Dolphin sex and opera wailing: Your 10 favorite NL Times stories of 2016

This year has been an interesting one for the Netherlands. The country had many things to focus on, ranging from serious issues like terrorism and job cuts at big businesses, to somewhat more whimsical tales, like the police kicking down a practicing opera singer's door because his neighbors thought he was screaming.

Here follows a top ten list of the most popular, most read stories on NL Times throughout 2016.

• In 10th place:
  In March an unfortunate accident sent a very rare and extraordinarily expensive Porsche 911 GT3 RS diving nose first into the waters of the Oostwetering canal at the Porsche Center in Amsterdam.
• In 9th place:
  In October the spouse of a Transavia flight attendant made headlines when he threatened to publish his wife's digital diary. According to him, the diary contained detailed accounts of his wife's various sexual encounters with other Transavia crew members - including with pilots in the cockpit.
• In 8th place:
  In April oil and gas giant Shell announced that it is cutting between 15 and 20 percent of its about 10 thousand employees working in Amsterdam and Rijswijk. That's about 2 thousand Shell employees out of a job.
• In 7th place:
  In August Dutch athlete Dafne Schippers won silver in the 200 meter run at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She was not very pleased with her second place, especially given the fact that just a tenth of a second was between her and gold medal winner Elaine Thompson from Jamaica.
• In 6th place:
  In March Amsterdam installed the world's first retractable hidden urinals for women on Dam Square. The urinal is hidden underground during the day and comes out at night, like the urinals for men that were already installed in the city.
• In 5th place:
  In May a lawyer Ed Manders made headlines when he revealed that "explosives" seized when the police raided his client Samir O.'s home were not explosives at all, but shoarma spices. The Public Prosecutor confirmed that the seized substance was calcium magnesium carbonate - a harmless substance indeed used to treat meat.
• In 4th place
  On March 22nd, the day of several bombing attacks in Brussels, a suspicious package was found at Amsterdam Central Station. This resulted in the first of several evacuations throughout the Netherlands that day. Train traffic to Schiphol airport was temporarily halted. The Hoofddorp station was shut down and evacuated due to a passenger on a train between Amsterdam and Hoofddorp acted suspiciously.
• In 3rd place:
  In April the Public Prosecutor offered a 12,500 euros reward for information on a man suspected of raping three women in Amsterdam over the course of four days late in January 2016.
• In 2nd place:
  In January the Amsterdam police kicked down a door after a neighbor reported hearing someone screaming, only to find a man trying to sing along with an opera recording.
• And in 1st place:
  In March television program Rambam accused the Dolphiarium in Hardewijk of sexually abusing the dolphins in its care. A Rambam employee went undercover at the dolphin center caught caregivers masturbating the animals.