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The authorities arrested a man on Curacao on Monday on suspicion of playing a leading role in a criminal organization that was behind the assassination of crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced. He will be flown to the Netherlands on a private flight.

Sources told NOS that the suspect is 39-year-old Raily B., who has been imprisoned in Curacao since 2014. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for involvement in a 2014 shooting at Curacao’s Hato airport, in which two men died and seven bystanders were injured. They were riddled with bullets from automatic guns at the exit of the arrivals hall.

B. drove the getaway car for the two gunmen. They were all members of the notorious No Limit Soldiers gang, according to the broadcaster. The shooting was a settling of scores by a rival drug gang.

In the De Vries case, the OM suspects B. of directing the perpetrators of the assassination by phone from his cell. The man was born in Curacao and has Dutch nationality.

Crime writer Peter R. de Vries was gunned down on 6 July 2021 on Lange Leidsedwarsstraat in the center of Amsterdam after appearing on RTL Boulevard. He succumbed to his injuries in the hospital nine days later.

In June last year, the court sentenced the two perpetrators of the murder, gunman Delano G. and getaway driver Kamil E., to 28 years in prison. Krystian M., who organized the murder, was sentenced to 26 years and one month in prison. A fourth suspect got 14 years for supplying the weapons. Two men who stood lookout and filmed De Vries as he lay critically injured on the street got 10 years. Three other suspects were acquitted. An appeal is ongoing in all nine cases.

According to the OM, the investigation into the people who ordered De Vries’s murder has continued even after the convictions. “In this investigation into the higher echelon, the man in Curacao has emerged as a suspect,” the OM said on Monday.

The OM is convinced De Vries was murdered because he acted as a confidant of the key witness in the Marengo trial against Ridouan Taghi and his gang. Key witness Nabil B.’s brother and lawyer were previously assassinated. Taghi denied the accusation and was not a suspect in the De Vries case, but he was sentenced to life in prison earlier in 2024 in the Marengo case.

The number of homes in the Netherlands worth more than a million euros has increased explosively in the past few years. Last year, there were a record 223,000 million-euro homes in the country, an increase of 13.5 percent compared to a year ago and a massive 243 percent more than in 2020, according to data agency Calcasa’s annual review. These expensive homes are increasingly apartments and terraced houses.

The average value of a million-euro home is 1.35 million euros - also a record. “It once again shows how things are now on the housing market,” Lennart Rhee of Calcasa told AD. “Many homes of people who have been active in the housing market for a long time have experienced the enormous price development of the past few years. Their current home has become a million-euro home, or they have profited from the surplus value. For first-time buyers, it has become a lot more difficult.”

Because million-euro homes are by no means only freestanding villas any longer. “Nowadays, you also see apartments and simple terraced houses that are worth more than a million. We really couldn’t have imagined that five to ten years ago,” Rhee said.

Amsterdam currently counts no fewer than 23,000 million-euro homes. Only 6 percent are detached houses. 70 percent are apartments. “These won’t all be penthouses,” Rhee told the newspaper. “And they won’t all be located at Vondlepark.”

Detached houses are still the most common type of million-euro homes in 95 percent of Dutch municipalities. But the Calcasa figures show that the bar for hitting the million-euro mark is getting lower and lower. In The Hague, Utrecht, Amstelveen, Haarlem, Leiden, Delft, and Rijswijk, terraced houses are the most common type of million-euro home. The number of semi-detached houses and corner homes is also rapidly increasing in the million-euro list.

Entrepreneurs no longer have to charge a surcharge if they give their customers disposable plastic cups for on-the-go. The government is scrapping this rule at parliament’s request, State Secretary Chris Jansen (Environment, PVV) said in a letter to the Tweede Kamer. He wants the new rules to take effect next year.

The rules apply to all disposable cups and containers that contain plastic. Coffee shops that, for example, give paper cups with a layer of plastic for takeaway must currently charge an extra amount. They can decide for themselves how high that amount is, and they keep that money themselves.

After a similar request in 2023, the then-government already asked the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate not to enforce this rule. The final choice was left up to the new government. Jansen announced last autumn that he would adjust the surcharge slightly, but is now scraping it all together after a new motion by VVD MP Martijn Buijsse, among others.

Jansen has not yet responded to another request from Buijsse. In March, a majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, supported a request to allow disposable cups with a plastic layer also when people drink their drinks at the coffee shop or restaurant. The motion attaches conditions to this. That is not enforceable, Jansen said at the time. He is considering how to deal with this motion.

The Tweede Kamer also asked Jansen to refrain from banning wet wipes containing plastic. There was no national ban on this product. At a European level, Jansen is now focusing on “additional measures” instead of a ban.

The State Secretary reiterated that blockages caused by wet wipes in the sewage system could cost 22 to 26 million euros annually. “It is also technically possible to produce wet wipes without plastic.”

Riot police were deployed Monday after dozens of pro-Palestinian activists broke into and occupied the Maagdenhuis, the administrative headquarters of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), RTL reports. Tensions escalated as riot officers moved in to control crowds and prevent further disruption.

According to the university, approximately 50 masked individuals forced their way into the Maagdenhuis, blocking entrances and barricading emergency exits. The protesters are demanding that the UvA sever all ties with Israeli universities and pledge not to form new partnerships with Israeli institutions.

Outside the building, around 100 supporters gathered on the Spui, the square in front of the Maagdenhuis. Clashes broke out between demonstrators and police in the afternoon. Riot police took up positions on the square and held a perimeter to keep protesters at a distance from the occupied building. A unit specializing in arrests was stationed near the main entrance, with demonstrators continuing to vocalize their support from behind a police cordon.

A group of about 20 protesters exited through a side door of the Maagdenhuis, only to be quickly surrounded by police, an ANP reporter observed. The protesters had made their way outside via an emergency exit on Handboogstraat, shortly after riot police entered through a door beneath the main entrance. Police had a key to that door.

In addition to the clashes, Palestinian flags were raised on the roof of the Maagdenhuis and above the main entrance. The protesters removed other banners inside the building.

“The UvA has now filed a formal complaint and has ordered the demonstrators to vacate,” said a spokesperson for Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. “If they do not comply, police will proceed with eviction.” The spokesperson added that riot police were deployed due to damage to the property and public safety concerns.

“There has been destruction of property,” the mayor’s spokesperson said. “Offices have been broken into, surveillance cameras disabled, and emergency doors barricaded.”

The university said the identities of the intruders are unknown. “They are completely masked, wearing scarves, face masks, and sunglasses. We have no idea who they are,” a UvA spokesperson said. University staff working in the building were evacuated earlier in the day.

Since 2004, there have been at least 85 sperm donors who have conceived more than 25 children in the Netherlands. This figure comes from the professional association of gynecologists NVOG, which has been working on a retroactive national register for sperm donors since the Donor Data (Artificial Insemination) Act was tightened on April 1, Nieuwsuur reports.

Before, donor data was registered per clinic. Now the data will be included in a national registry dating back to 2004 - the year when the Netherlands banned anonymous sperm donation.

“We now know for the first time the number of offspring per donor in the Netherlands,” gynaecologist Marieke Schoonenberg told Nieuwsuur on behalf of the NVOG. There are at least 85 mass donors active in the Netherlands. Most of them have conceived “26 to 40 children” with “a few outliers of up to 50 or even 75 children per donor,” she said.

A sperm donor is considered a mass donor if he has more than 25 offspring. Until 2018, that was the maximum number of children allowed per donor according to the NVOG guideline. In 2018, the guideline was adjusted to a maximum of 12 families per donor.

The national register shows that fertility clinics have not adhered to these agreements. Donors could donate at multiple clinics without setting off alarms anywhere in the registration system. Some clinics deliberately used the same donor more than 25 times, without the consent of the donor and the mothers involved. And clinics exchanged donor sperm among themselves without the donor’s knowledge and without clear registration.

The NVOG urges mothers, children conceived through sperm donation, and sperm donors to contact the fertility clinic they worked with if they have concerns or want more information. “The number of mass donors in the clinics should have been zero,” Schoonbergen said. “We want to offer our apologies on behalf of the professional group. We did not do this right.”

Ties van der Meer of Stichting Donorkind, the foundation that fights for the interests of children conceived through sperm donation, was shocked by the number of mass donors. “That quickly amounts to 3,000 children involved, with over 25 half-brothers and half-sisters,” he told the current affairs program. He called the fertility doctors’ actions unbelievable, saying they damaged trust in the medical system and the government that allowed it to happen.

Van der Meer also expects more stress and problems for donor children in daily life. “The donor children involved can never date carefree. If they get into a relationship, they will always have to do a DNA test first to rule out that they are involved with a family member,” he said. Many will also have to maintain contact with many more half-siblings than expected. Van der Meer spoke of “a medical calamity.”

The government tightened the law for sperm donors after several cases involving fertility doctors using their own sperm. Doctors like Jan Wildschut and Jan Karbaat fathered dozens of children with their own sperm in the 1980s and 1990s.

More recently, multiple cases of traveling mass donors with over 100 offspring, such as Ed Houben and Johathan Meijer, have also made headlines.

From today, the daytime speed limit on the Afsluitdijk is again 130 kilometers per hour. During the week, the speed limit will also be increased back to 130 km/h on the A7 between Winschoten and the German border and the A6 between Lelystad-Noord and the Ketelbrug, Infrastructure Minister Barry Madlener announced on Monday, RTL Nieuws reported.

Increasing the speed limit back to 130 kilometers per hour is one of the first plans the Schoof I coalition announced. The PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB included the plan in their coalition agreement. But it quickly proved more complicated than anticipated due to the noise and nitrogen pollution.

Madlener eventually had to admit that the speed limit increase would only happen on a “limited number of routes” and for “a limited distance” outside the Randstad. In October, the Minister announced four routes where the speed limit could increase, covering only 117 kilometers of the Netherlands’ total 4,884 kilometers of highway.

It involved the A7 Afsluitdijk between Stevinsluizen and Lorentzsluizen in both directions (44 km), the A7 between the Winschoten junction and the German border (24 km), the A6 between Lelystad-Noord and Ketelburg (18 km), and the A37 between the Holssloot junction and the Zwartemeer junction (31 km).

The first three routes got the all-clear late last year. According to Madlener, the fourth announced route has also been cleared for increasing the speed limit. This will happen later this year.