SINGAPORE – Eight telemedicine providers have been or are currently being investigated for lapses in clinical care or inappropriate advertisements of services, said Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary in Parliament on Jan 7. Enforcement action has been taken against three of the providers, including MaNaDr Clinic, Dr Janil added. MaNaDr Clinic was found to have more than 100,000 teleconsultations that lasted one minute or less in a sampled month, among other lapses. The Ministry of Health (MOH) revoked the clinic’s licence on Dec 20, barring it from providing outpatient medical services. Responding to parliamentary questions on whether there are similar trends of unethical telehealth providers following the MaNaDr case, Dr Janil said that the eight telemedicine providers have been or are being investigated for non-compliances in two categories. The first is in clinical care, such as doctors issuing prescriptions and medical certificates without proper clinical assessment or not conducting video consultations for first-time patients.

SINGAPORE — Singapore and Malaysia have inked an agreement to create a new special economic zone for business and investment. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim on Jan 7 witnessed the exchange of the agreement for the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone (JS-SEZ) at the 11th Malaysia-Singapore Leaders' Retreat in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Speaking at a joint press conference at the end of the two-day retreat, PM Wong said the JS-SEZ will create good jobs and more opportunities for the people of both countries. «When negotiating the agreement, both sides have actively engaged stakeholders to ensure that the JS-SEZ has the conditions to help our businesses grow together for the longer term,» said PM Wong. «So we are confident about the JS-SEZ, and we look forward to taking it forward.» There are many strengths that can be harnessed from both sides to make the zone a more competitive and attractive venue for businesses to operate from, said PM Wong. On Singapore's end, the authorities have engaged many businesses who are keen to do more out of Johor, he added.

A cyclist died after being hit by a bus at a zebra crossing near Jurong West. The accident occurred on Tuesday (Jan 7) at around 7.20am. In response to AsiaOne's queries, the police said that the private bus, driven by a 44-year-old man, was turning from Pioneer Road North into a slip road along Jurong West Avenue 4. The bus hit and ran over the 61-year-old cyclist, killing him on the spot, Shin Min Daily News reported. The Singapore Civil Defence Force told AsiaOne that the cyclist was pronounced dead on the scene. A Shin Min reporter who visited the scene saw a blue police tent set up near the zebra crossing and an orange bus parked nearby. The bus driver was also being questioned by the police. A man surnamed Liang, who is in charge of the bus company involved in the accident, was also present at the scene. Liang told Shin Min said that the bus driver is from China, and is familiar with the traffic conditions in the area, having been with the company for five or six years. 

An 18-year-old woman has been arrested for her suspected involvement in a Chinese officials impersonation scam, the police said on Tuesday (Jan 7). On Jan 5 at about 11am, the police was alerted to the scam by the victim, an elderly woman. She suffered losses amounting to $290,000 after she was deceived by scammers who posed as Chinese officials and claimed her identity had been misused in China. Officers from the Anti-Scam Command, Woodlands Police Division and Police Operations Command Centre established the identity of the 18-year-old woman involved in the scam through follow-up investigations and arrested her within eight hours of the report. Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect, a student on social visit pass, had fallen victim to the same scam. She was believed to have been manipulated into travelling to Singapore and assisting in the scam operations under the false belief that she was helping with official investigations, said the police.

Three new MRT stations in the north-western region of Singapore are slated to open by 2035, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced on Monday (Jan 6). The train stations, currently termed DE1, DE2 and NS6, are part of the Downtown Line 2 extension (DTL2e) and will begin construction in the fourth quarter of 2025. DTL2e will be a 4km stretch connecting the Downtown Line from its existing terminus at Bukit Panjang station to a new NS6/DE2 interchange station on the North-South Line, LTA said. DE1 will be an underground station located along Sungei Kadut Avenue near the Rail Corridor, in close proximity to Pang Sua Fishing Deck and Yew Tee Village. A new pedestrian link bridge will be built, extending from the station and connecting it to Pang Sua Park Connector. DE2, also an underground station, will be an interchange connected to the new above-ground NS6 station between Kranji and Yew Tee MRT stations. This interchange will be situated beside the Sungei Kadut Eco-District, which is undergoing developments aimed at rejuvenating the old industrial estate.

The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) suspended the licence of Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh restaurant at 251 Geylang Road for one day last Friday (Jan 3). The 60-year-old eatery accumulated 12 demerit points within a 12-month period and was fined $800 for failing to keep its premises free of infestation and failing to provide toilet paper and soap in its toilet. Also on Jan 3, Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh was one of 26 brands that received a Singapore Prestige Brand Award at the presentation ceremony where Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo was the guest of honour. The restaurant has been featured in several TikTok videos. Leong Kee (Klang) Bak Kut Teh was not the only Geylang eatery suspended that day. SFA also suspended Kim San Leng Food Centre at 306 Geylang Road for one day on Jan 3. The coffee shop accumulated 12 demerit points within a 12-month period and was fined a total of $1,100 for failing to maintain sanitary fittings in good working condition and repair as well as failing to keep its toilet clean and in good repair.

An employee was caught on camera assaulting a co-worker at a Japanese restaurant in Suntec City. Stomp contributor Alai, the victim, shared a video of the incident that took place on Dec 22 at 10.15am. She said that her attacker had verbally abused her on two previous occasions. On the Sunday morning of the attack, only the two of them were working in the restaurant. «As I was doing my routine service opening, he suddenly shouted at me from the kitchen, asking why I didn't push 'my' kitchen pots trolley into his kitchen for him,» recounted the Stomp contributor. «I was like, 'my' kitchen pots trolley? Mine? Which was a red flag that his delusional sickness was coming because I didn't work in the kitchen. »Clearly that trolley's pots were under his responsibility. I tried to explain to him I was not the one and he kept shouting like mad. He came out to the food pick-up point and pushed me so hard that I flew.

SINGAPORE — Three teenagers who harassed a Singaporean couple who were taking videos in the West Java provincial capital of Bandung in Indonesia have apologised, putting an end to police investigations. The Indonesian police halted their probe into the case after the victim accepted an apology from the teens, CNN Indonesia reported on Sunday (Jan 5). «The victim has confirmed that she will not continue the legal process into the case as she saw the perpetrators had apologised on social media and thought this would serve as a lesson as the perpetrators are children,» said Bandung City police chief Budi Sartono, reported CNN Indonesia. The Jakarta Globe, citing the Indonesian police, said the teenagers were arrested on Jan 3, and have admitted to the Dec 29, 2024, encounter with the married couple. Two of the teenagers are reportedly minors, or under 17 years old. The Indonesian police on Jan 4 said one of the teenagers admitted to making inappropriate gestures and touching the woman, the report said. The other two have denied any involvement.

A man who recently found a lottery ticket with a $10,000 prize has handed it over to the police, hoping the owner will come claim it. On Dec 31, the man surnamed Wu was on board bus service 925 travelling towards Marsiling MRT station when he noticed three 4D tickets on a seat.  Wu noticed that one of the tickets had the winning number 6777 — the first prize of the Dec 29 draw. «I also buy 4D, so I'd pay special attention to the numbers drawn,» 70-year-old Wu told Shin Min Daily News.  "I remembered the first prize number of the day, that was how I realised the ticket had won a prize.” While he has a habit of picking up stray lottery tickets to look at them, but this is his first time finding a winning ticket. Wu said he wasn't able to identify the owner of the tickets that day as many passengers alighted the bus at the same time. Therefore, he handed the 4D ticket over to the police in Toa Payoh via the found property drop box on Jan 1.  Wu said he also made a report at a police station in Yew Tee on Jan 3, thinking that the owner might live near Marsiling.

SINGAPORE – Lionesses forward Danelle Tan’s eagerly anticipated A-League Women debut lasted only about 20 minutes, but the drama and intensity have left her yearning for more. After missing Brisbane Roar’s first eight games of the season due to knee surgery, the 20-year-old Singaporean ran onto the Perry Park pitch to cheers from her father and many among the 3,612-strong crowd on Jan 4. Coming on for Evdokiya Popadinova in the 72nd minute, the No. 9 was involved in some attacking moves, and within seconds, she was celebrating with her teammates as Laini Freier opened the scoring against the visiting Canberra United with a neat finish into the bottom corner. But Emma Robers equalised in the 81st minute with a long-range effort before Michelle Heyman completed the comeback for Canberra seven minutes later despite suspicions of handball. With the defeat, the Roar missed the opportunity to leapfrog Melbourne City to the top of the 12-team league after nine games. On Jan 5, City extended their lead to four points after a 1-1 draw at bottom club Sydney FC, but have played a game more.

Extra-large eggs at the supermarket cost about $3 for six. But those sold at the back of trucks that drive into selected HDB carparks cost about $7 for a tray of 30. Residents in the central area of Singapore would wait for the egg truck every Thursday morning. When approached by Lianhe Zaobao, the seller told the reporter that the eggs were «local». As to their expiry date, the seller said «there is no specific deadline» and subsequently ignored the reporter's questions. One of the residents told the Chinese daily that his mother started buying the eggs from the back of the truck after neighbours told her the eggs were bigger and cheaper than those sold at the supermarket. «These eggs look and taste just like normal eggs, so I will eat them, but I still have doubts about where they came from,» said Mr Luo, who pointed out that the eggs had no barcode or stamp on the shell. Singapore Food Agency said all locally-produced and imported eggs must be stamped to ensure that the source can be traced in compliance with the food safety standards set by the authorities.

A fire broke out in a semi-detached house along East Coast Road on Sunday (Jan 5) and 35 people were evacuated as a result. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said in a Facebook post on the same day that it was alerted to a fire at the three-storey house at 305 East Coast Road at 12.45am. Upon arriving at the scene, firefighters from the Kallang and Paya Lebar Fire Stations saw that flames had engulfed the first floor of the vacated house and were spreading to the upper floors. They immediately conducted forcible entry into the house, using two water jets to contain the fire, SCDF added. SCDF also deployed a combined platform ladder to conduct aerial firefighting. The fire was fully extinguished at around 3am. As a result of the fire, the upper floors of the house sustained smoke and burn damage, and an adjacent unit was also partially affected. About 35 residents from neighbouring units were evacuated as a precautionary measure. There were no reported injuries, said SCDF.

She was heading towards the MRT train to get home on New Year's Eve when she was allegedly punched in the head by a man in the same lift. The 68-year-old cleaner ended up in hospital for two days and was given nine days' medical leave. The woman, Saniya, had been working at the Supreme Court for four years and would take the MRT train from City Hall back home after work, Shin Min Daily News reported. On Dec 31 at about 4pm, Saniya was making her way home as usual and took the lift at the MRT station. In the lift with her was an elderly man who looked to be in his sixties, Shin Min reported. According to Saniya, the man had with him a big bag of items and stood beside her. «He was standing to my right and the bag touched my leg. He then suddenly raised his fist and punched me on the right side of my head,» Saniya told Shin Min. She added that the two did not engage in conversation prior to the incident, which was over in a flash.

She had accidentally left her carry-on luggage at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and only remembered it when she was already back in Singapore. When she returned to KL two days later, the bag was found thanks to a thorough five-hour search by airport police. The woman, identified as Wang Liyue (transliteration), told Shin Min Daily News that she had flown to Osaka, Japan to attend a conference in December. As she could not get a direct flight back to Singapore, she opted to fly to KL before returning home via car. Said Wang, who works in academic publishing in the field of biology: «After touching down at the airport on Dec 20, I had to go through two security checks. After passing through the first check, I was busy preparing for the second check.» As the driver of the vehicle was getting impatient, Wang hurriedly rushed out, bringing only her check-in luggage with her. «I believe my friend had helped me to carry my bag to the security checkpoint, hence after it was done I didn't take it with me,» said Wang. She only realised to her horror that her bag was missing once she returned home.

SINGAPORE – More help will be provided to Singaporeans in February, when the new Budget is announced. During a visit to Jalan Besar GRC on Jan 4, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said he knows that many Singaporeans are concerned about challenges such as the cost of living, and the Government is dealing with that head-on. On Jan 3, $300 worth of CDC vouchers was disbursed to every Singaporean household. PM Wong said: “I hope this will be a good start for you, and it will help you as you prepare for the year ahead. “We will continue to provide more help for Singaporeans. The Budget is coming next month.” He added: “So we will continue to look at schemes and programmes and ways in which we can provide more help for Singaporeans, for cost of living, for your daily concerns and, importantly, to help all of us realise our dreams and aspirations together.” With 2025 also marking the Republic’s diamond jubilee, or SG60, PM Wong said people can see how much Singapore has progressed, because everyone worked together, especially the Pioneer and Merdeka generations.

SINGAPORE - As a graphic designer, Mr Pow Jun Yang's lifelong dream was to stage his own art exhibition. This became an item on his bucket list, when the 31-year-old bachelor was told recently by doctors that he has about three months left to live. Diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in early 2023, he has since exhausted all treatment options, including several cycles of chemotherapy. He has stage 4 urachal cancer, which arises in the urachus or its remnants. The urachus connects the umbilical cord to the bladder in a foetus, and usually closes before birth. While shocked, Mr Pow initially thought he could overcome the cancer, given his young age. But all the cycles of chemotherapy and operations he underwent to tackle the cancer failed to bring good news. Around May 2024, his doctors told him that he probably had a lifespan of around six months left. He has since outlived those six months. «I just tell myself to take each day at a time,» he said. Around November, his doctors gave him a three-month prognosis. That spurred him into action - to try to turn his dream of holding an art exhibition into reality.

SINGAPORE – Nicknamed Quicksilver Quah for his skill and speed, striker Quah Kim Song plundered plenty of goals for the Lions during his career, including a match-winning brace in the 1977 Malaysia Cup final as Singapore beat Penang 3-2 in front of thousands of fans at Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka Stadium. But in front of 40 family members at the Church of St Mary of the Angels on Jan 4, the confident former footballer was a bundle of nerves. For the day marked an even more significant milestone, as he was about to marry Ms Sylvia Lim, the Workers’ Party (WP) chairwoman who is no stranger to delivering fiery speeches in large-scale rallies. The 72-year-old told The Straits Times: “Even the priest remarked that I looked nervous, and I was. “But Sylvia was very calm and even led the Responsorial Psalm effortlessly.” In the evening, Ms Lim posted on social media a black-and-white photo of the newly-weds walking hand in hand down a corridor, looking elegant in matching tailor-made white outfits. Her caption read: “For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

A 64-year-old cyclist died after an accident in Tampines involving a a trailer truck on the morning of Jan 3. Several police and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) vehicles were seen at the accident site, according to a report by Chinese-language daily Shin Min Daily News. In response to queries from The Straits Times, the police and SCDF said they were alerted to the accident at the junction of Tampines Avenue 2 and Tampines Street 11, at around 9.30am. A 64-year-old female cyclist was unconscious when she was taken to the hospital, where she subsequently died, said police. A 44-year-old trailer truck driver was arrested for «driving without reasonable considerations to other road users, causing death», police added. A group of around 10 family members and friends of the victim, including her daughter, were seen at the morgue on Jan 4 morning, reported Shin Min. Police investigations are ongoing. Traffic accidents claimed the lives of 71 people in Singapore in the first half of 2023, a 57.8 per cent jump from the 45 killed in the same period in 2022.

On the last day of their two-week Europe trip, a Singapore family of five had their luggage and valuables worth over $25,000 stolen from their rental car. Victim Lin Caiting (transliteration), 44, told Shin Min Daily News that the incident occurred in Rome, Italy, on Dec 26. Arriving at the Colosseum at about 3pm that day, Lin said they had parked the vehicle containing their five suitcases and four carriers in an open-air car park near the landmark. «We left after touring the place for less than two hours and discovered the car window had been smashed,» she recounted. Items allegedly stolen from their car include three laptops, a branded bag, expensive clothing and gifts, all of which are worth over $25,000, said Lin. Her husband's credit card had also been used to make eight transactions of about $50 each. The woman explained that they had exercised caution throughout their trip by keeping their wallets inside their jackets and always holding onto their luggage. As they had intended to head directly to the airport from the Colosseum to catch their 8pm flight home, they had not taken extra precautions against theft.

New year, new millionaires. Three lucky punters will each take home over $3.8 million after striking the jackpot in the first Toto draw of 2025 held on Friday (Jan 3) night. With no winners from the past two draws in December, the Toto New Year Draw jackpot had snowballed to an estimated $8.2 million. The Group 1 prize amount for Friday ultimately climbed to $11,637,633, after 38 per cent of sales was added to the snowballed sum. The winning numbers from the draw were: 9, 11, 24, 29, 39 and 46, with an additional number of 31. According to the Singapore Pools' website, two of the winning tickets are QuickPick System 7 entries, with one bought online and another at Tay Sui Lan Agency located at The Arcade. The third punter had purchased a QuickPick ordinary ticket at NTUC FairPrice Hillion Mall. Thirteen punters who won the Group 2 prize will each collect over $136,000.

More than 100 employees of hospitality group Tipsy Collective who were affected by delayed October salary payments received all dues by December, after fresh investor funding ensured timely payouts and full Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions. The employees, who were supposed to receive their October salaries on Nov 5, initially received partial payments a few days late. They were fully paid by mid-November after four shareholders injected an undisclosed amount of money to rescue the business. The funds were also used to pay the CPF owed to the employees for September and October. With fresh funds injected, the company managed to pay salaries on time along with full CPF contributions on Dec 5. The home-grown food and beverage operator has been grappling with legal disputes and financial instability. It has closed two bars and one restaurant since October. The workers were redeployed to the company’s remaining seven outlets, a spokesman said.

SINGAPORE - Just one month into his new job, an assistant vice-president at OCBC Bank began abusing the access his job gave him and started looking through the account balances and other details of bank customers, including Singaporean politicians, influencers, his colleagues, friends and family members. Au Jia Hao, who also goes by Ou Jiahao, 39, was jailed for 10 weeks on Jan 3, after he pleaded guilty to one charge of unauthorised access to computer material. Au illegally accessed the banking details of 369 OCBC customers over eight months, from Nov 8, 2022, to July 31, 2023. The court heard he was employed as an assistant vice-president of OCBC's Global Commercial Banking division on Oct 12, 2022, and was given access to OCBC's banking system as part of his job scope. But he soon began to abuse his access by pulling up the names, NRIC numbers, dates of birth, addresses, contact numbers, account balances, and education and employment histories of profiles he had no business looking at. He did not disclose the information to any third party, and claimed to have illegally accessed the information out of curiosity and stress from work.

A man begging for money along Waterloo Street was arrested by the police after some members of the public raised doubts about his behaviour.  The man, who has a 7cm tumour on his jaw, was seen sitting outside Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple on Dec 31, reported Shin Min Daily News. With legs of different lengths, he relied on crutches to walk. Seated in front of a lamppost, the man would hold two to three packets of tissue in his hand, attempting to sell them to passers-by.  Upon seeing his disabilities, several people handed him cash, ranging from $2 to $10. They did not take any tissues from him.  According to Shin Min, the man received about $50 in the span of 10 minutes.  His actions eventually caught the attention of member of the public who called the police on him.  Officers arrived at the scene and took the man aside for questioning. When asked for his identification, the man pulled out a passport believed to be from China.  The questioning continued for about half an hour before the man was taken away in a police car.