state is notable again, but for a different reason: the success of its vaccine rollout.

Sixty-four years ago, residents of this tiny town in southwestern Kansas set a public health example by making it the first in the nation to be fully inoculated against polio.

It's a different story today.

People in Protection, like those in many rural communities, stand divided over how to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the safety of the vaccines being rolled out to protect them.