PM

Desperate efforts to stop China's coal blockade, the Prime Minister warns China it'll unnerve all its trading partners; and Joe Biden's election win is confirmed by the US Electoral College, but expect Donald Trump to keep fuelling divisions, even as a new president hopes to heal them.

A two-way border bubble with New Zealand is just months away, as the Kiwis look to relax restrictions; and calls for tougher animal cruelty laws after an alleged cockfighting syndicate is disrupted in Sydney's south-west.

An apparently effective and safe COVID vaccine is scrapped – after it threw up false positive test results for HIV; Dr Andrew Nash from CSL tells PM that although the issue could have been dealt with, it might have lowered public confidence in the vaccination program.

More than three thousand deaths in the United States in a single day from COVID-19, for one Australian health worker, there's a feeling of guilt looking on from afar; and older, migrant women are struggling to get any foothold in the jobs recovery after the COVID economic disaster.

The government and Labor go head to head over workers and wages, as the Coalition finally reveals plans to change the bargaining system; and an onerous application process sees people who lost so much during the bushfires – still struggling to get some financial help.

New Zealand's Prime Minister apologises to the Muslim community as a long-running inquiry documents failings before the Christchurch mosque attack; and a warning that Australia faces a logistical nightmare, falling well short of the super cold storage needed for the leading COVID vaccine.

Australia's COVID alert eases a little bit more, across state and international borders; and the Royal Commission hears people with disabilities are too often demeaned in their efforts to have meaningful work.

The United States is in the grip of a horrifying surge in coronavirus cases, and President-elect Joe Biden is trying to get in front of the emergency, with announcements on mask wearing and the vaccine; and a Chinese diplomat says the Prime Minister over-reacted to an inflammatory tweet and puts the onus on Australia to fix the languishing relationship.

Australia will watch and learn from the UK, rather than rush to match Britain's roll out of a COVID vaccine beginning next week; and an Australian soldier says that confinement and neglect meant the deployment to COVID-hit Melbourne was worse than being sent overseas.

The Australian microbiologist joining the WHO search for the origins of coronavirus hopes to soon head to China and he expects good access, despite diplomatic tensions; and on paper, Australia's COVID recession is over, but on the ground, businesses aren't yet calling it a comeback.