The crisis of ‘presidential harassment’

Two days after calling for bipartisanship in his State of the Union address, Donald Trump returned to Twitter to cry foul about Democrats in Congress. The House ways and means committee announced it was preparing to investigate Trump’s tax returns, a move Trump decried as “presidential harassment”. “You laugh but it’s true, folks,” Trevor Noah said on the Daily Show. “Presidential harassment is a serious crisis that affects one out of every 320 million people in this country.”

But credit where credit is due: “One thing that makes Trump so successful is that he knows how to make himself seem like the victim when other people are just doing their jobs.” If the press reports on him, it’s “fake news”. If Congress investigates conflicts of interest, it’s “presidential harassment”.

“I bet if the cops were chasing Trump he’s the kinda guy who would try to call 911 on them,” Noah said.

But of all the swirling scandals, Trump seems to be the most worried about his tax returns — an anxiety reflected in recent comments by billionaires, whose staggering wealth elicits increasingly less sympathy from the American public. Though pundits have classified plans to tax the super-rich — those earning over $10m a year — as fringe socialist ideas, Noah cited a Politico poll from MSNBC in which 76 per cent of Americans supported it.

BBC fights to retain Attenborough

The BBC has commissioned three major series on the natural world, as it fights to stop staff who make its popular natural history shows — including David Attenborough — being poached by deep-pocketed rival Netflix. Perfect Planet, Frozen Planet II and Planet Earth III will be shown on the BBC over the coming years, building on the success of 2017’s enormously popular Blue Planet II, which helped push the issue of plastic recycling to the top of the political agenda.

The announcement comes after senior staff left the BBC’s Natural History Unit, lured to the commercial sector by the prospect of working for rapidly-growing streaming services, which can offer bigger budgets. Attenborough, who is synonymous with the BBC’s natural history output, has already agreed to provide the voiceover for a forthcoming Netflix series named Our Planet, which is due to be released in April and has involved 600 crew members filming for four years around the world. Despite its name, the programme is not part of the official BBC Planet series and the similarity is thought to have angered the corporation’s bosses.

In an interview with the Financial Times published recently, Attenborough said he would still work with the BBC but was enthused by Netflix’s global reach, with its programmes made available around the world at the same time.

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s exquisite exhibits

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first museum to carry the name outside France, has announced that it will display works by the Dutch masters Rembrandt and Vermeer this month. Works by the two artists are part of the gallery’s first exhibition of 2019 — Rembrandt, Vermeer and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the Leiden collection and the Musée du Louvre. The exhibition in the United Arab Emirates capital is dedicated to the renowned Fijnschilders (fine painters) of the Netherlands.

“Rembrandt is a master of the Golden Age,” said the museum’s head, Manuel Rabate. “He’s a universal genius, he’s connected to the world.”

The exhibition’s 95 works include Vermeer’s Young Woman Seated at a Virginal and Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Man. Study of the Head and Clasped Hands of a Young Man as Christ in Prayer by Rembrandt will also feature, and has been acquired by the museum for its permanent collection.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi was opened in November 2017 — nearly five years behind schedule — by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

Marketed as a “universal museum” celebrating cultural exchange and tolerance, the Louvre Abu Dhabi has reportedly cost the UAE about $1bn, including about $500m to use the Louvre brand. Officials have not confirmed the price tag.