1. Australian COVID-19 vaccine dumped

The Australian government has announced it will not proceed with its order of 50 million doses of the University of Queensland-CSL coronavirus vaccine. CSL said that it, along with the government, had agreed to not continue trials following false positive HIV test results for some participants in the trial. PM Scott Morrison said Australia would increase its orders for the AstraZeneca and Novavax vaccines to cover the shortfall.

2. Miners top corporate taxpayer list

Rio Tinto and BHP Group are Australia's biggest corporate taxpayers according to ATO figures for the 2018-19 financial year, with tax bills of $4.25 billion and $4.22 billion, respectively. The big four banks and another miner took out the next five positions, namely the Commonwealth Bank ($3.27 billion), Westpac ($3.01 billion), NAB ($2.17 billion), Fortescue Metals Group ($1.67 billion) and ANZ ($1.64 billion).

3. Aussie dollar rises above 75 US cents

The Australian dollar is currently trading at 75.4 US cents, the highest level reached in over 18 months. The currency has risen over 30% since March when it hit a low of 57.4 US cents.

4. Can you pronounce Kamala and Fauci?

2020 brought with it a whole new lexicon of words to learn and use, but not everyone has been able to get a handle of every new word. The US Captioning Company has announced that the most mispronounced words of 2020 included the first name of the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris (pronounced 'KAH-mah-lah' according to AP), and the last name of infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci ('FOW-chee').

5. US stocks mostly flat on Thursday

It was a mixed day for the major indexes in the US, with the Dow Jones closing down 69.55 points or 0.23% to 29,999.26 and the S&P 500 moving down 4.72 points or 0.13% to 3,668.10, while the Nasdaq rose 66.86 points or 0.54% to 12,405.81.