WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Grooming gangs audit, Gaza hostage deal, and why fatbergs make great perfume

 
today's politics story

Cooper announces 'national audit' of grooming gangs

What happened
Yvette Cooper has announced a "rapid national audit" of grooming gangs across the country amid growing pressure from MPs for a new inquiry.

Who said what
The "no holds barred" review, which will take three months, will "look at the cultural and societal drivers for this type of offending", according to the home secretary.

Cooper also pledged to hold five new local inquiries, including one in Oldham, that will be backed by £5 million of funding from central government.

The plans follow "renewed calls" from the Conservatives, Reform and Elon Musk for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs, said the BBC. The announcement amounts to Labour "bowing to pressure", said The Independent. The "partial climb down" came after three Labour MPs from the North West and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham "broke ranks to demand a rethink".

Cooper announced her plan just a day after Maggie Oliver, a former-detective who resigned from Manchester Police in 2012 over failures on grooming gangs, had put the home secretary "on notice" about possible legal action if she did not support "my request for urgent, tangible and transparent action to combat the epidemic of abuse of children".

What next?
The national three-month audit, to be led by cross-bench peer Louise Casey, will examine "cultural and societal drivers" of child sexual exploitation. Defending the strategy of a national audit in conjunction with local investigations, Cooper said "effective local inquiries" would be able to deliver more answers and change than a "lengthy nationwide inquiry".

 
 
today's international story

Gaza hostage deal now locked in, says Israel

What happened
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a "deal for the release of the hostages" had been finalised in Doha.

Who said what
Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli security cabinet to meet later today, a day after originally intended. The government "will then convene to approve the deal", added the prime minister's office.

Israel had accused Hamas of reneging on key parts of the agreement yesterday to try and secure last-minute concessions. Hamas denied the allegation and no evidence was presented to support it.

Simultaneously, Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had threatened to resign from government if the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal was signed, but opposition MPs have pledged to support Netanyahu's push if more hard-line allies leave his coalition.

What next?
It was not immediately clear whether the full cabinet would meet on Friday or Saturday, but Netanyahu's announcement "suggests that a ceasefire could still come into effect by this weekend", said The New York Times.

 
 
Today's archaeology story

Women held the power in Celtic Britain, study suggests

What happened
A "ground-breaking" new study suggests that land was passed through the female line in Iron Age Britain – a sign women may have held far more power within ancient societies in the British Isles than originally thought.

Who said what
New evidence from an analysis of ancient Celtic DNA suggests that land was often inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wives' communities. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin retrieved "more than 50 ancient genomes" from skeletons discovered in Iron Age burial grounds in Dorset, said The Times.

What next?
The discovery is the "first time" a matrilocality – where men move to join their wives' families – has been documented in Europe. But the findings "complement existing archaeological evidence" that also suggests that female Iron Age leaders – such as Iceni Queen Boudica – were not "as much of an outlier as might have been assumed".

 
 

It's not all bad

The UK government has launched a "soft power council" to boost Britain's global influence and economy. Chaired by Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the council includes cultural, sports and geopolitical leaders like General Sir Nick Carter and Dame Katherine Grainger. The group aims to leverage music, sport and the royal family's international reach to enhance the UK's reputation, build alliances and attract investment, showcasing British culture as a key global asset.

 
 
under the radar

The sweet smell of excess: how fatbergs make perfume

Have you ever walked past a sewage plant and thought the stench hanging in the air would be just perfect to spray over yourself before a big night out?

Well you might actually be doing something like that soon because the stinking fatbergs that lurk in our sewers can now be transformed into "beautiful perfumes", according to the Daily Mail.

Fatbergs are "some of the foulest-smelling things imaginable": huge "blobs" of "toilet waste" such as wet wipes, used condoms and sanitary products "all held together by a congealed mass of fat and grease" from cooking oils that people pour down the sink. The biggest fatbergs can grow to be several tonnes in weight, blocking the sewerage system and causing backed-up drains and flooding.

But now scientists have found a way to turn these revoltingly ugly ducklings into fresh-smelling swans. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh are transforming the "nightmares from the sewers" into a "fragrant oil" with the "scent of pine needles", said the Mail.

The fatbergs are sent to the research team by a company that "specialises in fishing them out of sewers", said the BBC. They arrive at the lab in a tube and are sterilised in a steamer. Then specially modified bacteria are added and each fatberg "gradually disappears as the bacteria eat it", producing a "pine-like smell" that can be used as an ingredient in perfumes. "It's a crazy idea, but it works," lead researcher Professor Stephen Wallace told the broadcaster.

 
 
on this day

17 January 1998

News of President Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky broke on the Drudge Report website. Clinton denied having sexual relations with the 22-year-old, which led to his impeachment – and exacerbated widespread scrutiny of Lewinsky. In Clinton's memoir "Citizen", published last year, he admitted that he had never directly apologised to her.

 
 
Today's newspapers

The government is facing fury over its "toothless" grooming probes, says the Daily Mail, after the Home Office announced "five local reviews" into grooming gangs, rather than a national inquiry. The i Paper runs with a warning from military figures that the UK's army is "now 'too small' to play a major peacekeeping role in Ukraine". The Times says that first-time home buyers "will find it easier to get on the housing ladder", as financial regulators consider "looser loan rules", as part of a "reform of the mortgage market".

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

AI podcast hosts told to mind manners

Google's NotebookLM has been impressing users by turning their input into podcasts, but its AI hosts have needed a little attitude adjustment. The platform's new "interactive mode" let users "call in" with questions, only to be met with "snippy" replies from the AI such as "I was getting to that" or "as I was about to say," said TechCrunch. But after undergoing some "friendliness tuning", the AI hosts are reportedly now more civil. "File this under 'jobs I never thought I'd have'," the company joked on X.

 
 

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

Image credits, from top: Nigel Roddis / Getty Images; Amir Levy / Getty Images; Microgen Images / Science Photo Library / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images.