1. Bing! A solution could be here

With the Morrison Government heading towards a battle with Google, a surprise rescuer for search hungry Australians has emerged. Bill Gates’ Microsoft has told the PM that it could expand its Bing search engine into the local market if Google should withdraw from Australia in protest over plans to force tech giants to share revenue with media outlets for republishing their content. Defending the tech giants, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg held an online meeting with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg but the Treasurer said the government was not going to backdown.

2. Government to pay vaccinations only this year

The Federal Government will spend $1.9 billion vaccinating Australians this year but after that the credit card will be put away. The PM, Scott Morrison has one big spending program left for 2021 — and that’s vaccinating Australia — but after that, debt reduction will become a priority. This comes as the AFR says we could be in for an election this year, with the Government exploiting the divisions within the Labor Party, with questions about Anthony Albanese’s grip on the leadership, as the Prime Minister and his Government register big leads in popularity polls because of the handling of the pandemic. That program has spent $251 billion on supporting the economy but the PM will tell the National Press club in a speech today that he doesn’t have a blank cheque.

3. Our market will react today

The local stock market will face head winds today after another bad day for Wall Street because of Robinhood. Just when it was thought the battle of US investors, who ganged up on the Reddit website using the free Robinhood stock broker to fight short sellers was over, after the stock broker put restrictions on the buying and selling of stocks, fear re-emerged on stock markets on Friday when those restrictions were eased. The Dow Jones Index dropped a big 2% and this will make it very hard for the local stock market to start the week in a positive mood. Undoubtedly Robinhood was pressured by regulators and big players to make it harder for small investors to use debt and options to take on the short-sellers but after threats of legal action and investors dumping the broker, Robinhood relented on their restrictions, which spooked the US stock market again.

4. British farm makes $90k with goat Zoom calls

Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Lancashire, England has raked in over £50,000 ($89,875) by offering Zoom calls with their goats at a rate of £5 ($8.99) per five minutes during the COVID-19 pandemic. "We’ve had everyone from the European management team of Facebook, to NHS staff in need of a cheer up, to virtual church services - the vicars always seem to choose Mary the goat," said farm owner Dot McCarthy.

5. Wall Street's worst week since October

The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all down over 3% last week, the worst performance in three months. The Dow dropped back below the 30,000 level first reached in December, closing down 3.27% for the week fo 29,982.62. The S&P 500 fell 3.31% to 3,714.24 and the Nasdaq lost 3.49% to 13,070.69.