Good morning, folks.

1. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has told Australians they will eventually pay a price for record spending in the wake of COVID-19. The Morrison government has suggested “budget repair” would begin once unemployment falls to 6% – currently expected before the 2023-24 financial year – and will likely involve a mix of spending cuts and taxes. Addressing the National Press Club, Morrison threw cold water on the idea of further support measures, saying “you can’t run the Australian economy on taxpayers’ money forever”. Let’s see how that goes.

2. The Biden administration has signed a $300 million deal with Australian company Ellume to ramp up production on at-home COVID-19 tests. The deal includes the purchase of 8.5 million COVID-19 tests that will be distributed across the United States. Ellume’s test is expected to cost around US$30 and deliver results in around 20 minutes. “We’ve been developing this technology for a decade,” said founder and CEO Sean Parsons. “This is part of the puzzle. It doesn’t replace masks and it certainly doesn’t replace vaccines. It’s another piece of the response puzzle to help America get going again.”

3. Some of Australia’s largest super funds, including HESTA and Aware Super, are divesting from fossil fuels and committing to 2050 net-zero targets. However, corporate activists say the moves are more about investment risk, rather than climate action itself. “Investors are quietly abandoning companies that are proving ‘too hard’ to change, and failing to exhaust the tools available to change them,” Dan Gocher, director of climate and environment at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) said.

4. Victoria and New South Wales reported their 26th and 15th day without local coronavirus transmission. Queensland hit 21. We’re doing pretty well around here. Meanwhile, Perth and two Western Australian regions are entering their second day of a five-day hard lockdown.

5. There are fears among scientists that other COVID-19 variants such as the South African strain are “taking the edge off” vaccines. AstraZeneca says it is awaiting fresh data on its ability to combat the strain, after Johnson & Johnson and Novavax both reported reduced effectiveness. Pfizer says its vaccine worked on lab-grown viruses with similar mutations to the new strains.

6. Robinhood, the trading platform at the centre of the ongoing GameStop story, raised another $US2.4 billion of capital on Monday, days after getting $US1 billion from investors. The now-$US3.4 billion capital raise comes as the trading app aims to meet demands from retail traders buying and selling highly volatile stocks. “With this funding, we’ll build and enhance our products that give more people access to the financial system,” Robinhood said in a statement.

7. Meanwhile, Elon Musk interviewed Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev on Sunday night on the audio app Clubhouse. He asked Tenev about why Robinhood stopped users from trading “meme stocks” such as GameStop. Tenev said the company had been asked to place a $US3 billion deposit after those stocks soared.

8. In that same interview, Musk claimed his company Neuralink had implanted a chip that enabled a monkey to “play video games using his mind.” “We’ve already got a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull, and the tiny wires, who can play video games using his mind,” Musk said in an interview on the “Good Time Show” on the app Clubhouse on Sunday night. “One of the things we’re trying to figure out is can we have the monkeys play mind ‘Pong’ with each other,” he said. “That would be pretty cool.” I’ll believe it when I see it.

9. A California judge has ordered Apple CEO Tim Cook to sit for a 7-hour deposition as part of Epic Games’ lawsuit against the phone maker. Epic sued Apple in August after its popular “Fortnite” game was booted from the App Store. An update to the “Fortnite” app evaded the policy that allows Apple to take a 30% cut from in-app purchases.

10. After less than two years, Google is closing its video game development studio Stadia Games & Entertainment. Jade Raymond, who helped create the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, was leading the project. She is leaving Google. The company said it will continue to support its streaming gaming platform, Google Stadia.

BONUS ITEM

Here’s proof you don’t need a chip from Elon Musk for a monkey to play video games. Your move, Musk.

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