Eindhoven

Fog is again causing problems at Eindhoven Airport on Tuesday morning. All morning departures and arrivals have been delayed or canceled due to poor visibility. No arrivals are expected until at least 10:00 a.m., and the first departure is expected to happen sometime after 9:15 a.m., according to flight info from the airport's site. Flights to Schiphol Airport are also facing delays.

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.

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.

Police in Eindhoven said they were looking for a group of boys as young as 12 for the unprovoked assault of a man walking near the Woensel shopping center last week. The victim, Bart Jansen, said he was viciously attacked because he is a homosexual.

Since the Wednesday attack, he said he has cried several times, wondering what he has done to deserve to be a target. "That people can hate you so much for who you are. That hurts a lot.”

Three men taken from a train in Venlo on Monday and hospitalized with hypothermia, were arrested in connection with a burglary in Eindhoven, the Oost-Brabant police said on Twitter. 

The three are suspected of breaking into a store on Gemmastraat in the city. Exactly when the burglary happened, the police did not say.

The trio were taken off a train to Venlo on Monday morning. One of them was soaking wet and each showed symptoms of hypothermia.

Oliebollen stall De Wit Gebak from Eindhoven caused a social media commotion by posting a photo of a toddler and his father on its Facebook page, describing them as "Zwarte Piet". The owner, Piet de Wit, apologized and said they meant no harm. "I would like to get in touch with that man in the photo, to apologize", he said to Omroep Brabant.

A man arrested at Eindhoven train station on Thursday night is a 24-year-old resident of Dordrecht. He is suspected of involvement in a shooting in his hometown, in which a 17-year-old boy was seriously injured on October 18th, Eindhovens Dagblad reports. 

The government can solve the nitrogen emission problem by making public transit a more attractive option with a massive investment, according to NS and ProRail. The rail manager and -company propose that the government invest over 20.6 billion euros in the railways until 2040, for dozens of improvements, AD reports.

The organizations want to shorten the travel time from Leeuwarden and Groningen to the Randstad by making adjustments to the Hanze line, for example. Train journeys from Twente, Nijmegen and Vlissingen can also be up to 30 minutes faster with specific adjustments

From next year Eindhoven will follow the line of the Sinterklaasjournaal and drop blackface Zwarte Pieten from its arrival party, the municipality and Stichting Sint-Nicolaas, the foundation responsible for organizing the Sinterklaas arrival party, announced on Monday. But this year there will still be blackface Zwarte Pieten among the crowd of other-color Pieten at the party, Eindhovens Dagblad reports.

Action group Kick Out Zwarte Piet is planning to protest in twelve different cities in November against the use of blackface makeup and costuming often adorned by white actors portraying Sinterklaas's helper. The activists consider Zwarte Piet in his traditional form a racist stereotype. On Thursday there were protests in Apeldoorn and Deventer calling for Zwarte Piet to remain in the blackface costume seen mainly over the last hundred years, and which some say is adhering to Dutch tradition.

The police arrested a 22-year-old man from Eindhoven in connection with multiple cases of grave robbing and -desecration at cemeteries in the Eindhoven and Veldhoven region. During searches performed as part of the investigation, the police found ash remain likely stolen from crematoriums and cemeteries. "Detectives are making every effort to determine who these remains are from", the police said in a statement on Wednesday.