SINGAPORE: Mr Phua Yong Teck, 55, was working on Pulau Tekong when he collapsed due to a cardiac arrest on Jan 6 this year.
Fortunately, the contractor was brought to the Rocky Hill Medical Centre where emergency resuscitation on him while 1 Medical Squadron transported him to Singapore General Hospital.
Mr Phua survived, although his first week in the Intensive Care Unit was “touch and go”, said Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen in a Facebook post on Monday (Feb 27) highlighting the efforts of the medical team at Pulau Tekong.
Doctors had told Mr Phua that he was fortunate to have received prompt medical attention from the SAF medical teams when he suffered from the cardiac arrest, Dr Ng said in his post.
“Mrs Phua and their son, Jordan Phua, said that the first four days when Mr Phua was in ICU was torturous for them, as doctors were afraid that Mr Phua may never fully recover and may risk brain damage. Fortunately, Mr Phua pulled through and is on the way to full recovery.”
Mr Phua, seen at home with his wife and son Jordan. (Photo: Ng Eng Hen/Facebook)
Dr Ng added that Mr Phua is recuperating well at home and “thankful for the medical teams’ prompt action”.
The Defence Minister also gave a behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the medical team at Pulau Tekong – they undergo training and regular practice sessions with a simulated casualty, which enables the medics and medical officers to respond quickly when a real incident occurs, Dr Ng said.
The medical team on Pulau Tekong undergo training and regular practice drill sessions with a simulated casualty. (Photo: Ng Eng Hen/Facebook)
As the president of the world’s most-populous nation, Xi Jinping has never taken the issue of poverty lightly.
In his four years leading China, Xi, 63, has visited more than 30 impoverished villages and townships, sharing his experience in poverty-eradication work and putting himself on the front lines of the war on poverty.
Looking back, it is clear that Xi’s deep understanding of, and focus on, the poor has evolved throughout his political career, as he rose from the role of a young worker in a remote village in the northwestern province of Shaanxi to China’s top job.
He has often spoken of his experience of living in poverty, and shared his ideas and insights about how to deal with it. He has said relocation is an important approach to fighting poverty, for example, and has highlighted the role of ecological compensation – the use of market-based methods to protect the environment – which also can boost local incomes.
Last month, during an inspection tour in Hebei province, the president said fighting poverty was the fundamental task in building a moderately prosperous society.
China has set 2020 as the target year to reach that goal, with a key goal of eradicating poverty. As Xi has said, “No one should be left behind on the road to a moderately prosperous society.”
Xi’s first experience with poverty came in Liangjiahe village in Yan’an, Shaanxi, nearly 50 years ago. He was not even 16 when he was sent to Liangjiahe in early 1969, as a result of Chairman Mao Zedong’s campaign for urban youth to experience rural labour.
1989: Xi Jinping, then-secretary of the CPC Ningde Prefectural Committee of Fujian province, leads more than 1,000 party cadres to help clear a local canal. Photo: Reuters
“Experiencing such an abrupt change from Beijing to a place so destitute, I was deeply affected,” Xi said, recalling the whole village turning dark at night because the only light available was provided by a few old kerosene lamps.
In less than three years in Liangjiahe village in Shaanxi province, Xi had become a proficient rural laborer.
“I found myself easily travelling several kilometers of mountain road while carrying a shoulder pole weighing more than 50 kilograms,” he said.
However, after a day of hard work, he had barely earned enough to buy a pack of the cheapest cigarettes.
A year’s harvest could only sustain farmers for a couple of months, and they often found themselves running out of food as early as April or May. As a result, Xi and his contemporaries sent to work in the countryside were almost reduced to begging.
From 1988 to 1990, Xi worked as chief the Communist Party of China in Ningde prefecture – one of 18 contiguous poverty-stricken areas at the time – in Fujian province in the southeast.
“During nearly two years in Ningde, I went to almost all the townships, including three of the four that had no access via paved roads,” Xi said.
He recalled his visit to nearby Xiadang township vividly: “The township CPC committee room was built on a renovated cow enclosure, and a big crowd of us had to hold our meetings on a bridge.
“The poor access meant few higher-level officials went to Xiadang. I was the first prefectural CPC committee secretary who had ever been there,” Xi said.
In 1997, Xi, then-deputy secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, visited Xihaigu, a region in the south of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, an area known for its harsh environment.
Declared “uninhabitable” for humans by visiting UN experts, Xihaigu had been left out of China’s headlong rush to riches through economic reform.
“The families I visited did not have enough to eat, and the drinking water – salty to the taste – was brought from afar,” Xi said. The villagers did not even have the luxury of showering.
“It was my first visit to Xihaigu, and the sight of people’s lives there shocked me,” Xi said. “I was stunned that there was still a place with such poor and difficult conditions after so many years of reform and opening-up.”
Leading by example
Xi’s experience of poverty encouraged him to eradicate it for good.
In Liangjiahe village, where Xi worked for seven years from 1969, he was inspired by the success of Dazhai, a model village in neighbouring Shanxi province, where the villagers harvested grain to ensure they had enough to eat. Xi and his fellow villagers dreamed of “having corn flour for meals” for the whole year.
“I had just turned 20 at that time, and I was mainly thinking about ways to allow everyone to harvest a little more grain and have a little pocket money,” Xi said.
He led the villagers in digging wells, building terraces and sediment-storage dams, and setting up the province’s first methane-generating pit.
He also invited the village’s three blacksmiths, who had been working elsewhere, to return and set up an iron cooperative: “Forging iron generated income. Only by making money could we get things done,” he said.
Of the about 30,000 young people sent to the Yan’an region from Beijing, Xi was the first to work as a Party branch secretary at the time, for which achievement he was awarded a three-wheeled motorcycle by the Beijing municipal government.
“The motorcycle was useless in the village. It was even impossible to ride it into the village. Better to exchange it for something practical,” Xi recalled.
He went to the Yan’an agricultural bureau and exchanged the motorbike for a two-wheeled tractor, a flour mill, a grain thrower, a rice mill and a submersible pump for the villagers.
Rural reform
Reform took root early in Xi’s thinking about governance.
From 1982 to 1985, he served first as deputy secretary and then secretary of the CPC Zhengding county committee in Hebei. “The household contract responsibility system had not been put into place when I arrived,” he said.
At the core of China’s last round of rural reform, the household responsibility system meant farmers could be allocated land by contract, and they were allowed to sell surplus produce to the market or retain it for their own use.
In 1983, the secretary of the Lishuangdian commune proposed piloting the system on a piece of land under his jurisdiction.
“Both I and another deputy secretary of the county committee supported him. A year later, his commune reaped a good harvest compared with the ordinary output elsewhere,” Xi said. “Suddenly all the people in the county said this seemed to be a viable way, and the system was finally implemented widely.
“At that time, Zhengding was a purely agricultural county. I proposed pursuing diversified economic development and a ‘semi-suburban’ economic model because the county is close to Shijiazhuang,” Xi said. “The county (government) set up an office for diversified economy, and I was concurrently the CPC county committee’s deputy secretary and the office’s director.
“The five communes south of the Hutuo River had done a good job. Many people went to work in Shijiazhuang by bike in the morning,” Xi said. “In the Shijiazhuang markets, the vegetables were produced in Zhengding, the people selling brooms and simple furniture were from Zhengding, and the guardians of the boiler rooms and the gates were also from Zhengding.”
When he worked in Fujian, Xi often visited families that had lived in thatched sheds and small wooden boats for generations, and would ponder how to lift them out of poverty.
“Most of the fishing boats were in a dreadful state, without electricity or running water. The boats were low, gloomy and damp. Fishermen who did not have boats just made shacks – they were hot in summer, cold in winter and it was hard to shelter from the wind and rain,” Xi said.
After conducting research, he submitted a report to the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee that proposed resettling people living in thatched sheds and small boats.
“Communist Party members must have no peace of mind, day and night, seeing people living in such poor conditions,” he said in 1998, when presiding over a meeting to address the problem.
Thanks to Xi’s proposal, several million people bid farewell to their unstable lives in just a few years.
The CPC attached great importance to coordinated development between the advanced and underdeveloped regions. Fujian, for instance, was tasked with assisting the development of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.
As deputy secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, Xi was in charge of the assistance programme.
“We are a socialist country. Having taken the first steps to prosper, the coastal regions in the east should not leave other areas alone. We need to achieve common prosperity,” he said.
Within the framework of counterpart assistance, wells were dug and cellars built to store water for drinking and irrigation in Ningxia.
Xi encouraged researchers in Fujian and Ningxia to develop technology to improve potato yields. Residents of Xiji, a county in the south of the region, saw their incomes rise after they planted potatoes and sold them to businesses in Fujian.
The Fujian government also supported Ningxia in relocating people from impoverished areas. As a pilot project, several thousand families moved from Xihaigu to a better area near the regional capital, Yinchuan.
“The measures proved effective and we created a sustainable path,” Xi said.
Targeted efforts
Whatever Xi’s position, he has always valued precision in poverty alleviation.
“You should not bomb fleas with grenades,” he said, stressing that money should be spent in the right places.
In late 2013, he visited a remote village in central Hunan province, where the young and robust had left to work in cities, and only seniors, children and women remained.
“I wondered how they could possibly pursue any major projects. So, I said we might as well get you some ‘legs’ – several black pigs, cattle and goats for every household. The senior villagers were very pleased, saying it was exactly what they wanted,” Xi said.
Back when Xi served as deputy Party chief and governor of Fujian, he proposed “making real efforts to help the really poor”.
Since he became the CPC leader in 2012, he has insisted on seeing “real poverty” every time he visits an impoverished region, such as Fuping county in Hebei, Huayuan county in Hunan province, and the Dongxiang autonomous county in Gansu province.
“In some localities, people have the misconception that poverty relief goes hand in hand with industrial projects. (But) in the deep mountains and forests, where there are no professionals or market and costs are high, it isn’t easy to develop industrial projects,” Xi said.
Poverty relief is all about solving real problems, according to Xi, who has stressed the importance of education and guaranteeing basic public facilities, such as roads, water and power.
He has also suggested teaching those in poverty “how to fish”, in accordance with their actual conditions and capabilities.
“The elderly can raise chickens, ducks and sheep. Give them some fine breeds, teach them about proper feeding and offer some financial support. It’s important to help young people to find jobs. (We]) train them, and instruct them to find employment outside their homes,” Xi said.
He has also warned against aiming too high, saying tasks should be accomplished one by one.
Xi has led calls to save children from poverty, particularly by granting them access to education.
“In poor regions, improving education should be a priority. Children should be given a fair chance at the starting point of their lives. Give them opportunities to become educated, to go to college. Then in eight to 10 years, they will have the means to become well-off, or at least to feed themselves,” Xi said.
Financial supportHe has demanded more financial support be given to education programs in remote and rural areas, and that the development of compulsory education receives due attention.
Teachers could be rotated among poor mountainous areas, Xi said, suggesting offering them better pay and greater opportunities for promotion. He believes that to lift people out of poverty it is crucial to instill the aspiration to improve their own lives.
From 1988 to 1990, Xi was secretary of the CPC Ningde prefectural committee in Fujian.
“I saw Ningde as a weak bird that needed to make an early start, work with perseverance and not feel ashamed of lagging behind. Work incessantly and it will eventually take on a new look,” Xi said.
Some of Xi’s speeches in Ningde were later compiled into a book, Out of Poverty, which he said could serve as a guideline.
“A lack of morale will get people in poverty nowhere,” he said.
“In the fight against poverty, no corruption, fraudulence or blind pursuit of political achievements can be allowed,” Xi said, adding that secretaries of CPC county committees or county magistrates should work at the frontlines and make concrete efforts.
Only with a down-to-earth style and concrete efforts can cadres fulfil the promise to eliminate poverty that has been made to the people and to history, according to Xi.
He has stressed that the task of poverty relief – which tops the Party and the country’s work agenda – must be assigned to the most capable cadres. Secretaries of CPC county committees and county magistrates can only be transferred to other positions once they have proved themselves through relief work.
He has also highlighted the importance of inspection and supervision in poverty relief, stressing that the effects of poverty-elimination work in one place should be evaluated by officials from other areas to ensure impartiality, and the result of the assessment should be an important yardstick for cadre promotion.
ST04122008-140796/Mugilan Rajasegeran/ MYB cover shoot for story on depression and the economic downturn. Photo of model, dressed as a stressed-out banker, looking at a computer or some finance sheets depicting the economic decline.
Faking an ailment to skip a day of work may sound common to many of us, but two men in Japan recently resorted to extreme measures to avoid going to work.
Asahi News reported that a 54-year-old man showed up at a police station in Nagoya last Wednesday (Feb 22) saying that he had been stabbed from behind by a stranger at the train station.
With a 2.5cm-long wound on his hip, the man was taken to hospital while the police closed down part of the train station to investigate the case.
As he waited to receive medical treatment, the man admitted to the police that he had inflicted the wound on himself using a knife he had found near the ticket station.
“If I got hurt I thought I would not have to go to work,” the man said. He added that he was under severe stress at his workplace.
After his confession, he was arrested for interfering with police duties, RT reported.
In the same week, another man in Fukuoka used a similar excuse to not show up at the baked goods company where he worked.
According to Rocket News, the 26-year-old man said he was stabbed in his right elbow when he resisted a person’s attempt to steal his backpack.
However, the police were quick to see through his lies and found a knife in the young man’s possession. He was subsequently arrested for filing a false police report.
The men’s drastic actions may point to the trend of employees being overwhelmed by long hours of overtime work.
Japan’s work culture has come under the spotlight in recent years as employees die from cardiovascular illness or kill themselves because of overwork or work-related mental stress.
This phenomenon, dubbed Karoshi (death by overwork), is likely the result of article 36 of the country’s labour code which leaves “overtime pay and limits to the discretion of employers,” Reuters reported.
To tackle this issue, the Japanese government is proposing changes to its labour laws by limiting overtime work to an average of 60 hours a month.
It also launched an initiative last week called ‘Premium Friday‘ where companies encourage staff to leave their workplaces at 3pm on the last Friday of the month.
The Bali Police have beefed up security ahead of the visit of King Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia to Bali next month.
The police will implement extra security precautions for the king’s entourage, which reportedly comprise 1,500 people, including 10 ministers and 25 princes.
“We will implement maximum security measures. This will be a VVIP security operation that will be jointly conducted with the military,” said Bali Police spokesperson Adj. Sr. Comr. Hengky Widjaja.
“We don’t want to take any risks. We will secure all hotels where they will stay and routes and tourist sites the king may visit,” Hengky said.
The governor said it was not yet known where exactly King Salman would stay. “He only wants to take a rest in Bali,” Pastika said.
Pastika said the food provided for him would be halal. “They have a special team for preparing the food. They have their own procedure for food security,” he said.
King Salman is scheduled to arrive in Bali on March 4 and will leave on March 9. The Ngurah Rai International Airport will close flights to and from Bali for at least 45 minutes to prepare for the landing of King Salman’s plane on the island.
Before going to Bali, King Salman will enjoy a state visit to Indonesia from March 1 to March 4, during which time he will meet President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, West Java. King Salman is also expected to visit the House of Representatives and Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta.
Three people were fighting for their lives on Sunday after being rescued from a fatal blaze at a karaoke bar under renovation in eastern China.
Ten people were killed and ten others injured on Saturday after a fire broke out at a high-rise housing a KTV bar, hotel, offices and apartments in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province.
Three victims remain in critical condition, the city authorities said on Sunday, adding that investigations showed the fire started at the KTV bar when construction workers cut through “decoration materials”.
Police have detained 24 people in connection with the accident, including decorators and karaoke bar employees.
A subcontractor responsible for the renovation and eight shareholders in the KTV business are still at large, according to the authorities.
Flames swept through an area of about 1,500 square meters inside the 24-story building in the city’s Honggutan new district. The KTV bar takes up the first two floors.
Three victims died at the hospital, while firefighters recovered seven bodies from the debris of the blaze. Among the dead were three hotel guests and seven construction workers.
Luo Shiyao, who was working on the second floor of the KTV bar at the time of the fire, told China News Agency: “All of a sudden, I found smoke was coming from the first floor. It was choking. I heard someone shouting ‘fire’.”
He said he managed to run out into the street with five colleagues, while two others jumped from a second-floor window. “They were injured in the fall and had to be sent to the hospital. Their faces were black with smoke,” Luo said.
Ni Kangtai, a guest in the hotel from Wuhan, Hubei province, was asleep on the 21st floor when he was woken up by the smoke.
“I realised I was in danger when I opened the door. I went back into my room and filled the gap between the door and its frame with wet towels and waited to be rescued,” he told the news agency.
The city authorities said 20 fire trucks and more than 160 firefighters were sent to put out the fire, while more than 260 people had to be evacuated.
On Saturday afternoon, officials in Nanchang called for citywide checks to identify and solve potential safety hazards.
Guns N’ Roses concertgoers have flooded the Facebook page of LAMC Productions with complaints after the rock band’s sell- out concert last Saturday at Changi Exhibition Centre.
According to concert promoter LAMC, the event is one of the biggest rock shows held in Singapore, with close to 50,000 tickets sold.
But music fans have taken to its Facebook account to slam it for its poor organisation of the event. The main grouse appears to be about a cashless payment system for buying food and drinks at the event.
Audience members said they had bought credits in advance, which were stored in an RFID tag, but could not use them as the food and drinks ran out.
LAMC has apologised in a Facebook post and promised to refund unspent credits. “LAMC would like to add that we are apologetic to attendees who were unable to spend their full RFID credits,” it wrote. “Our wish is for our audience to be fulfilled; we therefore pledge to refund the unspent RFID credits. We are working hard with our teams to formulate a refund process.”
But the complaints continued to come.
A Facebook user known as Tim Weiss wrote in a comment that was liked more than 100 times: “Your organisation of this show was an absolute disgrace. It was completely amateur and was a complete disappointment to thousands of people, many of whom travelled from abroad. I will never attend another event promoted by LAMC. Absolutely horrible.”
Concertgoers also seemed unhappy about long queues for food, drink and merchandise, and the shuttle bus arrangements.
“I had to miss parts of the concert just for all this lining up,” wrote Melinda Wong, who said she queued for two hours.
Another angry commenter said she queued two hours for beer only to find that her RFID tag was not topped up, although she paid concert staff $50.
People also asked the organisers why tickets, which most paid hundreds for, were not checked at entry.
“I did not show anyone my ticket. This is incredible. Anyone could have gone in for free, they just let the people in…” wrote Alex Ballesteros in a message to The Straits Times.
He queued for 80 minutes for food and drink, only to be told that both had run out, he said.
The shuttle-bus services, which concertgoers had to pay for, were inadequate and the wait was about two hours, they said.
VIP ticket-holders also complained about the location and size of the VIP pen.
Concert tickets were priced from $199, with VIP packages costing up to $2,063. Shuttle-bus passes were sold at $15.
When contacted, LAMC referred to its Facebook statement on the matter and declined further comment.
This might come as a surprise to those who think pandas only eat bamboo shoots.
Chengdu Business Daily reported last Saturday (Feb 25) that a wild giant panda attacked and devoured a goat on Wednesday in Leshan in China’s Sichuan province
Locals claimed they saw the metre-long panda climbing down a mountain and wandering for 20 minutes before attacking the goat, reported the Global Times.
Photographs taken showed the bloody bones of a goat at the scene.
The incident prompted a hashtag “Wild giant panda eating goat” on social media, attracting 1.75 million views on microblogging platform Sina Weibo, with many netizens expressing surprise that pandas could eat meat.
Weibo user “Song” wrote: “I thought pandas are naïve and only eat bamboo, I didn’t expect them to be so fierce.”
Although giant pandas are generally herbivores, their evolutionary ancestors are believed to be carnivorous, a forestry official told news portal scol.com.
The instinct probably continues to exist in the modern panda, he said.
In 2011, a wild panda was caught on camera chewing the bones of a wild cow in Sichuan, reported BBC News. Scientists, who had set up the camera to monitor panda behaviour, called it a rare incident.
It is believed there are over 1,800 wild pandas in China, according to figures reported by Chinanews.com in June, 2016.
Freshmen at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School this year will get first-hand experience in exercising flexibility, a core value of entrepreneurship.
The business school promises undergraduates taking the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) a more flexible programme without sacrificing rigour, when they start the upcoming academic year in August.
The new core curriculum will better leverage technology, such as multimedia resources, to allow more effective use of class time.
It is part of a spate of changes that will allow students more options in their degree specialisation and second major or minor combinations.
Three new degree specialisations – business analytics, business economics, and innovation and entrepreneurship – will also be introduced, bringing the total to seven.
Would-be disruptors can take the latter specialisation, said Professor Bernard Yeung, dean of the school.
Specialising in innovation and entrepreneurship will prepare students for a disruptive economy through “understanding the landscape in which disruptive changes are always there”.
Quipped Prof Yeung: “It is better to disrupt than to be disrupted.”
He explained that the specialisation programme prepares students for the future economy through ways such as formulating business plans that account for disruptive changes.
Overseas exposure will also become a compulsory graduation requirement for the BBA – students will need to go either for an overseas internship, study trip, exchange programme or a stint at an NUS overseas college.
Currently, about 90 per cent of BBA undergraduates go for an overseas stint of any length during their studies.
Financial aid is available to those who are unable to afford it.
Associate Professor Chng Chee Kiong, vice-dean (undergraduate studies) of the school, told The Straits Times that the increased flexibility was achieved through streamlining the core curriculum.
For instance, since 2010 it has featured an Asian Business Environments module, which will now be dropped. It was conceived to help students contextualise the business concepts they learnt to Asia.
Prof Chng said: “We have since found out that most colleagues have increasingly introduced Asian examples and case studies into their modules.”
Mr James Loo, executive director of talent acquisition at DBS Bank, said the revamped programme responds to new industry needs in the digital economy and “changing consumer expectations”.
“In such an environment, our future success depends on our ability to harness the digital revolution and completely reimagine the banking experience,” he said.
hytay@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on Feb 27, 2017. Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
A WILDLIFE activist strongly criticised Khao Yai National Park officials yesterday for allowing a rescued Asian black bear to fall to its death from a helicopter during an operation to return it to nature.
Thongchai Saengprathum, secretary of the Khao Yai Foundation, said the |officials concerned should face legal action for |negligence during the February 11 incident.
The bear woke up aboard the helicopter while it was being flown into the national park in Prachin Buri. It had not been put inside a cage but was instead covered by a net and put on board. As the helicopter flew over forest land, the animal panicked and fell to its death.
The young bear, which weighed about 90 kilograms, had been found injured in November last year and officials took it for rehabilitation until it fully recovered.
Thongchai said the accident could have been avoided, as Khao Yai National Park had been a role model for other parks in its handling of rescued wild animals.
He said the park |officials made a wrong decision to fly the bear in a helicopter because other wild animals were earlier transported in trucks to be released back to nature.
Thongchai also said the plan to release the bear at Khao Laem, which is deep in the forest and far from the spot near the forest border where it was found and rescued, was flawed.
He said Asian black bears are social animals that need to stay with their packs. Flying the bear to a new location could also see it killed by local bears, Thongchai added.
The activist said officials were also careless in calculating the weight of the bear to give the correct dose of tranquilliser to prevent it from waking up during the operation. It should also have been put it a cage, he said.
LOS ANGELES – “Moonlight” won the Oscar for best picture on Sunday, beating favorite “La La Land” for the movie industry’s most prestigious award.
But in a highly unusual mishap, presenter Warren Beatty first, mistakenly initially announced that musical “La La Land” had won, causing confusion and uproar on Hollywood’s biggest night. Beatty said he had been given the wrong envelope to open.
Emma Stone won best actress for the musical, and “Manchester by the Sea” star Casey Affleck was named best actor on a night where U.S. President Donald Trump was the butt of numerous jokes, capping a Hollywood awards season marked by fiery protests at his policies.
“La La Land” director Damien Chazelle, 32, became the youngest person to ever win a best director Oscar.
Viola Davis and Mahershala Ali won their first Oscars for their supporting roles in African-American stories “Fences” and”Moonlight,” in stark contrast to the 2016 Academy Awards when no actors of color were even nominated.
“Moonlight,” the coming of age tale of a young black boy in Miami, also won the best adapted screenplay statuette, while grief-driven independent drama “Manchester by the Sea” took home original screenplay.
Romantic musical “La La Land,” the tale of a struggling actress and a jazz pianist in Los Angeles, went into the Oscars with a leading 14 nominations and emerged with six, including for its score and theme song “City of Stars.”
Trump’s presence loomed large at the three and a half hour show as host Jimmy Kimmel fired off political zingers and even tweeted at the Republican president, getting no immediate response.
