Catch up on the hottest topics on The Big Story, The Straits Times' weekday online news programme.

A total of 4,501 Build-To-Order flats were launched for sale by the Housing Board on Wednesday (Nov 17). These include 960 units in Rochor, the first project under a new prime location public housing (PLH) model, which comes with a 6 per cent subsidy clawback clause upon their resale.

The units are spread across nine housing projects in six estates, with a median waiting time of 4.4 years for flats to be completed.

Journalist Michelle Ng weighs in on this development.

Meanwhile, one of the most-watched global events to be held in Singapore since the start of the pandemic got under way on Wednesday in a meticulously planned albeit muted fashion. This comes as the Republic took another step towards business as usual as a leading events hub.

The Bloomberg New Economy Forum saw Covid-19 testing and safety measures implemented with no hiccups for about 300 international business and government leaders who descended on Sentosa island's ritzy Capella hotel.

Political correspondent Justin Ong, who is on location, shares his observation of the new safety protocols in place at the event.

Separately, many users of ride-hailing app Grab in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia faced intermittent disruption for the second day in a row on Wednesday, in what is Grab's worst service failures.

When contacted on Wednesday, a Grab spokesman in Singapore acknowledged the service disruption, saying that the disruption was caused when Grab tried to run a planned upgrade to one of its systems, which caused some services to be affected.