Donald Trump will be sworn in for his second term as US president today. The inauguration ceremony, shortly before 5pm UK time, has been moved indoors at the US Capitol because of sub-zero temperatures in Washington DC. Trump is expected to sign as many as 200 executive orders on his first day in office, on issues including trade, energy and cryptocurrency. Three Israeli hostages released by Hamas as part of a ceasefire deal are said to be in a stable condition. Emily Damari, who also has British citizenship, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher were released in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners after the agreement came into effect yesterday. One in 10 Britons puts gravy on their fry-up. A probably unscientific survey by Best Western Hotels found that while ketchup remains the top condiment for the full English, followed by sweet chilli, horseradish and mayonnaise, 11% of people go for gravy, says the Daily Star. “The perverts.”

The modern-day pirates holding us all to ransom

You might think the Gaza ceasefire would herald a “period of calm” in the Middle East, says The Economist. Unfortunately one militant group – the Houthis in Yemen – are going from strength to strength. Part of Iran’s “axis of resistance”, these modern-day pirates are now earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year, “or even billions”, from holding Red Sea shipping to ransom. It’s a simple business model. They use cheap, Iranian-supplied missiles and drones to threaten vessels heading to or from the Suez Canal. This effectively gives shipowners a choice: they can either go the long way around Africa, adding extra time and fuel; or they can pay the Houthis for safe passage via their “helpful customer-relations email address”.

This shakedown is having a big impact on global trade. The volume of Red Sea cargo shipments has fallen an estimated 70% in a year, and the total bill for shipowners sending their vessels via the Cape of Good Hope is as much as $175bn. (The Chinese appear more willing to pay up – their share of Red Sea traffic is up by a quarter since October 2023.) The West seems powerless to stop this. Repeated American, allied and Israeli air and naval strikes against the militant group have had “only limited effect at vast expense”; a broader effort, led by Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2022, was an abject failure. Other militias around the world may now seek to imitate the Houthis’ success – by targeting air travel, say. It’s a stark illustration of what you get in “an anarchic world without rules or a policeman”.

There are some “uber-extravagant” inauguration packages at Washington DC hotels, says Anna Spiegel in Axios. The Watergate’s “Head of State” experience, which costs $73,500, includes helicopter transfers from New York, a chauffeur-driven armoured Maybach and a tour of the so-called Scandal Suite, site of the 1972 break-in that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation. At the Park Hyatt, the $100,000 “Presidential Package” includes personalised presidential robes, vintage champagne and a “boatload” of Petrossian caviar. The $350,000 deal at The Fairmont near Georgetown includes two butlers, a Saks 5th Avenue shopping spree worth $25,000, and “a special cocktail named after the guest for the weekend”.

Julia Donaldson has supplanted JK Rowling as the UK’s top-selling author, says The Bookseller. The Gruffalo writer has sold a total of 48.6 million books, compared to 48 million for Rowling. The Harry Potter author is still top dog when it comes to earnings, though: her UK sales are £390.5m, whereas Donaldson is on a measly £240m. The only other “author” to pass the £200m mark is Jamie Oliver.

China is subtly corrupting the West

To understand how China influences the West, says Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times, it’s worth looking at the pharmaceutical industry. For years, Big Pharma gave “inducements” to doctors – free hotel suites at conferences, and so on. These bungs came with no explicit strings, but they had a powerful effect: doctors began prescribing drugs made by these companies at higher rates. These physicians were often shocked when this was pointed out, insisting they were always acting in the interests of their patients. The US novelist Upton Sinclair put it best: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

The Chinese Communist Party has leveraged this psychological insight to “contaminate Western policy”. Not just the funds it has lavished on think tanks and university departments, but also key individuals. Henry Kissinger made millions after leaving office working with Chinese companies. David Cameron, who once boasted the UK’s economy was the “most open in the world to Chinese investment”, was later touted to lead a $1bn China investment fund. In his first term, Donald Trump admirably “took the scalpel” to this sort of corruption, kicking Huawei out of US infrastructure and initiating the US shutdown of TikTok. What’s happened since? TikTok has, according to peer-reviewed research, skewed its algorithm to favour Trump and inflame woke issues; and Jeffrey Yass, who owns 15% of the company, has become a major Trump donor. Now, the president declares himself “warm” towards the firm and may effectively reverse the recent ban. If we want an end to Beijing’s undue influence, we must recognise the corruption that so many of our leaders have failed to notice, “much to their financial benefit”.

A new poll about the hit BBC show The Traitors – in which secretly appointed “traitors” must eliminate “faithful” players without getting caught – has provided an interesting insight into British voters, says The i Paper. Of those who say they’d prefer to play the game as a “faithful”, which involves working together to root out traitors, some 39% are Labour supporters and only 25% Conservatives. Meanwhile Tories account for 36% of would-be traitors – who have to deceive and “murder” the faithfuls – with only 24% supporting Labour.

It’s a bridge in Dublin that has become an “impromptu shrine” to cherry tomatoes, says Shamim de Brún in The Irish Times. The bizarre craze took off after a TikToker stuck slices of the fruit to the icy walls of Binns Bridge during a recent cold snap. People then started leaving their own “offerings”, including whole tomatoes, ketchup packets and even framed images of AI-generated cherry tomatoes in tuxedos. It’s part art installation, part meme – and all very silly.