Den Helder

A sperm whale was spotted in the North Sea, just off the coast of Den Helder on Monday morning. By Monday evening the whale was still in the same area. According to SOS Dolfijn, the animal is likely disoriented or sick and weakened, the rescue organization said on its website.

The whale was first spotted by crew members of a ship off the coast near Julianadorp around 7:30 a.m. The Coast Guard took a photo and sent it to SOS Dolfijn, who identified it as a sperm whale. 

A 21-year-old fisherman was rescued fro te North Sea over an hour after he went overboard during the early hours of Tuesday morning. He was severely hypothermic, but still alive, RTL Nieuws reports.

The fishing boat the man works on sounded the alarm around 2:00 a.m., when it was noticed that he was no longer on board. The coast guard deployed two helicopters, and rescue brigade KNRM deployed boats from Terschelling and Den Helder to help in the search. Other boats in the area were also notified about the missing fisherman.

The police arrested a man carrying a sword from a Connexxion bus in Den Helder on Monday night, a community police officer said on Twitter.

The bus driver called the police because the man was misbehaving. Officers removed him from the bus.  It later turned out that he left his sword on the bus. He was arrested.

"Other than that we had a quiet Christmas", officer Rolf Regtop said on Twitter. 

The captain of a trawler was sentenced to seven years in prison for cocaine trafficking by the court in Rotterdam on Thursday. The case revolves around a shipment of over 700 kilograms of cocaine discovered at the port of Den Helder early in 2015, Noord Holland Nieuws reports.

Update 11:20 a.m. - The hostage situation ended with police overpowering the suspect, officials said just before 11 a.m. A new news story about the turbulent event was published on NL Times soon after.

A wooden statue of Michiel de Ruyter was stolen from the Dutch Navy during the Marine Days in Den Helder this weekend. The statue finally turned up on Texel on Wednesday. It is unclear who was behind the statue's voyage to the West Frisian island, the Telegraaf reports. 

Before the statue was found, a Navy spokesperson said that they initially thought it was some kind of bad joke. But the longer the 100 kilogram statue was missing, the less funny it became. "The moment of return has come and gone, so it's definitely not funny anymore", the spokesperson said to Omroep Flevoland. 

Seal center Pieterburen rescued a snow white baby seal pup from a road in Den Helder on Christmas Day, the center announced on Facebook.

According to Pieterburen, the seal was separated from its mother. Curious bystanders scared the pup onto the road. In consultation with the local volunteer, it was decided that Pieterburen would take the pup in.

A 56-year-old man die on Saturday while participating in the four kilometer swimming event from Den Helder to Texel. He fell ill along the way, a spokesperson for the organizers said to NU.nl.

In 2014 there were 107,700 households in the Netherlands with at least 1 million euros in assets, 5 thousand more than in 2013. That means that 1.4 percent of Dutch households are millionaires, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Thursday.

NS is deploying cleaners to clean trains while they're traveling on long routes. The cleaners work between the morning- and evening rush hour, cleaning up loose rubbish, emptying bins and removing stains while the train is traveling

Employees of the nature museum Ecomare discovered a nine meter long dead minke whale on the Razende Bol - a sand bank between Texel and Den Helder, the museum announced on Sunday.