Van den Dungen benadrukt dat de staking niet plotseling komt. "We onderhandelen al sinds januari over een nieuwe cao. In ronde negen hoorden we wat we in ronde twee ook al hoorden. Onze leden zijn er klaar mee: meer dan 90 procent stemde voor actie." De inzet draait om hogere lonen en verlichting van een zwaar werkleven."Het ziekteverzuim stijgt, collega's haken af - het spoor wordt steeds onbetrouwbaarder." Volgens Van den Dungen is de staking geen doel op zich, maar een middel. "We doen dit óó...

One morning, Regina van Vuuren woke up from a vivid dream. She had let out one of her cats the previous evening and now, in her dream, it drank water at the riverside and she saw it fall in the water, disappearing under the surface. Sure enough, the cat did not return the following day, nor the days after that. Two weeks after she had the dream, her neighbors told her the cat was found beneath the ice of the frozen river, drowned.


“I’m terrified of losing cats ever since, the sorrow is just t...

Ryan McClellan was driving from New York to his home in Niles, Ohio approximately 33 miles away from the derailment site when he noticed something ominous.


“The sky became pitch black during my drive home… oddly black,” he said.


On the evening of February 3rd, 51 cars of a 151-car Norfolk Southern (NS) train derailed on the east side of East Palestine. 11 of these derailed cars were carrying hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, benzene residue, and butyl acrylate; but residents w...

Last Saturday hundreds of climate activists associated with Extinction Rebellion were arrested by Dutch police following their blockade of the A12 motorway. However, the motorway blockades perpetrated by farmers see close to zero arrests – and if arrests do take place, this often happens after the protests have already ended.


On Saturday more than 1200 activists took to the streets in The Hague and blocked off the A12 motorway. “Extinction Rebellion demands an immediate end to the annual 17.5...

The ‘city balcony’ (stadsbalkon) at Groningen’s central railway station has been seen as an eyesore by the city’s residents, but they’ll be happy to know that the municipality has agreed to transform this architectural monstrosity into a pleasant and attractive part of the city.


According to the city council a welcoming and attractive green north square is needed in front of the railway station, and the ‘city balcony’ is anything but attractive so it needs to go. “It looks like a Tobruk bunke...

In recent years the stigma surrounding men’s mental health has gone down, despite that men in the Netherlands – and most other countries – commit suicide twice as much as women do. In Groningen local initiatives such as All Ears and IkBenDepressief wish to make it easier for men to talk about their problems.


“I notice it’s not as much of a taboo nowadays when I talk about it. Whenever I go out and talk to people I sometimes mention I still struggle with depression, and that helps,” said Louis...