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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, May 13th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We are in the middle of a cryptocurrency meltdown. The Wall Street Journal reports that in the last six months, a trillion dollars worth of digital money has been wiped out. Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, plunged to its lowest point since 2020, but it's bounced back slightly as of this morning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, other currencies are still struggling, with some tokens that are intended to be among the most stable now worth pennies. The journal reports on how all of this volatility in the crypto market is testing its underlying promise, that it would be immune from the risks of the traditional banking system and the type of bank runs that happen in the non-digital world.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen addressed some of these concerns. We really need a regulatory framework to guard against the risks. And just this week, in the last couple of days, we've had a real-life demonstration of the risks, A stablecoin, so-called algorithmic stablecoin known as Terra, broke the book.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The currency that Yellen is referring to there, TerraUSD, is a type of stablecoin. Stablecoins are supposed to be exactly that, stable. They're typically pegged to some kind of stable asset like the U.S. dollar or gold. They're considered pillars of the digital financial system, a kind of reserve currency that crypto investors can rely on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Investors often buy them to then buy other cryptocurrencies. But the thing about Terra is it's algorithmic, not tied to assets like cash. And this week, it got rocked after the sister currency that it's linked to plummeted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As CNBC explains, the crypto market is also suffering from the same symptoms as the traditional markets. inflation, rising interest rates, and a general stock sell-off.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to the Pew Research Center 16 of Americans now own some form of cryptocurrency Most of those investors jumped into the crypto game during the pandemic
--:-- Shamita Basu: This year, Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the throne. She was crowned at 25 years old, and ever since then, she's had one mission, maintain the monarchy, make sure it survives no matter what.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But recent scandals within the family are testing that mission now more than ever. The Queen has always, throughout her whole reign, had to confront the thorny issue of the fact that the monarchy, the institution, is built on the shoulders of a very fallible human family, her family.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Tina Brown, who's out with a new book called The Palace Papers, Inside the House of Windsor, The Truth and the Turmoil. She's been covering the crown for decades and says that she spoke to over 100 sources inside and close to the royals for this book.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I spoke with her about how rocky things are for the royal family these days. For example, when the Commonwealth celebrates the Queen's Jubilee in June, Harry and Meghan will be there, but they won't be on the royal balcony.
--:-- Tina Brown: I think it's a pity, actually, because I kind of think that the Sussexes on that balcony would have been a great symbol of family unity. But of course, it would not be an accurate symbol of family unity because that feud, essentially, that was kicked off by so-called Mexit has not been healed.
--:-- Tina Brown: Then there's the queen's son, Andrew, who was recently stripped of his royal titles for his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. I think Andrew's a blind spot for the queen. I really do. I mean, she did what she had to do, but she took a long time to do it, essentially, with Andrew.
--:-- Tina Brown: And there's William and Kate, who recently got back from what was a disastrously received tour of the Caribbean Commonwealth nations. They were met with a lot of protests and calls for reparations for slavery. I mean, it was terrible optics, terrible for them.
--:-- Tina Brown: And I think that you could argue that they perhaps should have understood that ahead of time, but certainly they understand it now.
--:-- Tina Brown: Still, Brown says the monarchy has the support of the British people, and its future rests not on the men in the line of succession but on the women they've chosen to marry - Camilla, Kate, and Meghan.
--:-- Tina Brown: Well, clearly these women are the real driving force behind the modern monarchy. If you want to hear my full conversation with Tina Brown about where the crown goes from here, check out the next episode of In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find it in the News app over the weekend or by searching for Apple News In Conversation in the podcast app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Our team recently came across a story that really made us stop and rethink the popularity of true crime shows right now. This story talks about a new Hulu miniseries, which is out this week, called Candy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Maybe you've heard the trailer. Something terrible has happened. It's Betty. She's dead.
--:-- Shamita Basu: BuzzFeed senior culture reporter Stephanie McNeil heard it too. The marketing has been extensive. It is all over my Twitter feed. I was watching Bravo last night and I saw like four or five commercials for the show. And that has really struck me as well.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And just being like, wow, even if I wanted to avoid the show, I couldn't. She started thinking about the real people, real lives that the show is based on. Especially with the internet and with true crime podcasting and all of this consumption of true crime media, you can really get to the point where, you know, the victims really are lost in the whole thing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And we forget that there's real people at the center of this. So she decided to get their perspective. The show tells the story of Candy Montgomery, who's accused of killing Betty Gore in Texas. Both mothers, friends really, whose kids played together.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The killing shocked their small town. McNeil recently tracked down Gore's family. They were confused and upset that a painful time 40 years ago is now back in the spotlight. They didn't know about this show before they started seeing ads for it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And now as they're just trying to navigate their daily life, you know, watch Hulu, relax at the end of a long day. Now their family trauma is front and center in all this media they're consuming. And that is really hard.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I can understand how that would be really hard. McNeil says doing the story has her thinking twice about true crime as entertainment. I think we do need to examine the way that we can make sure that we're not re-traumatizing the victims of these crimes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She says the Hulu show seems to take Candy's side over Betty's, who was killed. She says as a viewer, it's important to consider Betty's perspective, since she never lived to tell her side of the story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you've ever tried to grow anything green on this planet, you'll appreciate this story from Wired about growing plants in moon soil.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Astronauts who walked on the moon in the 60s and the 70s had to gather all kinds of material for later testing, including scoops of lunar soil. And the thing about this soil is it's kind of sandy. It's dry. It's full of minerals and ions that plants here on Earth haven't seen before.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it's got no organic compounds in it because no plants have ever grown on the moon. So last year, one researcher convinced NASA to let her team run experiments with some of this harsh lunar soil to see if they could get something to grow in it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They had to add nutrients and water, of course. Then they set them under some growth lamps to see what could happen. And it was successful. Little vegetable plants popped up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, not all of them looked great, but the researchers say it's a really promising start. The goal of these kinds of studies is to figure out if we can someday create greenhouses on the moon or even on a spaceship to grow food for astronauts during longer missions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One last thing before you go, for all the moon enthusiasts out there, there will be a total lunar eclipse late Sunday into Monday. That's when the Earth falls in line between the sun and the moon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It is safe to look at and it will be red. You can find an article explaining that and all of the stories that we talked about today in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
