Witnesses say a gunman dressed as Zwarte Piet opened fire in the Ondiep district of Utrecht and was at-large late Monday afternoon. Police said one person was injured in the shooting on Rietstraat at about 1:10 p.m. on Monday.
A resident on the scene at the time of the shooting told newspaper AD that the suspect jumped out of a white vehicle and shot at the victim's car. The newspaper said a bullet hole was visible in the windshield of a Volkswagen, which was located near an elementary school.
Emile Ratelband can not legally lower his age by 20 years, the court in Arnhem ruled on Monday. The 69-year-old positivity guru asked the court to lower his age to 49, because he believes he feels younger than he really is and faces age discrimination, NU.nl reports.
An 18-year-old man who died from a gunshot wound at a hospital last month was killed by a police officer, the Public Prosecutor (OM) announced on Friday. The teenager, also the son of a police officer, was one of two people shot at by police outside a Delft coffees hop early on October 8.
Construction workers in Amsterdam Oost found a decades-old weapon in the backyard of a home in the Watergraafsmeer district. Explosives experts at the scene on Finsenstraat determined it had been already-fired and was thus harmless.
A China Eastern passenger jet flying from Shanghai to Paris was diverted to Amsterdam on Thursday morning due to weather conditions in Paris. The passengers on flight #553 were then forced to wait inside the Boeing 777-300 at Schiphol Airport for over 4.5 hours after their 13-hour flight.
Police officers in Gouda encountered an ungrateful passenger on Monday night. The officers loaded a stray dog out of the rain and into their car, only to be chased out of the car by that same dog.
"Last night we helped with catching a stray dog. When the boxer was hot and dry in the car, he showed his teeth and decided that the officers were no longer welcome", the Gouda police said on Twitter.
The officers had to wait outside, in the rain, for the animal ambulance to arrive.
A 4-month-old kitten went on quite an adventure through half of the Netherlands on Wednesday. He snuck into a courier's car somewhere along the courier's route and was only noticed some time later, Veterinarian service De Meierij said on Facebook.
When the Amsterdam Centrum-Jordaan police were called in to a casino in the area earlier this week, the thought they were to deal with a difficult customer. But at the scene, the situation turned out to be quite different - they had to deal with a massive snake.
"At the bag check a woman appeared to be carrying something very strange with her. She had a huge snake in her bag!! Not really something to walk around in public with in the evening hours", the police said on Facebook.
A passerby made a remarkable discovery while jogging in Tienhoven on Sunday morning. He found a lion cub in a small cage in a meadow on Burgemeester Huijdecoperweg. The police believe the young animal was dumped there. They're looking for witnesses.
The Dutch food and consumer product safety authority NVWA is investigating, because they have more experience in this field, the police said on Facebook.
An employee of a parking manager at Schiphol was arrested with his girlfriend in Gorredijk, Friesland. They were caught using the home of people who were on vacation and had left their car with the parking manager. The residents of the home had no idea, Omrop Fryslan reports.
According to the broadcaster, an observant neighbor noticed the lights on in his neighbors' home, which he was watching while they are on vacation. There was also a strange car in the driveway. He knocked on the door and a strange man opened. The man told him that he had permission to stay there.
Authorities in the picturesque village of Giethoorn are trying to track down reports of fake police officers luring and robbing Chinese tourists. Police say they are looking to speak with any victims and witnesses of similar robberies.
Police say they are trying to track down two or three light complected young men with dark hair. The suspects have used a dark colored four-door sedan, not a hatchback, in the robberies. Each robbery took place in the afternoon, but police did not specify the dates of the crimes.
A woman fell through the sidewalk in the Limburg village of Merkelbeek, near Brunssum, on Friday morning. She was walking with her husband when the ground suddenly sank away beneath her. She was injured, NOS reports.
The sinkhole was caused by sand being washed away by a leak, the fire brigade and Water Maatschappij Limburg confirmed. "There was an underground leak" a spokesperson for WML said to the broadcaster. "As a result it was impossible to see that there was a hole. The woman indeed fell through it and was taken to hospital with unknown injuries."
Hundreds of people on Twitter are looking for 6-year-old Marit from Utrecht. She threw a message in a bottle into the sea and it washed ashore on Ameland. The finder wants to let the girl know that her message has been found, RTL Nieuws reports.
The Utrecht girl threw her bottle into the sea during a sailing trip to Terschelling with her parents and sister. In the letter Marit wrote that she is very curious to know who will find her letter and where it would end up.
An Ommen resident had a very unexpected visitor on Wednesday afternoon. An elephant wandered into his garden and started eating his pear tree. The man called the police, and after convincing them that he was not joking, police officers responded to the scene.
"On the way to the address - in the outskirts of Ommen - we wondered how in heavens name we were supposed to catch an elephant. This was a first for us", the Ommen police said on Facebook.
A balcony fell off a second floor apartment on Westindischekade in Groningen on Wednesday morning. No one was injured. Housing association Lefier will inspect the other balconies in the apartment building to see if any others are at risk of collapsing, RTV Noord reports.
On Tuesday evening the fire department rescued a 9-year-old boy from the roof of a building on Baron G.A. Tindaplein in Amsterdam. The kid climbed onto the roof "like some kind of Spiderman", but couldn't make his own way down, the Amsterdam Oost Zeeburg police said on Facebook.
According to the police, the boy climbed to the roof using windowsills around 9:00 p.m. Why exactly the young daredevil did so, is not clear.
The fire department eventually rescued the boy with a ladder truck. He was home just before dark, the police said.
The Arnhem police spent Sunday afternoon searching the forest at a playground on Engelenburgstraat for a so-called killer clown. The man dressed as a scary clown harassed eight children at the playground earlier in the day. He had knives with him, according to one child. The clown wasn't found, AD reports
Anyone who hangs a hammock in an Amsterdam park could face a fine of 230 euros, Amsterdam resident Lars Duursma found out over the weekend, he told AT5.
Duursma and his girlfriend hung their hammock in Sarphatipark on Saturday. According to him, they were not drunk and did not cause any trouble. Two enforcement officers appeared and told them to remove the hammock, or face a fine of 230 euros.
The enforcement officers told them that it has been a rule for years that you are not allowed to attach anything to a tree or lamppost anywhere in the city.
An animal skull was found hanging at a bus stop in the Utrecht town of Abcoude on Thursday night. The skull was hanging on a string over a trash can on Burgemeester des Tombeweg, AD reports.
Due to the strange nature of the situation, the police were called. Officers removed the skull - a cow skull - and took it to a police station.
Who hung the skull at the bus shelter, and why, is not clear.
A streetlight is standing in the middle of Klaverstraat in Nijmegen. The street was widened, but the streetlight was left where it was. As a result, it is now located in the middle of the road, blocking the way for cars, Omroep Gelderland reports.
A local resident told the broadcaster, that the workers who widened the street knew that the streetlight can't be left in the middle of the road, but also weren't allowed to move it.
A car lost its back wheels after driving over a bump in Breda on Thursday morning. This happened in the curve towards Fellenoordstraat, Omroep Brabant reports.
With great difficulty, the driver managed to park the car in a disabled parking spot, with the car's bumper on the street behind it and the axle with the back wheels beside it.
In a strange coincidence, two hot air balloons made unplanned landings in Tilburg on Tuesday. One landed in a small field in the middle of a residential area, the other landed on a football field a few minutes later. The two precautionary landings seem to be unrelated, Omroep Brabant reports.
Eight year old Sofie spent an entire 60 seconds hanging from a raised boom, meters above the ground, in Spaarndam on Wednesday afternoon. Quite a terrifying experience for bystanders and the lock keeper. But the girl herself was unfazed. She came down with a big smile on her face, Marcel Kraan said, according to NOS.
Franeker smells like caramel on Friday morning. According to the fire brigade, this is due to an overnight fire in a candy factory in the Friesland city, ANP reports.
A fire broke out in candy factory Royal Steensma during the early hours of Friday morning. The burning sugar caused a caramel-like smell in the air.
The Royal Steensma building was destroyed by the fire. No one was injured. The fire is under control
