Den Haag

Bystanders on the Grote Markt in Den Haag made it difficult for police to help a man who had stabbed himself with a knife, authorities said. Paramedics and officers were trying to reach a victim who had stabbed himself with a knife around 4:40 p.m.

"In the crowd, kids and various people were shooting video of someone who was bleeding profusely," police said. "We had to turn on our sirens at the scene to get the public to move to the side."

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.

At least nine people were injured in a natural gas explosion at a housing block in The Hague, the fire department said. Emergency crews saved three people from the resultant building collapse, but there was still one person trapped that rescuers knew about.

By 6:50 p.m., the fire department personnel made contact with the trapped person. A plan was being crafted to safely rescue the victim, a 28-year-old man, the fire department confirmed to several media outlets.

Drivers in the Netherlands were neither imagining things nor embellishing in 2018 when they complained about travel times. Dutch highways were far more clogged in 2018 than a year earlier, with traffic jams up nearly 20 percent.

The heavy traffic had an impact on rush hour, but also outside of the daily busy periods, travellers association ANWB revealed on Thursday. The organization made their calculations based on both the frequency and duration of traffic jams.

Authorities in the Netherlands will pursue a criminal case against a doctor accused of performing euthanasia on a 74-year-old incapacitated woman with dementia. Her prosecution will be the country's first against a doctor involving euthanasia since the Dutch law permitting the practice went into law over 15 years ago.

Divers searching the Böttgerwater in the Ypenburg district of Den Haag found the body of Orlando Boldewijn on Monday, police said. Investigators were working the area in an effort to find the 17-year-old Rotterdam boy who did not return after a February 17 meeting with an acquaintance made through dating app Grindr.

The government is investing over 300 million euros into expanding the rail network between Den Haag and Rotterdam, the ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management announced on Monday. By 2025 this route will run eight intercity trains and six sprinters per hour, which means a train every five minutes. 

A detective in the Den Haag police unit is suspected of leaking police information to criminals for a period spanning around 18 months, according to the Public Prosecutor. The 35-year-old man searched the police systems to find out whether there were investigations into certain suspects, NOS reports.

Three people were hurt by falling pieces of ceiling at Schiphol Airport outside departure halls 1 and 2 on Thursday, a Schiphol employee confirmed to NOS. The pieces of ceiling were blown loose by hurricane strength winds. 

Departure halls 1 and 2 were evacuated and are closed until further notice, according to the broadcaster. Passengers can check in at departure hall 3. 

The police discovered a woman brutally murdered in a yoga studio on Neptunusstraat in Den Haag on Thursday while investigating a missing person report. A woman living on Neptunusstraat was reported missing on Tuesday, January 9th. The body was found when the police went to investigate the missing woman's home two days later. "Investigation must reveal whether the woman found in the home on Neptunusstraat is also the woman who was reported missing", the police said.

The U.S. State Department distanced itself this week from the factually inaccurate picture the new American Envoy to the Netherlands painted about Islamic fundamentalist rioting in the Netherlands in 2015. At an event that year, Peter Hoekstra declared the existence of areas in the Netherlands where politicians were set on fire and effective "no-go zones" that were too dangerous for authorities