10 things you need to know this morning in Australia

Happy hump day.

1. The RBA has slashed the interest rate again, bringing it down to 0.75%. It follows a month of data suggesting that weakness remains in the Australian economy. The statement from the Reserve Bank implied that more cuts could be on the way if it doesn't see results. The consensus view among economists right now is that it will do exactly that – likely bringing the cash rate down to 0.5% in February.

https://twitter.com/IFM_Economist/status/1177456261429727233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1177456261429727233&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com.au%2Frba-interest-rate-october-decision-economy-weak-2019-10

2. Mark Zuckerberg says he will go "to the mat" fighting US regulators targeting Facebook. In leaked audio from a town hall meeting at Facebook HQ, Zuck described threats to break up the social media giant as "existential" – specifically referring to proposals from presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. He later took to his Facebook to confirm he said that, while clarifying that company town halls are an opportunity for him to speak off the cuff.

3. The protests in Hong Kong escalated. Police claim activists threw acid on officers, and a protester was shot in the chest with a live round – the first time that has happened since the unrest began. The demonstrations have been ongoing for 17 weeks now.

4. Scott Morrison is being urged to offer "straight answers" on his offer to help Trump with an inquiry into the FBI. The PM has been fending off demands that he provide more detail into the call, which made international headlines yesterday.

5. On Trump, some reports indicate the White House is currently spiralling out of control over the whistleblower complaint. At the centre of this is Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani – aka "Hurricane Rudy" – who is, to put it lightly, not helping temper the scandal.

6. A scandal is currently engulfing Swiss bank Credit Suisse. It has been described as involving "spies, a suicide, and a clash at a cocktail party". If that piques your interest at all. Read our explainer here.

7. Silicon Valley's top VCs are convening for a summit to try and work out what has gone wrong in a series of recent catastrophic IPOs. The investors want to work out an alternative to the Wall Street system for raising capital, including – and I quote – "cutting-edge software algorithms". Good luck with that!

8. House prices in Sydney and Melbourne have surged again, bringing national values higher on average. It's the biggest monthly jolt in two and a half years – but prices are still sitting 11.9% lower than they were back in July 2017, which we can all agree was a truly wild time.

9. Apple's news subscription service has launched in Australia, for $14.99 a month. I've been poking around on Apple News+ for the past day to get a sense of it, and it's actually pretty decent – there are a lot of global publications available. Whether that's worth 15 bucks a month is totally dependent on how much news you read.

10. Atlassian has released its internal guidelines for how to run an effective meeting. The Australian tech company hopes its best practices can be implemented in other businesses. It's a decent read, especially as it pertains to getting more staff effectively involved in meetings.

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Here's something to trigger your nascent fear of the robot apocalypse.

https://twitter.com/techinsider/status/1179159554707210240