Videos surfaced online showing a motorcycle police officers driving his bike up the stairs of the Rokin subway station on Amsterdam's Noord-Zuid line. Videos from various bystanders started circulating online on Thursday evening, though when the incident happened is not yet clear.
The video shows the officer driving his motorcycle up the stairs. At the top, the rear wheel slips and the bike tips. The officer jumped off the bike and appeared to be unhurt.
People in the Netherlands donated a total of some 2.4 million euros to help with the bush fires in Australia. The Red Cross opened giro 5125 for donations eleven days ago and since raised nearly 1.2 million euros. The World Wild Life fund's action also raised over a million euros.
The Netherlands saw a 16 percent increase in criminal discrimination cases filed in the country last year, with 63 cases above the 397 total recorded in 2018, data from the police department shows. It is the second straight year such an increase was posted in annual crime statistics.
Customs officers at the port of Vlissingen intercepted 921 kilograms of cocaine on Tuesday. The drugs were hidden in a container of bananas that came from Ecuador, the police said in a statement.
The drugs were discovered with a mobile scan. The police seized and destroyed the cocaine. So far no arrests were made.
The police are investigating.
The Amsterdam-Amstelland Fire Department is washing cars to raise funds for their Australian colleagues on Thursday. Locals can have their cars washed for "a symbolic amount of €7.50 (or more)". All money raised will go to "our fire brigade colleagues who have been fighting bush fires in Australia for weeks, without getting paid for it", the fire brigade said on Facebook.
Buyers of newly built homes in the Netherlands can no longer assume that they will have space to park their cars. Most municipalities currently still guarantee 1 to 1.8 parking spaces per new home, but an increasing number of cities are lowering their parking standards, according to an inventory by newspaper AD.
The municipality of Amsterdam is launching a new project with the aim of helping young people with their debts. In the project, called 'Young people debt-free start', the municipality will take over participating young people's debt. They will have to pay back the debts according to their means, with some amounts being scrapped if they make an effort to find work or start studying.
The art'otel on Prins Henndrikkade in Amsterdam was evacuated on Monday morning after a gas leak caused a major fire in front of the hotel, which is located across the street from Amsterdam Central Station. So far no injuries were reported, a spokesperson for the police said to NU.nl.
At 11:09 a.m., the fire was reported to be a "medium-sized fire". The alarm was elevated to "large fire" at 11:10 a.m., and to "very large fire" five minutes later.
The number of hotels in and around Amsterdam continues to grow. Over the past five years, 7,700 hotel rooms were added within the city, an increase of 25 percent. In the region around the Dutch capital, the number of hotel rooms grew by 40 percent, the Volkskrant reports based on its own analysis of figures from Statistics Netherlands and Amsterdam's stats department IOS.
The Volkskrant's figures exclude rooms rented through platforms like Airbnb.
A majority in the Amsterdam city council wants to implement a general ban on consumer fireworks in the city. The local faction of VVD announced its support on Wednesday. GroenLinks, PvdA, and PvdD previously announced their support. Together the four parties have 24 of the 45 seats in the city council, NU.nl reports.
The Amsterdam VVD said that it must "unfortunately" support a ban. "We are very disappointed by the misery [fireworks] cause. A small group of people are ruining it for the rest," the party said.
Thijs van Lieshout, the new commander of the Amsterdam Fire Department, received a threatening letter from his own staff. The man started as commander in October. He received the threatening letter at the end of November, Het Parool reports based on a message Van Lieshout posted on the fire brigade intranet.
An employee of Amsterdam housing corporation Stadgenoot stole millions of euros from the company, insiders told the Telegraaf. For years the senior financial worker regularly transferred between 10 thousand and 20 thousand euros into the account of her minor daughter, the newspaper writes.
The woman was caught when ING became suspicious of the transactions and notified the authorities. She used the money for gambling and luxury vacations, according to the newspaper.
The Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris was halted in Rotterdam on Wednesday morning, after a man "acting aggressively" caused some panic on the train, the Rotterdam police said on Twitter. "Travelers heard the man call 'Allahu Akbar', and panic broke out briefly," the police said.
A witness told broadcaster NOS that the man attacked travelers and shouted 'Allahu Akbar'. Panicked travelers tried to run to other compartments. According to the police, no one was hurt and no weapons were found.
None of the companies that received mail bombs and threatening letters over the past two weeks were customers of central collections agency CIB, director Niels de Peuter said to AD on Tuesday after consulting with the police. The envelopes the bombs and threats were sent in were made to look like they came from the CIB.
A circus performer who was seriously injured on Friday after falling some 10 meters with her husband during a performance in the Carre theater, posted an update of her condition for the first time. She underwent two surgeries on her neck and is now out of intensive care. "We have not yet received a definitive diagnosis from the doctors, it will take time. But at the moment, I cannot feel my legs," she wrote on Facebook.
A car company in Amsterdam received a threatening letter this weekend that appears to correspond to threatening letters sent to various targets who also received mail bombs over the past week, the police said to NU.nl. The car company in question did not receive a mail bomb, the police said.
The Netherlands forensics institute NFI is currently investigating the letter for trace evidence, as it is also doing with the other threatening letters and mail bombs.
A fall of around 10 meters that left two circus performers injured in the Carre theater in Amsterdam on Friday, was caused by one of the performers breaking a tooth, World Christmas Circus producer Henk van der Meijden told De Telegraaf and ANP.
A team of circus performers fell roughly ten meters to the ground during a performance at the Carre theater in Amsterdam, reported broadcaster AT5. The accident happened during Friday's second performance of the World Christmas Circus late Friday afternoon.
Police told several media outlets that one of the two circus performers was in critical condition, and the other was injured. The act, known as Sky Angels, comprises of a man and a woman performing acrobatic stunts, often swinging through the air with no safety net below.
Police were called to the Hotel Okura in Amsterdam Zuid on Friday morning after workers there discovered a suspicious letter matching the appearance of a series of six mail bombs sent to separate locations in the Netherlands over the past week. Authorities arrived at the five-star hotel minutes before 9 a.m., joined by an explosives expert from the police. The Defense ministry's explosives ordinance disposal unit arrived an hour later.
Mail bombs were delivered to five different businesses in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht over the past week, police said on Thursday. Each of the bombs was potentially dangerous, but luckily none of them exploded.
Authorities cautioned the public to be alert for any letters from CIB in Rotterdam. All of the suspicious, bulging letters carried the CIB logo and Wilhelminakade address of debt collection firm Centraal Invorderings Bureau. In each instance, the CIB logo and address were printed on one label, and the recipient's information was printed on a second label.
Dozens of airline passengers spent the first night of the New Year sleeping at Eindhoven Airport after low visibility prevented aircraft from taking off or landing. The country's second largest airport had struggled with fog since Tuesday.
A shooting at a popular recreation park in Amsterdam left two people injured early Thursday morning. Both victims were found conscious at the scene and were transported to an area hospital.
The gun-related incident was reported just before 4 a.m. on the Valburgdreef in Amsterdam Zuidoost. "Once on location at the Gaasperplas parking lot they found two men with gunshot wounds," police said.
By the time police arrived the suspect, or suspects, had fled the scene, possibly by car. No description of the gunman was immediately released.
Firefighters in the Netherlands responded to 4,340 reported incidents between New Year's Eve and the beginning of New Year's Day. The number corresponds to nearly a three percent increase over the same period last year, though 14 of the 25 emergency services regions showed a decrease.
A ground stop was put in place Wednesday afternoon at Eindhoven Airport preventing all aircraft from taking off and landing at the second largest airport in the Netherlands. The problem, due to freezing fog, could continue through midnight, according to a bulletin released by Eurocontrol, the European organization for air traffic safety.
The weather was also causing problems at Schiphol Airport, and to a far lesser extent at Rotterdam The Hague Airport.
