WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Meta ends fact checking, flu cases spike, and the banana mystery baffling Nottingham

 
today's international story

Meta to end fact checking on Facebook and Instagram

What happened
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said yesterday that it was ending its long-standing fact-checking programme in an attempt to "dramatically reduce the amount of censorship" on its platforms.

Who said what
"It's time to get back to our roots around free expression," Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, said in a video announcing the changes. Zuckerberg conceded there would be more "bad stuff" on the platforms because of the change, but that it would also "reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down".

Nina Jankowicz, a former US government official tasked with fighting disinformation, described the decision as "a full bending of the knee to (Donald) Trump". Ever since Trump's election victory in November, "few big companies have worked as overtly to curry favour with the president-elect", said The New York Times.

This is "an extinction-level event for truth on social media" that has "set the stage for a fact-free four years online", said Chris Stokel-Walker in The Guardian. "Good riddance to fact checkers", countered Andrew Orlowski in The Daily Telegraph. The "misinformation 'crisis' only arose because the wrong (conservative) people were having the wrong (conservative) thoughts".

What next?
Meta has said it will exchange fact checkers for a community notes system similar to the one on X. But content about suicide, self-injury and eating disorders will still be considered "high-severity violations", and it "will continue to use our automated systems to scan for that high-severity content".

 
 
today's royals story

Andrew accused of using 'fake name on company files'

What happened
The Duke of York has been reported to the police by anti-monarchist group Republic for allegedly using the false name of "Andrew Inverness" on company accounts.

Prince Andrew is accused of filing documents with Companies House using that name on accounts for the now defunct company Naples Gold Ltd, which stopped trading in 2021.

Who said what
The King's brother "has used the pseudonym Andrew Inverness for four companies registered at Companies House", said The Daily Mail. The name "is thought to have derived from one of his less well-known titles, the Earl of Inverness, which was given to him by Elizabeth II in 1986".

What next?
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it had received a report that "will now be assessed to determine whether any further action is required". But "there is no investigation at this early stage", said a Met spokesperson.

 
 
Today's health story

Several NHS trusts declare critical incidents

What happened
Multiple hospitals have declared critical incidents due to exceptionally high demand following a spike in respiratory illnesses. The number of people hospitalised in England with flu quadrupled last month, according to NHS data, in a particularly virulent season.

Who said what
"We are working with partner organisations to ensure those that are medically fit can leave hospital safely and at the earliest opportunity," said the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, where patients are reportedly waiting up to 50 hours in A&E.

But the demands being placed on the NHS are "showing no signs of letting up", said NHS National Medical Director Stephen Powis. Hospitals are also under "continual pressure from Covid, RSV and norovirus cases", he told The Independent, in what is a "quad-demic".

What next?
Several other NHS trusts have urged people to stay away from A&E departments except in life-threatening cases. Powis warned that the low temperatures this week could prove dangerous for vulnerable people, especially the elderly.

 
 

It's not all bad

Chicago has transitioned all 411 of its city-owned buildings to renewable energy or offsets, thanks in part to electricity supplied by the 593-megawatt Double Black Diamond solar farm. The shift cuts carbon emissions by 290,000 metric tons – equivalent to removing 62,000 cars from roads. Although 30% of emissions are offset through financing, officials say this allows time to explore sustainable solutions like rooftop solar. Chicago aims to have full citywide renewable power by 2035.

 
 
under the radar

How US veterans are locating Vietnam's mass graves

Decades after the Vietnam War, US soldiers are returning to the country, but on a very different mission – to help their former adversaries find the burial sites of their missing comrades.

Where veterans from the US and Vietnam once "exchanged gunfire", now they "exchange handshakes and smiles", said Al Jazeera, but time is running out for more discoveries.

Since 2022, teams of US and Vietnamese veterans have located the remains of about 600 people across eight mass graves, but they have also begun to face difficulties. US veterans involved in the search have returned to Vietnam, but they "ran into the stumbling block that is the human memory", added Al Jazeera, because "half a century is plenty of time for memories to fade".

So time is "running out" as the number of living Vietnam War veterans "dwindles", said news website Firstpost. There's an "upper limit", said Bob March, a 77-year-old US veteran, and in 10 years time it's "going to be very difficult to find many Vietnam veterans". The teams in the US and Vietnam are asking for more help from their respective governments.

Meanwhile, the work continues. When Bob Connor, who helped pioneer the search for mass graves of North Vietnamese soldiers, saw "the red, tearful eyes" of a woman who was reunited with her loved one after 49 years, he "knew his work was not finished", said the United States Institute of Peace.

 
 
on this day

8 January 2016

The drug lord Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo, was recaptured six months after his escape from a Mexican prison. He was extradited to the US and later sentenced to life in prison. Four of his sons, known collectively as Los Chapitos, took over the cartel. Two have been captured and are negotiating a plea deal with the US.

 
 
Today's newspapers

Patients are facing "two day waits in A&E" due to a "flu crisis", says The Times. According to The Guardian hospitals in Birmingham, Cornwall, Hampshire, Liverpool, Northamptonshire and Plymouth have declared critical incidents. Over 1,200 acres have been burned in Los Angeles as "life-threatening winds forced 30,000 residents of the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood to evacuate", The Independent says. Meanwhile, the Daily Star leads on "how to survive a yeti attack". The key, the paper says, is to "run away very, very fast."

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Going bananas over puzzle

Nottingham residents have been left baffled by mysterious plates of bananas appearing on a street corner every month. For more than a year 10 to 15 bananas, often drizzled with "what seems to be honey", according to one local resident, have been left out, but no one knows by whom or why. One theory is that the bananas – which are whole but peeled – are being left as a religious offering, with bananas offered to deities in Hinduism. Others think they could be being left out to feed local wildlife. "We've all been discussing it in our WhatsApp group," said one resident. "We're completely puzzled."

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Harriet Marsden, Ross Couzens, Sorcha Bradley and Chas Newkey-Burden, with illustrations by Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg / Getty Images; Max Mumby / Indigo / Getty Images; Annabel Lee-Ellis / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.