The police seized around 400 kilograms of "heavy" fireworks during raids at two homes on Ambonstraat in Meppel on Thursday. The fireworks were confiscated and will be destroyed after investigation. Suspects are being questioned, the Meppel police said on Twitter.
A spokesperson for the police called the find "not something you see everyday", speaking to newspaper De Stentor. He could not say more about the find because he is not a fireworks expert, he said.
A large fire is raging at recycling company Talen Afvalrecycling in Meppel on Thursday morning. The residents of 10 nearby houseboats were evacuated and are currently accommodated in the fire station, NOS reports.
Firefighters are having great difficulty extinguishing the fire, which is raging in several piles of waste, including a pile of wood. The fire brigade is currently trying to isolate the fire in the wood pile so that it can burn out in a controlled manner and not spread any further, a spokesperson for local safety office Veilgheidsregio Drenthe said to NOS.
D66 councilor in Meppel Anne Lok resigned from the city council and left the party over a relationship she had with D66 leader Alexander Pechtold. In her resignation letter she made strong accusations against Pechtold, including of abuse of power and misconduct, AD reports.
"As you undoubtedly know from the popular weekly magazines, I had an affective relationship with the leader of my party, Alexander Pechtold. You will also have learned that this relationship ended in a very painful way for me", Lok wrote in her resignation letter, according to the newspaper.
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.
A detainee set a matrass on fire in his cell at a police station in Meppel on Thursday afternoon. The smoke set off the fire alarm and police officers had to leave the station on Eendrachtsraat. When the fire brigade arrived, the fire was already extinguished, Dagblad van het Noorden reports.
The fire starter was arrested earlier on Thursday for theft. According to the police, he was searched multiple times before being put in the cell, but still managed to smuggle a lighter in by hiding it in one of his body cavities. The suspect was transferred to the detention center in Assen.
Piet Hein van T., a 66-year-old child psychiatrist from the Friesland village of Makkinga, was caught having sex with a 15-year-old boy in a guesthouse in Katmandu, Nepal on Thursday. He was arrested with five others in a large action against child sex tourism, AD reports.
The PvdA faction in Meppel posted an advertisement in the Meppeler Courant on Tuesday, to announce the start of the faction's campaign for the municipal election in March. But in an unfortunate blunder, the wrong logo was used in the ad. Instead of the normal PvdA logo of a flower with a fist in its middle, the hand in this logo has its middle finger raised on high.
A heavily explosive firework caused the death of a 39-year-old man in Swifterbant, Flevoland on Saturday afternoon. Police suspect, but have not confirmed, that the explosive was illegal, a representative told newswire ANP.
The man was killed in front of at least one of his children, a teenaged neighbor, Damian, told De Telegraaf. "At first I thought he was unconscious, but that was not the case," he said, calling the victim "Jaap".
As the Netherlands' Sinterklaas celebrations approaches, municipalities are starting to reveal their plans on how they're dealing with controversial character Zwarte Piet. Most of the municipalities are sticking to blackface or dark brown makeup, according to AD's Piet Atlas. Amsterdam and The Hague will have no blackface Piets, with Amsterdam also designing a completely new costume. Utrecht plans mostly Chimney Piets - with faces covered in soot marks - and a few traditional blackface Piets. Rotterdam is keeping its plans secret until the day before the celebration.
A 23-year-old man from Almere and a 35-year-old woman from Drachten were arrested in Meppel on Sunday afternoon for assaulting a train conductor and a police officer, the Telegraaf reports.
During a ticket check on the train, the conductor found that the man was not traveling with a valid transport ticket - he had someone else's ticket and had scratched off the picture. And the woman had not checked in at the station. The man insulted and assaulted the conductor.
The police will not launch a new investigation into the death of Johan de Lange from Meppel. The 54-year-old man died in hospital three days after a firework exploded in his face over New Year's. According to the police, interviews with witnesses showed that De Lange lit the firework himself and was careless, AD reports.
De Lange sustained a head injury when a firework he lit himself exploded near his face. It seems that he lit the firework, stepped back and then went closer again when the firework did not go off. It exploded in his face. He died in hospital 3.5 days later.
A major Christmas celebration of eight schools was canceled in Meppel, Drenthe on Thursday. An attack on the Christmas market in Berlin on Monday played a big role in the decision to cancel the event, school director Herman Langhorst said to De Stentor. The organizers fear that panic would have overrun the visitors.
The icy weather in the northern parts of the Netherlands is taking its toll on the residents. Emergency rooms are working on overdrive to deal with injuries caused by slippery roads and sidewalks, mostly involving broken bones and bruises
Protest group Kick Out Zwarte Piet is pressing charges against people who left racist comments on a photo the group posted on Facebook.
Sinterklaas officially arrived in the Netherlands on Saturday, accompanied by his controversial helper, Zwarte Piet. Though the assistants are mythologized as having dark smudges caused by soot, the character more closely resembles minstrels in blackface with nappy-haired wigs, large hoop earrings, big red lips and a buffoonish demeanour.
Meppel has treated the tower of the city's Middle Ages church with a special coating that does not absorb liquids, but instead splashes it away. This is done in an effort to combat public urinators. "This coating, Peeback Mineral, is completely water based and works in a way that ensures that public urinators are left with wet trousers and wet shoes", Eduard Annen of council party Sterk Meppel explained
Sinterklaas will be accompanied by more so-called Chimney Pieten and fewer traditional Zwarte Pieten at his national arrival in Meppel this year. More of Sinterklaas' helpers will be marked with ash and soot marks on their faces, instead of the traditional black-face makeup. The cities of Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Maastricht will be following the same trend in the coming years.
In the run-up to the national arrival celebration of Sinterklaas, held this year in Meppel, Drenthe, local mayor Jan Westmaas says he wants to enter into a dialogue with opponents of Zwarte Piet and its blackface look, as well as traditionalists who want to keep the character as is. This year's arrival is scheduled for November 14, but a representative from the municipality would not comment on the image of Zwarte Piet that will be used in this years’ celebrations, reported Nu.nl.
Zwarte Piet is likely to remain a big part of the annual winter Sinterklaas celebrations outside of the Randstad region covering Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Den Haag, the Volkskrant reported on Thursday. Cities like Assen, Groningen, Helmond, Leeuwarden and Maastricht have not yet come to a decision regarding the debated image of Zwarte Piet.
Anti-Zwarte Piet groups are planning protests and demonstrations at the national entry of Sinterklaas on November 14th in Meppel.
The steamboat carrying Sinterklaas and his helpers will be arriving in Meppel, Drenthe on November 14th this year. All children from Meppel and surroundings are invited to come welcome the Saint.
A body was found in a burning car on Reestlaan in Meppel this morning, the police in Drenthe reports on Twitter. The car was standing in a hedge with its engine running.
In Meppel, a chihuahua has lost its life in a very unusual way. The little dog was hit by a baseball. The probability of the animal dying in this way is very small, but it has happened. RTL Nieuws reports.
Family members of the fugitive criminal twosome Antonio Marcos van der Ploeg (26) and Enise Merve Bircan (19) are urging them to turn themselves in "before more accidents happen."
