Leiden

A lack of available primary school teachers forced the Rudolf Steinerschool in Haarlem to put an early end to its Group 7 class on Thursday. The students from the Waldorf-style education program will be redistributed among similar schools in Haarlem, Hillegom, and Hoofddorp, up to 15 kilometers away.

"We've searched all over the country," said Lida Berkhout, the school's deputy director. "From Groningen to Brabant," she told the Volkskrant. 

A Hague dog decided to scare his owner and go on a little adventure on Tuesday. The not-so-good boy went missing from The Hague on Tuesday afternoon, and was later found riding in the first class compartment of the train to Leiden Central Station, the Leiden Noord police said on Facebook.

On Tuesday afternoon the police in The Hague received a report of the missing pet. The dog was last seen near the train on the station. His owner had no idea where the dog wandered off to.

Rail manager ProRail will be working on the railways around Schiphol airport over the coming days, which means less train traffic to and from the airport. The rail works will take four days, starting on Thursday. On Thursday and Friday, trains from Amsterdam will still be able to reach the airport. But over the weekend there will be no train traffic to Schiphol. NS will deploy buses to replace the trains, NU.nl reports.

Later this month NS will launch an experiment in which travelers can pay for their trip with their bank card, instead of a separate public transit card. The experiment will last six months and will take place on the Den Haag-Leiden route. The Dutch rail company is currently looking for a thousand participants, AD reports.

"Traveling with a bank card or credit card is a logical choice", NS spokesperson Hessel Koster said to AD. "It is already in the wallet, travelers do not have to acquire a separate public transport card and do not need to have a balance on it in advance."

ProRail will be carrying out work around Schiphol this weekend. As a result, no trains will be running on the route between Schiphol Airport and Leiden from Friday to Sunday. On Saturday the airport will be completely inaccessible by train, ANP reports.

On Saturday no trains will run between Amsterdam Sloterdijk and Schiphol, Amsterdam Zuid and Schiphol, and Schiphol and Leiden. The Intercity direct between Amsterdam Central Station and Rotterdam will also be down over the weekend.

A collision between a train and a person resulted far fewer trains running to and from Schiphol airport on Friday morning. Travelers should take considerable delays into account, a spokesperson for rail company NS said to NU.nl.

"There are problems especially from the south towards Schiphol", the spokesperson said. "There are far fewer trains from the direction of Rotterdam."

Passengers departing from Amsterdam, The Hague, Leiden and Zaandam can also take delays into account. The problems are expected to persist until at least 9:30 a.m., according to the NS site. 

A large shipment of stem cells will be slowly and carefully transported from Leiden to Amsterdam, under police escort, on Wednesday. This is expected to cause some inconvenience for motorists on the A4 highway, where at least one lane will be closed, a spokesperson for blood bank Sanquin told NU.nl.

The transport will start around noon, the spokesperson said.

Twelve Dutch municipalities teamed up with nature organization IVN to plant tiny forests in their towns or cities this autumn. According to IVN, tiny forests make urban areas greener, and contribute to biodiversity and water storage during heavy rainfall, NOS reports.

Feminist action group De Bovengrondse changed dozens of street names across the Netherlands on Tuesday in a protest for more female representation on Dutch streets. Armed with homemade street signs, members of De Bovengrondse changed street names to famous women including Mies Bouwman, Beyonce, Mien van Bree and Suze Groeneweg, NOS reports.

A bottle of deadly poison was stolen from the Boerhaave museum on Raamsteeg in Leiden during the early hours of Wednesday morning. The police are urgently looking for the poison, Curare, but urge anyone who finds it not to touch it.

The poison was in a safe that was stolen from the museum. According to Omroep West, it is a small glass bottle with a red lid. Inside is a small black cube, a bit smaller than a sugar cube. The bottle has an old looking label that reads Curare.

A 4-year-old boy came home from primary school De Meerpaal in Leiden on Monday with his face covered in bruises. His father Stephan de Wolff posted a photo of the boy's injuries on Facebook, with a call for help and to bring the issue of bullying under national attention. The post was shared nearly 40 thousand times.