LAST ORDERS: A sleepy look back Monday's news you might have missed

Good gravy, what a Monday that was – the Stockhead newsroom’s been busier than Santa’s elves this week, as the ASX is inundated with last-minute, pre-Christmas stock market shenanigans.

Maybe staying up to watch the World Cup final wasn’t such a hot idea after all.

Anyway – spilt milk and all that – because it’s the end of the day, which means that most of us now get to put our feet up, grab a cold, foamy beverage and relax…

To help you unwind and feel like today hasn’t been a barely controlled catastrophe, here’s a few quick shots of news, from the markets and elsewhere, that might have escaped your attention today.

FROM THE HEADLINES

“Let The People Decide”

It’s often been said that Democracy Dies in Gross, Musky Darkness, but the World’s Tetchtiest Billionaire has put it all on the line in his latest stab at what passes for democracy on his Twitter platform.

Musk, who has been running a series of polls on Twitter to decide what happens to the platform (because that’s clearly a very sensible way to run a multi-billion dollar investment that has major shareholders in your other companies absolutely bricking it), says he’ll step down if Twitter wants him to – and at the time of writing, it’s going to be a very close call.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

There is a completely made up by me rumour that anyone who votes for Musk to leave will be tracked down, ground up and burnt in Musk’s enviro-friendly bio-fuel rocket to colonise Mars at some point. I reached out to myself for confirmation of that, but hadn’t heard back by the time this went to print.

Meanwhile, another candidate has thrown his hat in the ring for the top job.

Perpetually-stoned rapper Snoop Dogg has asked his followers if he should be the one to take the reins, and once the bong smoke clears it looks like he might have a fairly solid argument in his favour.

Should I run Twitter ?

— Snoop Dogg (@SnoopDogg) December 19, 2022

It’s almost like we’re in the middle of some sort of Silly Season or something.

(For those of you playing along at home, it’s abundantly clear Musk has already decided to step down, so it’s highly likely that the poll is just for show or shits-n-giggles – the public pressure from KoGuan Leo on its own would have been enough to jolt Musk back to some semblance of reality, surely…).

Because it’s funny, that’s why…

Meanwhile, in sporting news, Argentinian goalie Emiliano Martinez has apparently “enraged” a few Qatari officials by making an obscene gesture with his Golden Glove trophy for best keeper at the World Cup.

Martinez, who starred for the South American side during the epic final match of the tournament, surprised quite a number of people after… well… here’s the photo:

asx news Neurotech NTI — “I thought you said it was a foot, mate…” Pic via Getty Images.

LAST ORDERS

First cab off the rank for today’s Last Orders is Neurotech International (ASX:NTI), which has released news of the first patient successfully treated under the new Phase II/III NTIASD2 clinical trial for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

“We are very pleased to have met this milestone so soon after receiving Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval. The level of interest in this important clinical trial, under the supervision of Principal Investigator Professor Michael Fahey, has been overwhelming,” Dr Thomas Duthy, Executive Director of Neurotech said.

“[The study] seeks to confirm the safety and efficacy of NTI164 in a larger patient population under a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial design; the results of which are expected to confirm our earlier clinical trial, where patients continue to show improvement in their severity of illness after 32 weeks of daily oral treatment with NTI164, with minimal side-effects.”

And there’s been a postcard from Africa, sent by Ookami (ASX:OOK) – first time the market’s heard from the company in nearly a month, and close to two months since trading in the company was suspended ahead of the announcement it was set to acquire First Lithium.

The news from OOK however, isn’t all that great – the company got geochemical laboratory assays of the samples collected from the follow-up reconnaissance field mapping and sampling program at the Messok East Co-Ni Project, and it’s a bit of a duster.

So, OOK is pulling out Messok to focus on its advanced Mali Lithium exploration, and of course the First Lithium acquisition that seems to be really dragging on a bit, with no indication of when Ookami’s going to be live and trading again.