Tens of thousands of homes in the Gooi region were without power for a short period on Friday morning. The power outage was resolved at around 9:45 a.m., though it may still take some time before power is restored everywhere, according to grid manager TenneT.
The power outage affected Hilversum, Huizen, Bussum, Naarden, Blaricum, Laren and surrounds, NU.nl reports. A number of broadcasters, including RTL, NOS and Radio 538, also had to run on generators for a time.
The United Kingdom leaving the European Union with no agreements in place would be a hard blow for the Netherlands, according to German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung. A no-deal Brexit will cost the Netherlands 3.16 billion euros per year, the think tank calculated. That amounts to 186 euros per Dutch person per year, NU.nl reports.
The Brexit happening with agreements in place will be more favorable for the Netherlands. Then the damage will be limited to 1.75 billion euros per year, or 103 euros per Dutch person per year, according to the think tank.
Online supermarket Picnic is the fastest growing company in the Netherlands, followed by meal deliverer Takeaway.com and cosmetics chain Rituals, according to research by Erasmus University Rotterdam, NOS reports.
Uber is expanding its Uber Freight truck service to the Netherlands. The company will initially focus on Dutch activities, and over time expand the service to other European countries, NU.nl reports
The Netherlands will be the first European country where Uber Freight is offered. The service links companies to trucks, like the normal Uber connects passengers and taxis. According to Uber, Uber Freight will make it easier for small and medium sized businesses to transport their cargo through Europe.
Delta flight DL178 from Portland to Amsterdam had to make an emergency landing in Iceland on Monday due to a medical emergency on board, Delta confirmed to NL Times.
The plane departed from Portland, on the west coast of the United States, to the Netherlands at around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dutch time. Nine hours and 45 minutes later, the Boeing 767-300ER made an emergency landing at Keflavik Airport in Reykjavik, according to Up In The Sky.
Four people were injured Wednesday morning when an explosion took place at a Tata Steel facility in Velsen-Noord, Noord Holland. All four of the victims are employees who were transported to area hospitals, the company said. Their injuries were not specified, but were not believed to be life threatening, a Tata Steel spokesperson told several news outlets.
Amsterdam will ban guided group tours along the window brothels in the Red Light District, the city announced in a press statement. The municipality is currently working out how to legally implement the ban.
A school outing for pupils from primary school De Borg in Assen turned out to be much more exciting than expected on Monday. The bus on which they were traveling to the dolmen in Drenthe suddenly caught fire near Papenvoort, Dagblad van het Noorden reports.
The fire started in the engine of the bus. The driver quickly noticed that something was wrong and pulled to the side of the road. All children managed to get safely off the bus, a spokesperson for the fire department said to the newspaper
Airline Level, a low-cost sister of British Airways, is opening a base at Schiphol in early April. The airline will offer cheap flights to destinations like London, Rome and Vienna. GroenLinks parliamentarian Suzanne Kroger is baffled by this decision, given that all Level destinations are already offered by other airlines flying from Schiphol, AD reports.
Employees of various sectors are striking for better pensions and to freeze the retirement age at 66 throughout the Netherlands on Monday. The first and most disrupting strike was in public transit between 6:00 a.m. and 7:06 a.m.
The new owners of toy store chain Intertoys are closing another 60 branches, the company said on Thursday. A total of 150 stores will close, and the group will continue with over 230 stores, around 100 of which are franchises, NU.nl reports.
National railway NS fears that an early morning strike by its employees on Monday will cause “major hindrance” to train traffic all day. The timetable will be disrupted all day long if no trains run before 7:06 a.m., according to the rail company.
The British government must quickly make clear what its plans are regarding the Brexit, before a postponement can be discussed, according to Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “What good is it to continue whining at each other for months, while you’ve been spinning in that circle for two years now”, he said after the British parliament voted to postpone the Brexit on Thursday, NOS reports.
State Secretary Paul Blokhuis of Public Health, Welfare and Sports launched a new action program aimed at helping the over 10 thousand homeless young people in the Netherlands. The program will launch immediately in 10 test municipalities, with the aim of getting all the homeless young people the help they need by 2021, NOS reports.
Teachers of all levels of education are striking on Friday for more investment in education, because the quality is under pressure. More than half of primary schools are closed today. The teachers will gather on the Malieveld in The Hague to protest, NU.nl reports.
Monday will be a chaotic day for people who commute to work by public transport. NS announced that it will join an early morning strike held by city- and regional public transit companies, AD reports.
A strange site crossed the sky of Amsterdam Centrum on Thursday afternoon, when a KLM passenger jet escorted by four F-16 fighter jets flew past Central Station at just 1,500 feet (457 meters). Though the fly-by was a scheduled event, it was kept as a closely-held secret, frightening many people who took to social media concerned about what they had seen.
Amsterdam is getting 172 extra police officers. This capacity was freed up because the detention center in Amsterdam is being moved from three locations to the Judicial Complex at Schiphol, where responsibility for the detainees will be taken over by the custodial institutions service DJI, Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security announced, the Telegraaf reports.
The municipality of Amsterdam is working on implementing a rental ban on new owner-occupied homes, in an attempt to prevent new homes from being bought up by investors and then rented out for hefty sums, the municipality said in a press statement. The ban will not only apply to the first buyer, but also to the people who later buy the home.
A Deutsche Bahn train was derailed by a fallen tree in Enschede on Wednesday evening. The salvage and cleanup work will likely take all day, according to rail manager ProRail. Currently no train traffic is possible between Enschede and Gronau, Germany, NU.nl reports.
The tree fell onto the tracks due to the bad weather conditions. The German train collided with it and derailed, ProRail reported on Twitter at around 8:20 p.m. None of the 35 passengers on board were hurt.
The Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA published the names of 29 hoverboards it considers unsafe. The authority advises consumers to stop using these hover boards with immediate effect. The NVWA knew about the dangers connected to these hover boards since October, but was only able to publish the list now due to "binding deadlines" for the companies involved to object, RTL Nieuws reports.
Netflix is currently showing different prices for its Premium and Standard subscriptions in the Netherlands based on what web browser is used to access the site, security expert Gert van Dijk wrote on Twitter. According to Van Dijk, in Google Chrome a Premium subscription costs 13.99 euros, on Firefox the same subscription costs 15.99 eruos.
NU.nl decided to check it out and found a Premium subscription for 17.99 euros on Chrome and for 15.99 euros on Safari.
Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs wants to prevent social housing from ending up with people who are not entitled to them. She is therefore sharply increasing the fine for illegal subletting, from over 20 thousand euros to 83 thousand euros, RTL Nieuws reports.
The Minister is amending the Housing Act to make the higher fines possible. Soon municipalities will be able to immediately impose a 20 thousand euro fine for a first offense. The fine can increase to 83 thousand euros for people repeatedly caught illegally subletting a social rental home.
The Dutch government closed its airspace to all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft following the second major crash involving that model in less than four months, killing 346 people. The decision was made on Tuesday by Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, the country's Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, a spokesperson confirmed to NL Times.
