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Posted: 2021-02-28 22:24:32

Morning, team. Hope you all had great weekends.

1. A buy now, pay later code of conduct comes into force today. It means companies like Afterpay will – in theory at least – be compelled to disclose caps on their late fees and carry out mandatory checks on the finances of customers borrowing larger amounts of money. Of course, this is an effort to avoid more concrete, binding regulation from the government – so it’ll be interesting to see if they can keep themselves in check.

2. The last of James Packer’s direct representatives on the Crown Resorts board has resigned. John Poynton is leaving both Crown and its Perth subsidiary with immediate effect. “The Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA) has advised Crown that it considers it appropriate that John step down as a director of all companies within the Crown group,” Crown chairman Helen Coonan said in a statement.

3. The Parliament is currently gripped by a series of sexual assault scandals. A federal Labor MP has been accused of rape in a new email sent to a Liberal senator, following a letter on Friday about an alleged rape in 1988 by a man who is now in federal cabinet. This follows weeks of turmoil after former Liberal adviser Brittany Higgins said that she was raped by a colleague in a federal minister’s office.

4. Facebook announced a series of new commercial negotiations with independent Australian news organisations for the use of their content. On Friday, Facebook said it has signed letters of intent with Private Media, the publisher of Crikey and SmartCompany; Schwartz Media, publishers of The Monthly and The Saturday Paper; and Solstice Media, the Adelaide firm behind InDaily.

5. Meanwhile, calls are mounting for media companies to explicitly commit to using its Facebook and Google money to hire more journos. Journalist union the MEAA says the deals are “pointless” if they aren’t used to fund news content. Some, like Guardian Australia, have committed to expanding their operations.

6. News content returned to Facebook in Australia on Friday morning, a week after the platform banned it from being shared on the platform. News was reinstated after the Senate passed controversial legislation which could compel Facebook and Google to pay for news content.

7. Has the demise of Australia’s CBDs through the pandemic been grossly exaggerated? New research seems to think so. PwC Australia chief economist Jeremy Thorpe says CBDs will remain a hub of economic activity – but it might look a little different. “There are going to be lots of opportunities as the CBDs change and businesses that were priced out of them now have a chance to move in,” he said.

8. The US just authorised a third coronavirus shot, adding a convenient, single-dose option to boost the rollout. The FDA just authorised Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine after a panel of independent experts voted unanimously on Friday in favour of recommending the shot. J&J has said it will ship nearly 4 million doses immediately following a regulatory OK.

9. The cost to put on the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo is now estimated at more than $US26 billion. Postponing the games for one year added another $US2.8 billion to the estimated total. The Japanese public is largely opposed to holding the games, and there’s still a chance they will be cancelled.

10. Now that everyone’s talking about Bitcoin again, perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with its history. Who came up with Bitcoin? Was it created by more than one person? And who is Satoshi Nakamoto? All is answered in our chronicle here.

BONUS ITEM

An interesting question: are novelists already working on coronavirus or COVID-related projects? One author sought to find out.

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