The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.----------Osaka, 2 more areas in western Japan to seek COVID quasi-emergencyOSAKA - The western Japan prefectures of Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo will ask the government Friday to place them under a coronavirus quasi-state emergency amid the rapid spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura said.The planned joint request by the three prefectures reflects an increasing strain on the local medical system, with Osaka seeing around 6,000 new daily infections recently, Yoshimura told reporte…READ FULL ARTICLE