R | 2h 14m | Comedy, Farce, Drama | October 7, 2022 “A lot of this actually happened.” So opens the elaborate screwball mystery “Amsterdam,” from  director David O. Russell who brought us “American Hustle,” “The Fighter,” and “Silver Linings Playbook.” Which is to say, it’s an overlong but also sometimes hilariously quirky riff on 1933’s little-known “White…

Welcome to a super special episode of Facts Matter from the Netherlands! We are in Amsterdam, covering the farmers’ protests that have sprung up across the entire country, with the farmers fighting back against parliamentary regulations, which were essentially kneecapping a lot of them. They told me that between 30 percent to 50 percent of…

AMSTERDAM—The man who held a customer hostage at gunpoint at an Amsterdam Apple store has died of the injuries he sustained during his arrest, public prosecutors said on Wednesday. Police stopped the man, identified as a 27-year-old from Amsterdam, by running into him forcefully with a car as he chased after his hostage when the…

AMSTERDAM—A gunman who held a hostage for hours in the Apple Store in Amsterdam demanded a ransom of 200 million euros (more than $226 million) in cryptocurrencies before he was run over by police as he chased his hostage out of the shop, police and prosecutors said Wednesday. The tense, five-hour standoff paralyzed one of…

AMSTERDAM—An hours-long hostage standoff at the Apple Store in Amsterdam ended late Tuesday with police in a car driving into the hostage taker as he ran from the store. His hostage was safe, police said. “We can confirm that the hostage taker is out of the Apple Store,” police said in a tweet. “He is…

AMSTERDAM—The Dutch antitrust watchdog fined Apple 5 million euros ($5.7 million) on Monday, the fifth such penalty in successive weeks in a row over access to non-Apple payment methods for subscriptions to dating apps. The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) says the iPhone maker is abusing a dominant market position by failing to allow…

AMSTERDAM—The owner of WeTransfer, which offers file sharing and collaboration tools said on Wednesday the company will seek an initial public offering of shares and listing on Amsterdam’s Euronext stock exchange. The Amsterdam-based company, soon to be renamed “The Creative Productivity Group NV” said its offer, for which a date has not yet been set,…

AMSTERDAM—The Dutch government said on Thursday it would take strong measures to curb COVID-19 infections as hospitals scaled back other care to make way for COVID-19 patients. About 85 percent of the adult Dutch population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but the Netherlands has averaged more than 20,000 new cases daily for the past…

AMSTERDAM—A monument listing 102,163 Dutch victims of the Holocaust was unveiled by King Willem-Alexander in Amsterdam on Sunday, the first national memorial to be built in the Netherlands. The monument, designed by Daniel Libeskind, 75, who lost relatives in the Holocaust, lies in the center of the Dutch capital and is a labyrinth of brick…

AMSTERDAM—Celebrity Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, known for his work in exposing the criminal underworld, was fighting for his life after being shot on an Amsterdam street, officials said on Tuesday. Three suspects were detained, including the possible shooter, police said. They declined to provide any details. “He was seriously wounded and is…