Noord-Brabant

Dutch national railway NS will run a reduced schedule on Wednesday morning with forecasted snow expected to fall across much of the country. Up to 3 centimeters of snow is expected across much of the Netherlands.

The limited train schedule is in place so the NS can quickly respond to problems, and provide more accurate travel information, the railway said. Passengers can expect longer travel times and more crowded trains.

Around 100 young people turned on the police on the Markt in Boxtel, Noord-Brabant early on Sunday morning. Police officers were attacked and pelted with fireworks, cans and food. The police are investigating and call on witnesses to come forward.

A toddler and a teenager were injured in a Monday afternoon shooting in the Noord-Brabant city of Helmond. The girls, 2 and 15, were struck by stray bullets, police said, and one person was taken into custody.

The toddler was sitting on the back of her mother's bicycle when at least one shooter fired at a car on the Molenstraat at about 3:22 p.m. The little girl was struck in the leg, and the teenager was hit in the arm.

The rear window of the targeted car was shattered, and the occupants of the vehicle took off running. Police said they are searching for those people.

Groups from the Noord-Brabant criminal underworld threatened to murder a police officer from the Zeeland-West-Brabant unit. The threatened cop is active in the fight against drug crime in Noord-Brabant, a spokesperson for the police confirmed to NU.nl.

The police did not say exactly what function the threaten cop holds. The 3,500 employees of the unit were informed about the threat on Wednesday. The police are investigating.

To make it clear that the police are aware of threat, discussions were held wit the criminal gangs in the area on Wednesday. No one was arrested. 

Drivers in the Netherlands were neither imagining things nor embellishing in 2018 when they complained about travel times. Dutch highways were far more clogged in 2018 than a year earlier, with traffic jams up nearly 20 percent.

The heavy traffic had an impact on rush hour, but also outside of the daily busy periods, travellers association ANWB revealed on Thursday. The organization made their calculations based on both the frequency and duration of traffic jams.

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.