Noord-Brabant

Six poultry farmers were sentenced to prison and community service for committing fraud with their poultry rights. They kept more poultry and produced more manure than they had permits for. They must also pay the illegal profits they made back to the State, totaling in an amount of 860 thousand euros, NOS reports.

According to the judge, the farmers all violated the Fertilizers Act, which is intended to reduce the surplus manure and livestock containment in order to protect the environment. By doing so they created unfair competition. 

A residential farm in Riethoven, Noord-Brabant, burned to the ground on Sunday morning. One of the residents fell unconscious in the burning home and was rescued by two neighbors - a pig farmer and a woman walking her dog, RTL Nieuws reports.

"My husband went to feed the pigs at 6:00 a.m.", the pig farmer's wife said to RTL. "He saw a lot of smoke and first thought that his own company was on fire. Then he saw a red glow on the other side of the street and quickly ran towards it."

A man fell into a wood chipper in Dongen, Noord-Brabant on Thursday morning. The machine was not turned on and the man survived, though he was injured. He is still in the wood chipper, NU.nl reports.

The incident happened at around 9:50 a.m. at a pallet company on Industriestraat. The wood chipper is located at a height in a type of silo, a spokesperson for the police said to the newspaper.

A very large fire broke out at TUF Recycling in Dongen, Noord-Brabant, on Thursday evening. The fire was under control by 10:45 p.m., but actually extinguishing it will take days. Toxic substances were released in the fire, and local residents received an NL Alert advising them to stay out of the smoke, NU.nl reports.

The company that produces Stint cargo vehicles announced it plans to inspect all 3,500 units currently on roadways after a fatal accident last week left four children dead. The accident took place in Oss, when a Stint belonging to a daycare operator crossed onto railroad tracks and was struck by an oncoming train.

A fifth child and the adult operator of the vehicle were hospitalized with serious injuries.

An increasing number of cranes are nesting and breeding in the Netherlands, according to bird protection organization Vogelbescherming. This year a record number of 32 breeding pairs were counted, 10 more than last year and four times as many as in 2014.

Most cranes were spotted in Drenthe and Friesland as in previous years. But this year cranes were also found breeding in Noord-Brabant and Limburg for the first time. Twelve of the 32 breeding pairs actually hatched chicks.

An elderly couple died at camping site De Achterste Hoef in the Noord-Brabant town of Bladel during the early hours of Sunday morning. A fire had broken out in their caravan, De Stentor reports.

The victims' identity still has to be officially determined. But based on the campsite's register and the license plate of the caravan, the police know which campsite guests were involved. The victims are a 77-year-old man and his 70-year-old wife from Apeldoorn. They've been coming to the campsite for 15 years, according to the newspaper.

Two boys, age 10 and 11 years, went missing in Oisterwijk on Tuesday evening. "These boys have still not been found and we are very concerned", the police said on Twitter.

The boys' descriptions were spread on citizen notification system Burgernet. They're both white with blond hair. One was wearing a t-shirt with shorts and slippers. The other wore a black track suit with black Nike shoes. 

The police arrested a second suspect in the murder of Daan Hoefs in Schijndel in April. The 63-year-old man from Schijndel was arrested in Grave on Monday. He is the father of a 29-year-old man arrested two days after the fatal shooting, Omroep Brabant reports.

After weeks of drought, parts of Zuid- and Midden-Nederland were hit by a rain storm on Thursday evening. One person was killed and one injured in Rotterdam when a tree fell on their car. In Gelderland thousands of homes were without power for a few hours. And Roosendaal was hit by a whirlwind, NOS and AD report.

Meteorological institute KNMI issued a code yellow warning for Noord-Brabant, Zuid-Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland and Utrecht on Thursday night. The service predicted thunderstorms, with gusts up to 70 kilometers per hour and hailstones up to 2 centimeters.

A cyclist was found seriously hurt on Hallenstraat in Bladel at around 1:00 a.m. on Monday morning. The police believe the cyclist was injured in a hit-and-run accident, ANP reports.

According to Omroep Brabant, the cyclist was unconscious when  security guard at a nearby company found him.

So far nothing is known about the victim's identity. The police call on witnesses to come forward.