10 things you need to know this morning in Australia
Good morning all.
1. Bushfire fundraiser Fire Fight happened over the weekend, before a sold out crowd of 75,000. According to organisers, it raised $9.5 million.Everyone from Queen + Adam Lambert to John Farnham to Olivia Newton-John to Michael Buble played. Not a bad effort.
2. Jetstar workers are set to strike for 24 hours on Wednesday, as they continue to agitate over pay and conditions. Obviously, that is going to disrupt flights. In fact, the company has provided a list of flights that have been proactively cancelled – if you haven't been checking your text messages for whatever reason, it is in the tweet below.
https://twitter.com/JetstarAirways/status/1228901169843470338
3. Chinese rideshare service DiDi is coming to Sydney, ending much speculation as to why it wasn't already. It'll land in the NSW capital on March 16. Business Insider Australia reported last month the company's Australian drivers were freaking out about its new reward program, which they say slashed their effective pay rates.
4. ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank are backing regulatory changes, which would let retailers charge extra to customers who use services like Afterpay. At the moment, buy now, pay later companies generally don't let retailers from passing their fees onto the customer. The Reserve Bank is considering whether to ban such rules, and it seems the big banks are very much in favour.
5. At the end of last week, the Federal Court ordered Google to reveal the identity of someone who wrote an allegedly defamatory anonymous negative review of a Melbourne teeth whitening practice. Seems like a significant development. We spoke to UNSW Associate Professor Rob Nicholls about whether this will have an impact on Google and platforms like it. His verdict: probably not. “Potentially Google and others might have to think a bit harder about what reviews they allow to be published if they can see that on their face they look as if they’re defamatory," he said.
6. Beijing has instituted a 14-day quarantine for anyone returning to the city, in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak That's a city of more than 20 million people, by the way. Virus prevention officials have yet to announce how China’s capital plans to enforce this rule, and whether the quarantine also applies to non-residents.
7. Tokyo Olympics organisers say there is no 'Plan B' for the games if the coronavirus situation continues to go south. The games are still set to begin on July 24, and several qualifying events have already been cancelled or moved thanks to the virus.
8. While this all goes on, a top Chinese official has slammed other countries for the "overreaction" and "unnecessary panic" towards the virus. Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi advised against the US taking “unnecessary" coronavirus response actions that could be detrimental towards the economy and travel during an interview with Reuters.
9. The US presidential campaign of billionaire Mike Bloomberg is trying to shush speculation he wants former contender Hillary Clinton as his VP. Such speculation dominated social media over the weekend. “We are focused on the primary and the debate, not VP speculation,” Bloomberg communication director Jason Schechter said in a statement. According to Fox News, an unidentified source close to Clinton said that she “wants back in” following her loss to Trump during the 2016 election.
10. You may or may not remember HQ Trivia, the mobile quiz game promising cash prizes which momentarily seized the world's attention in 2017. Well, it's shutting down. The beloved ex-host, Scott Rogowsky, tweeted Saturday that the company was shut down due to “incompetence, arrogance, short-sightedness & sociopathic delusion.” For the record, I once won a daily HQ Trivia quiz, won a massive eight dollars, deleted the app and never played it again.
BONUS ITEM
Turns out a lot more thought goes into the IKEA kitchen menu than you might imagine.
https://twitter.com/techinsider/status/1229065275041030147
