From Pope Francis addressing speculations in the Emanuela Orlandi case to @morgandoesntcare saving the day – Here are today's Headlines

To start off, we're looking into:

Missing Vatican girl

The backstory: In 1983, Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old Vatican employee's daughter, vanished after a music lesson in Rome. And, believe it or not, the case remains one of Italy's biggest mysteries. Several conspiracies have been tied to her disappearance over the years, from connections to mobsters to a political attempt to free someone in jail for trying to assassinate the pope.

More recently: Last year, a Netflix documentary called "Vatican Girl" brought new attention to Orlandi's mysterious disappearance. One of her friends shocked many when she said in the documentary that a high-ranking Vatican official made sexual advances toward Orlandi before she went missing. The Vatican reopened the case in January following the amount of attention the film drew. Orlandi's brother, Pietro, also recently made some shocking allegations on TV implicating the former pope.

The development: Pope Francis took to St. Peters Square over the weekend to speak to 20,000 people about it. Click into the full article to read more about what's going on with the case.

Bitcoin gets its groove back?

The backstory: Bitcoin, the big-shot cryptocurrency, had a wild ride in 2021 and 2022. Specifically, the coin hit an all-time high in November 2021, soaring past US$68,000, but then came crashing down in 2022, dropping below US$20,000, causing some major stress in the market. Other crypto players like Terraform, Voyager Digital, Celsius, FTX, BlockFi, Genesis Global and others also crumbled, leading to what many called a "crypto winter."

More recently: But, in a turn of events, the crypto market is now seeing inflows thanks to Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, causing some to turn to bitcoin as a safety net in case the traditional economy gets messy.

The development: Now, bitcoin is on the rise again. In just one month, it's surged from US$20,000 to US$30,000, hitting a 10-month high last week. What's helping drive this rally, you ask? Well, investors are betting that the Fed will soon ease its aggressive monetary policy stance.

The crypto industry is still reckoning with a lot of instability and change. For example, bigwigs like FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance's Changpeng Zhao are dealing with a heap of legal issues. But, recent research by Citigroup predicted that up to US$5 trillion could shift to new forms of money like digital currencies by 2030, with another US$5 trillion in traditional assets possibly being tokenized, bringing blockchain much more into the mainstream.

SpaceX test launch scrapped

The backstory: SpaceX has been preparing for a test flight for its giant rocket, Starship, a 400-foot-tall spacecraft designed to take people to the moon and out farther into space. The Starship is designed to be used more than once, and this would be the first time the company’s launched its fully integrated Starship system and Super Heavy booster. The orbital test flight, which has been delayed several times and just got approval to run last Friday, was set to take off on Monday in South Texas.

The development: About eight minutes from launch, SpaceX had to call it off. Crowds had gathered, and the countdown had already started when CEO Elon Musk announced the launch would be postponed because a valve on the ship was frozen. This valve is in Starship’s Super Heavy booster, which uses 33 engines at once to lift the ship off the ground. Even though the launch didn’t happen, the countdown continued, and the crew went through the motions, taking the opportunity to practice the launch process. It’ll be a couple of days before SpaceX tries again.

To end, we'll look into:

The health benefits of ice cream

The weather is getting warmer as junk boat season approaches, and so what better way to cool down than to enjoy everyone’s favorite sweet treat – ice cream? Well, children, listen up 'cause we have some exciting news –  ice cream could have some surprising health benefits.

We all know that ice cream is a dessert and that dessert foods aren’t necessarily bad for us in moderation. But it’s still loaded with saturated fats and sugar, so most people eat it in smaller amounts or feel a tad bit guilty after indulging in this frozen goodness. The idea that it could be kind of good for you is completely out of left field.

An article by David Merrit Johns for The Atlantic points out research done by Harvard doctoral student Andres Ardisson Korat back in 2018 showing that half a cup of ice cream a day was linked to a lower risk of heart problems in diabetics. Well, strange conclusions come from studies from time to time, and it’s usually because of some sort of human or computational error. The thing is, Ardisson conducted similar experiments again and again and got the same result.

And actually, other researchers have drawn similar conclusions after analyzing the health effects associated with dairy and can’t really figure it out. Mark A. Pereira, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, found similar conclusions from research done over 20 years earlier. He found that dairy foods – but especially ice cream – could lower the chances of developing insulin-resistance syndrome (which can lead to diabetes) among overweight people.

“I still to this day don’t have an answer for it,” he said. “We analyzed the hell out of the data.”

Another Harvard study built onto Pereira’s findings, underscoring that the results were linked specifically with low-fat dairy foods, for example, pointing out that risk reduction was associated with things like low-fat milk, not whole milk. But they still couldn’t shake the blatant association of reduced risk with ice cream.

But not everyone is buying it.

“As an academic public health doctor, I’m not going to be rushing out to eat more ice-cream based on this research,” weighs in John Ford, academic public health doctor and senior clinical lecturer at Queen Mary University London. “There are lots of other potential explanations – it may be that people are more likely to have an ice-cream to cool down after a walk or some exercise, or it may be that people who tend to choose ice-cream as a dessert instead of a high-calorie slab of chocolate cake are also likely to substitute other high-fat foods.”

The Department of Health and Social Care, as well as the NHS in England, didn’t comment.

In other news ...

📈Stocks: MSCI’s global gauge of stocks is up 0.05% at 2827.24 at the time of writing.

• Dow Jones gained 0.3% to 33,987.18.
• Nasdaq Composite added 0.28% to 12,157.72.
• S&P 500 rose 0.33% to 4,151.32.
• Hang Seng Index jumped 1.68% to 20,782.45.

🧠Some quick factors to bear in mind:

• US stocks rose slightly on Monday, with financial and industrial sectors leading the way. But all in all, investors are waiting for more earning reports and comments from the central bank officials to gauge where interest rates are going.
• Google's parent company, Alphabet, saw a dip of about 3% after news that Samsung reportedly might be switching to Microsoft-owned Bing as its default search engine.
• A slew of corporate results, like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Johnson & Johnson, Tesla and Netflix, are due this week.
• Over in China and Hong Kong markets, stocks rallied on Monday ahead of some major China economic data, with Hang Seng Index reaching an eight-week high, while the Shanghai Composite climbed 1.4%.
• China's central bank pumped a smaller-than-expected amount of cash at 170 billion yuan (about US$25 billion) into its banking system for medium-term lending. This move suggests policymakers are still watching and keeping a close eye on past measures taken to boost the economy. The lending facility rate stayed at 2.75%.

👄Some comments and chatter:

• “There is a tug of war between those who are feeling optimistic that the Fed will soon be ending the rate tightening program because of softness that we’re seeing in the economy ... with those who believe the Fed will be forced to raise rates longer because the economy is not in a sense, surrendering,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research.
• “The current season’s earnings profile is rather opaque. The banks last week did better than expected, but we have to see what the reporting season will be like from everyone else. But the S&P is expensive at current levels so you have to ask yourself if there is really much material upside from here,” said Peter Kinsella, head of FX strategy at Swiss asset manager UBP.

🛢Oil: On Monday, oil prices sank about 2% as investors weighed in on the Fed's potential interest rate hikes in May. With this, US crude dropped 2.1% to US$80.83, and Brent lost 1.8% to US$84.76 per barrel.

👛Bitcoin: At the time of writing, Bitcoin is down 2.73% at US$29,497.30.

💣Fighting at the Sudanese capital: Intense fighting between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army has been going on for more than three days. On Monday, the fighting came to the capital of Khartoum, where the RSF has been accused of trying to stage a coup. This day of fighting left at least 180 people dead across the country, with hospitals also being attacked by missiles.

👩‍⚖️Russian Putin critic jailed for 25 years: An opposition activist in Russia, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is a former journalist and politician who has been critical of Putin, the war in Ukraine and Russia’s crackdown on dissent. Now, he’s been arrested, tried and found guilty of treason and sentenced to 25 years in jail.

📺Indian lawmaker shot dead on live TV: Former Indian lawmaker Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf were arrested, accused of murder and assault. But, before going to trial, both were attacked and shot dead while under police escort headed to a medical checkup. The attack, carried out by three men posing as journalists, was caught on live TV.

📄The G7 weighs in on China, North Korea and Russia: On Monday, G7 members met in Japan. While there, Russia’s war in Ukraine dominated the discussion, and they talked about getting more support for Ukraine. But, the diplomats also discussed their stance on China’s tensions with Taiwan and North Korea’s recent long-range missile testing.

🍄IS truffle-picker attacks: The Islamic State group in Syria has a history of attacking truffle-pickers, with over 150 of them killed this year, because of how much money can be made from just a kilogram of the fungus – more than the average monthly salary. On Sunday, IS killed at least 26 truffle-pickers, and other civilians and pro-government fighters were also victims of the attacks.

🚤US$440 million worth of cocaine found floating near Italy: On Monday, Sicily’s police said that a giant haul of cocaine was seized floating off the eastern coast of the Italian island. There were nearly two tons (1,814 kilograms) of coke in total, worth about US$440 million.

🤑Sega is buying Angry Birds: Yesterday, we reported that Sega was looking to buy Angry Birds Finnish developer Rovio. Well, it looks like the deal is going through, with Sega dropping US$776 million to acquire the company. Sega is aiming to expand its business in the mobile gaming sphere.

💉mRNA melanoma vaccine shows promise in trials: Cancer vaccines are looking more achievable than ever with breakthroughs in mRNA vaccine technology. On Sunday, a study was released suggesting that special mRNA shots can help stop the reappearance of the skin cancer melanoma for those who’ve gone into remission. Progress is being made!

⚽Will the Glazers keep Man U?: Joel and Avram Glazer have owned football club Manchester United since 2005, although they haven’t been the most popular. Fans have been wanting the Glazer family to sell their shares and transfer ownership of the club, which was looking likely as of last year. But, recent reports are now saying they are planning to get outside funding to allow them to keep their stake in the club, with the hope of “doubling” its value in the next 10 years.

😲The sky is falling: At Hong Kong dim sum restaurant Tao Heung, diners had a close call when the false ceiling collapsed into the dining room around 9:10 a.m. Emergency responders headed to the restaurant in the New Territories after the ceiling fell, and no casualties were reported.

📱Fan saves the day: At this year’s Coachella, live performances are being livestreamed for people who couldn’t attend in person. One headliner many were looking forward to seeing is Frank Ocean, as this would be the singer’s first performance in about six years. But, news circulated on Twitter that his livestream would be canceled, although the reason why isn’t clear. But one fan, who goes by the IG handle @morgandoesn’tcare, saved the day by livestreaming the whole set on her page. She got about 34,000 new followers in the process. The internet quickly responded with posts and memes of thanks.

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Written and put together by Joey Fung, Vanessa Wolosz, Krystal Lai and Christine Dulion