Welcome to Axios Recap. I'm Naomi Shaven and I'm filling in for Dan. Today is Thursday, February 18th.

U.S. unemployment claims are up, temperatures in Texas are still down, and we're focused on Facebook and news in Australia.

If you're in Australia and you log on to Facebook, you'll still see your friends' babies and dogs,

but you won't see any news articles.

Last night, Facebook was staring down looming Australian legislation that would have forced it

and Google to pay publishers in the country for content that appears on their platforms.

And Facebook pulled the plug on news.

Let's take a big step back.

Australian lawmakers are very close to passing a law requiring Google and Facebook to pay publishers for their content.

For the last few months, Facebook and Google have been fighting with Australia's government over this proposed law, arguing it would make doing business, quote, unviable.

If you missed all of this because of everything else going on, you're forgiven.

But it is a really big deal and part of a global movement to push tech platforms to pay publishers.

Platforms like Google and Facebook have wreaked havoc on the business models of publishers over the years,

even as they've helped to expand publishers' reach.

As a result, a lot of countries want to take action to support publishers.

The EU, for example, recently developed a framework for member countries to take

similar action to what Australia has been considering. So here's the latest. Australia's law was

expected to pass within a matter of days. Google tried to get ahead of this by striking deals with

Australian publishers. Most notably, it struck a deal with News Corp for an undisclosed amount.

Hours later, Facebook blocked news on its platform in Australia entirely.

The result is that Australian Facebook users cannot see news on the platform, and they also initially

could not see some government sites with updates about local emergencies and other sites that provide health

...