Morning folks. I’m back on deck for 2021, please bear with me while I reorient myself over the course of the next 10 items.

1. The big news over the weekend you probably already saw: Twitter has permanently suspended President Donald Trump from accessing his account. “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” the company said in a tweet. Facebook also moved to block Trump “indefinitely” on Thursday after a violent siege on the US Capitol.

2. Trump went “ballistic” after his account was suspended, a senior administration official told Politico. He was “scrambling” to figure out what his options were, the media outlet said, and hinted that “building” his own platform might be one avenue they pursue in a now-deleted tweet.

3. The repercussions from Big Tech against platforms and personalities seen to have encouraged the Capitol riot has been far-reaching. For example, Amazon is removing the fast-growing right-wing social media network Parler from its web hosting service. Amazon Web Services said Parler violated its terms of service due to an increase in violent content shared on the website. The move comes after Google and Apple banned the Parler app from their app stores, also for violating policies by failing to remove violent content.

4. A majority of Americans now believe Trump should be removed from office before Biden’s Inauguration Day, according to a new poll. The ABC News/Ipsos poll results come as lawmakers debate impeaching the president once more, this time on a charge of “incitement of an insurrection.” Trump was widely blamed for emboldening his supporters to riot on January 6 at the US Capitol.

5. Victoria recorded no new local cases of coronavirus this morning and one in an international arrival. This marks five straight days of no cases in the state, as the premiers of Victoria and NSW spar over whether proper warning was given that the border was about to slam shut.

6. Greater Brisbane residents will find out today if they will be subjected to a longer lockdown than the three-day one they’re currently experiencing. Despite fears that a cleaner, who tested positive to the highly contagious UK strain of the coronavirus, had spread it into the community, no new cases were discovered on Saturday or Sunday.

7. WA Premier Mark McGowan says his state’s border will remain closed to Queensland for at least a month even if the Brisbane lockdown is lifted. “We are obviously very pleased that Queensland is doing so well, clearly they’ve had a pretty big testing regime but we aren’t at the point of time where we’d open up to Queensland, that would be subject to health advice,” he said.

8. Tesla CEO Elon Musk surpassed Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person on Thursday. Tesla’s surging stock price propelled Musk’s net worth up to around $US188 billion as of Thursday. On Twitter, Musk reacted to the news by saying “How strange” and “Well, back to work…” He’s not wrong, given the fact Tesla’s stock price seems to be influenced more by the movement of celestial bodies at this point than any real economic or business reality. Even if he didn’t quite mean it that way.

9. Apple and Hyundai plan to sign a deal that would lead to a ‘beta’ version of an Apple electric vehicle as early as 2022, according to a Sunday report from Reuters. Hyundai and Apple may build a US factory that would eventually allow the companies to make about 400,000 vehicles each year. For comparison, Tesla earlier this month said it delivered almost 500,000 vehicles in 2020.

10. The UK government has launched a campaign in an effort to improve adherence to lockdown restrictions, as the COVID-19 death toll surpasses 80,000. The UK has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths behind the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico, according to Johns Hopkins University.

BONUS ITEM

Here’s Arnie sounding off, because why not.

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