Happy Friday, folks.

1. Three crew members were killed yesterday afternoon when a large air tanker crashed while fighting bushfires in the Snowy Mountains. All three crew members on board the aircraft were US firefighters, who had travelled here to help fight the devastating blazes in New South Wales. The craft, a C-130 Hercules, was leased from the US and had been here since August.

2. Suffering the slings and arrows of Australian politics today is embattled Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie. You may have been following her case over the past week – she was accused in a damning audit of administering what amounted to a $100 million election ‘slush fund’, distributing sport infrastructure grants to marginal electorates ahead of the 2019 election. Conflicting reports abounded yesterday, with some – including Sky News – saying she was set to resign, and others – including herself – saying she wasn’t. It certainly seems like someone wants her gone. Maybe we’ll find out today.

3. Health experts issued an ominous warning about a coronavirus pandemic 3 months ago. A scientist at Johns Hopkins last year modelled what would happen if a deadly coronavirus reached a pandemic scale. His simulated scenario predicted that 65 million people could die within 18 months. Hmm. Concerning.

4. Tourism Australia has launched a $20 million ad campaign encouraging Australians to holiday locally this year. It’s part of an effort to pump money back to bushfire-devastated regions, many of which were reliant on tourism during the peak season. The campaign will be rolled out in print, on social media, and on billboards.

5. Australia’s inclement neobank revolution seems to be kicking into gear. Well, ‘revolution’ might be overselling it a tad, but there definitely appears to be interest in the challengers to the big four. Xinja reports it received $30 million in deposits in its first seven days, with half of those coming from the major banks. 2020 will be an interesting year for this space.

6. Woolworths is Australia’s most valuable brand, according to a new study. The findings come from the new Australia 100 2020 report from consultancy firm Brand Finance. You may not be surprised to hear that the major banks all took a hit compared to last year’s rankings. You know, with all the scandal and all.

7. Last banking story, I promise. Westpac has announced a new chairman: ‘battle-hardened’ banking heavyweight John McFarlane. The bank hopes McFarlane’s experience from his work as ANZ CEO for more than a decade will be enough to steer it through its current AUSTRAC scandal, which has already claimed the scalp of former CEO Brian Hartzer.

8. Australia’s ongoing retail bloodbath, which has claimed the scalps of a number of chains over the past few years, is scaring one group in particular: shopping centre landlords. The country’s largest mall owner Scentre Group faces a major task to replace struggling retailers, with as many as 87 stores across its portfolio in voluntary administration. Scentre and similar groups may be forced to renegotiate rents as store closures eat into occupancy rates and income.

9. Trump’s impeachment proceedings are rolling along in the Senate. Nothing absolutely groundbreaking to report, but one of the big man’s closest allies – Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida – did begrudgingly concede that the Democrats multimedia presentation of their argument was slick. Meanwhile, the defence team’s case looked like “an eighth-grade book report,” Gaetz told Politico. “Actually, no, I take that back,” he said, adding that an eighth-grader would know how to use PowerPoint and iPads.

10. Google has made a sneaky change to the way search results are displayed, which makes it more difficult to distinguish paid ads from regular content. Some observers wondered whether Google was trying to intentionally steer users to click on ads through a practice known as “dark pattern” design. Surely, surely they wouldn’t do that, would they? Google didn’t respond to inquiries from Business Insider, but did say in a tweet “the format puts a site’s brand front & centre, helping searchers better understand where information is coming from, more easily scan results & decide what to explore.”

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Here you go. Learn about bees. It’s Friday.

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