China is the only major economy still holding fast to a zero-Covid strategy with snap lockdowns and long quarantines, battering business activity and holding back a consumption recovery.

Conservative MPs are to vote on the eight candidates who survived an initial cull Tuesday, with a result expected around 1600 GMT Wednesday.

Police are also imposing an indefinite curfew across the western province, which includes the capital Colombo, to contain growing protests.

The 79-year-old president's visit to Jeddah on Friday will be the focus of the tour, after Biden branded Saudi Arabia a 'pariah' over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi.

Two classmates are accused of pouring alcohol on Juan Zamorano's seat at a high school in the central state of Queretaro in June.

The suit filed in the US state of Delaware urges the court to order the billionaire to complete his deal to buy Twitter, arguing that no financial damages could repair the damage he has caused.

Despite the rise in cases, the new variants should not be allowed to cause panic or 'disrupt our lives,' President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci says.

As president, Rajapaksa enjoys immunity from arrest, and he is believed to have wanted to go abroad before stepping down to avoid the possibility of being detained.

Subvariants of Omicron, like BA.4 and BA.5, continue to drive waves of cases, hospitalisation and death around the world, it says.

The European single currency hit exactly one dollar – its lowest level since December 2002 – before rising to US$1.0023.

Nearly 250 million people in China are now said to be under some kind of virus control measures – more than double last week's number.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa has promised to resign and clear the way for a 'peaceful transition of power' following widespread protests against him over the country's unprecedented economic crisis.