Japanese advisory body to approve covid curbs for most of country.

A Japanese advisory panel is set to approve the expansion of tougher measures against COVID-19 to 18 additional regions on Tuesday, putting more than 70 percent of the country under restrictions. The western prefectures of Osaka and Kyoto are among the areas covered by the measures, taken in response to a surge of infections and hospitalisation driven by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Japan logged more than 44,000 new cases on Monday, a tally by public broadcaster NHK showed. The curbs will be enforced from Thursday through February 20, and...