Good morning. Onwards and upwards.

1. Take a peek into what could be Australia’s most important lab. The Sydney Morning Herald went inside the ultra-secure facility and met the team working on the growing tide of mutant viruses that are reaching Australia’s borders. A fascinating look at the virus frontlines.

2. Thousands of apartments are about to become available in Sydney and Melbourne’s CBDs. New data shows landlords are planning to dump thousands of units onto the market in the coming months to avoid a further cash flow crunch. Given there’s already an oversupply of inner-city apartments, it could push prices lower.

3. Universities shouldn’t expect any more help from the federal government. Speaking on Wednesday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the Coalition had done enough and it was now up to unis to strike deals with states to bring back international students. It comes as Chinese students are advised to simply avoid Australia as a study destination. Others meanwhile are feeling pretty neglected.

4. Debate over borders continues to rage on as Australia struggles to strike a balance between the economy and health and safety. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has waded in, saying the only way to remain free of COVID-19 would be to keep borders closed for decades. “I don’t think any Australian thinks that’s a reasonable thing to do, particularly when we do have a pathway out of this through vaccination,” AMA president Omar Khorshid said.

5. Then again, vaccinating the entire country appears to be becoming an ever more distant prospect. Nearly one in three Australians now say they probably won’t get the jab, citing fears over what are actually extremely rare side effects. Mixed messages from the government may not be helping.

6. Israel is resisting increasing pressure from the United States to come to a ceasefire against Palestinian Territories. Netanyahu hit back saying the operation will continue “until its aim is met” which is to stop rockets being fired and “irreparably harm Hamas”. It comes as some Democrats look to block a $1 billion arms sale to Israel, arguing the US has a “responsibility to protect human rights”. More than 58,000 Palestinians have been displaced and made homeless by recent airstrikes.

7. Google has struck a new deal with Shopify. The agreement will see sellers on the ecommerce platform flog their wares across Google services, including Maps, Search, Images, and YouTube.

8. Amazon will ban sales of its facial recognition tech to police forces indefinitely. It continues a year-long ban that began last year, after it reportedly led to the wrongful arrests of three Black American men and amid criticisms it disproportionately targets people of colour.

9. Buy now, pay later giant Klarna is growing so fast that it outgrew its New York office before it had a chance to move in. In a sign of the boom being enjoyed by the platforms, Klarna said it never got a chance to use the office it bought prior to the pandemic as its headcount blew out. It is now competing fiercely with Afterpay and Zip for the US market.

10. China’s new policy to slow down a wave of divorces is forcing unhappy couples to find unconventional solutions. To get around a new 30-day cooling off period, couples are scalping tickets to skip the line to divorce court and break it off sooner. No wonder with some describing the wait time as “30 days of hell”.

BONUS ITEM

Australia is truly the lucky country. Get those milk bags out of here.

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