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48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in 2021. (The U.S. population is about 20 times that of the Netherlands; U.S. gun homicides are more than 1,777 times the number in the Netherlands.)

“Since 2014, 23 prisons have been shut, turning into temporary asylum centres, housing and hotels. … The number of prison sentences imposed fell from 42,000 in 2008 to 31,000 in 2018 — along with a two-thirds drop in jail terms for young offenders

Registered crimes plummeted by 40% in the same period, to 785,000 in 2018.”

in the United States, “Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of over 350,000 people

possession arrests each year, many of which lead to prison sentences.”

the United States has 163 times the number of incarcerated people as the Netherlands, more than eight times as many per 100,000 people.

“The United States spends nearly $300 billion annually to police communities and incarcerate 2.2 million people.”

“The societal costs of incarceration — lost earnings, adverse health effects, and the damage to the families of the incarcerated — are estimated at up to three times the direct costs, bringing the total burden of our criminal justice system to $1.2 trillion.”

These two very different systems didn’t just happen. Each country made choices.

In real terms, the U.S. criminal justice system and ubiquitous guns require an industry — ambulances, emergency room personnel, police, courts, judges, prisons, lawyers, private security and more — that the Dutch system does not

As I walked down the streets of Amsterdam, I imagined what we could have bought with the money we spend on the criminal justice system: universal college education, universal medical care, a strong social safety net.

The human cost of crime in America — a family driven into poverty because a breadwinner is murdered, a child permanently disabled from a gunshot, children terrorized in schools — is astronomically higher than in the Netherlands.

there is the opportunity cost in the United States — the murdered child who doesn’t grow up to invent the next cancer cure, the school that is forced to use resources on lockdown drills and grief counselors rather than reading teachers

We are very good at feeding a criminal justice system; we’re not so adept at eliminating crime

Understand, then, that we have our current criminal justice system because we have fetishized guns, criminalized addiction, neglected mental and emotional health, and resisted addressing social factors driving crime.

We could do it differently. We simply don’t want to

“Calvin teaches that you’re given stewardship over your money, that you have a responsibility to take care of it, which means giving lots of it away, being generous to others,”

“Work is a divine calling for which you will be held accountable. It’s considered bad for society and bad for your soul if you spend in ostentatious ways.”

“He doesn’t pay his taxes,” is a common refrain in this city, and it doesn’t mean that Mr. Bezos is considered a tax cheat. It means that he isn’t fighting inequality by sharing his money, an obligation that transcends the tax code.

An ethos endures that nobody is any better than anyone else, or deserves more, and it stems from an unignorable geographic fact. Roughly one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level and citizens for centuries have had little choice but to band together to create an infrastructure of dikes and drainage systems to remain alive.

“The Netherlands is built on cooperation,” said Paul van de Laar, a professor of history at Erasmus University. “There were constant threats of disaster from the 15th and 16th century. Protestants and Catholics knew that to survive, they could not quarrel too much.”

Chip in. Blend in. Help others. These are among the highest ideals of the Netherlands

The Dutch once ran one of the world’s largest empires but there’s a certain pride here that the prime minister of the country rides a bicycle to pay visits to the king — yes, the Netherlands has a royal family, which is also relatively low-key — and locks the bicycle outside the palace.

At the time, it was said in the Netherlands that putting both butter and cheese on your bread was “the devil’s sandwich.” Choose one, went the thinking. You don’t need both.

explaining the anger that Mr. Bezos and Oceanco, the maker of the three-masted, $500 million schooner, inspired after making what may have sounded like a fairly benign request. The company asked the local government to briefly dismantle the elevated middle span of the Hef, which is 230 feet tall at its highest point, allowing the vessel to sail down the King’s Harbor channel and out to sea.

The whole process would have taken a day or two and Oceanco would have covered the costs.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story

The bridge, a lattice of moss-green steel in the shape of a hulking “H,” is not actually used by anyone. It served as a railroad bridge for decades until it was replaced by a tunnel and decommissioned in the early 1990s. It’s been idle ever since.

In sum, the operation would have been fast, free and disrupted nothing. So why the fuss?

“What can you buy if you have unlimited cash? Can you bend every rule? Can you take apart monuments?”

“There’s a principle at stake,”

The first problem was the astounding wealth of Mr. Bezos.

“The Dutch like to say, ‘Acting normal is crazy enough,’

People who refuse to compromise and work together are “gripping the vase so tightly that it breaks”, Rutte, who has been prime minister since 2010, continued. There were examples of societies that have collectively “dropped the vase”, he said. “Look at Britain. There, the country’s politicians and people have forgotten what they have achieved together. And now they are caught up in chaos,” Rutte wrote.

Analysts have calculated a no-deal Brexit would knock 4.25% off Dutch GDP.

“If anyone in the Netherlands thinks Nexit is a good idea,” he said, “just look at England and see the enormous damage it does.”

he compared those stirring up division in the Netherlands to “screaming sideline football dads”. There were plenty in politics, he said, “shouting stuff into microphones because they know there will never be a majority for it, so they need never be responsible for the consequences”.

The paper said that based on the 70,000kg cocaine seized in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam in 2018, at least 200,000kg must have been brought successfully into the Netherlands, worth an estimated €5bn (£4.4bn)

NRC said it was doubtful whether authorities had yet fully grasped the extent of the impact of such sums on Dutch society. “Put simply,” the paper said, “that kind of money buys anything – cars and nice houses, but also contract killers and corrupt officials.”

The revolt of Catalonia gave the Portuguese their opportunity. The lower classes and the clergy had always hated the Castilians, and the Portuguese aristocracy and the commercial classes—previously content with the patronage and the economic opportunities that the union with Spain had provided—had become dissatisfied during the preceding 20 years.

From 1630, when Sweden and France actively intervened in the war, Spain rapidly lost the initiative. The war was fought on a global scale

In the autumn of 1640 Olivares scraped together the last available troops and sent them against the Catalan rebels. Claris countered by transferring Catalan allegiance to the king of France, “as in the time of Charlemagne” (January 1641). French troops now entered Catalonia, and only after French forces withdrew with the renewed outbreak of the French civil wars (the Fronde) were the Castilians able to reconquer Catalonia (1652)

The first objective led Spain to build up a naval force in the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) that preyed on Dutch shipping in the North Sea and, on the diplomatic front, to cultivate the friendship of James I of England and even to contemplate the restoration of Frederick V to the Palatinate and the marriage of Philip IV’s devoutly Roman Catholic sister to the heretic prince of Wales (later Charles I).

Rather than allow themselves to be sent to fight the Catalan rebels, the Portuguese nobility seized power in Lisbon and proclaimed the duque de Bragança as King John IV of Portugal (December 1640).

In 1643 the French king’s cousin, Louis II de Bourbon (the Great Condé), broke the Spanish tercios and their reputation for invincibility at the Battle of Rocroi in northeastern France.

When the emperor conceded French claims to Alsace and the Rhine bridgeheads, the “Spanish Road” to the Netherlands was irrevocably cut, and the close alliance between the Spanish and the Austrian branches of the house of Habsburg came to an end. With Portugal in revolt and Brazil no longer an issue between the Dutch and the Spaniards, Philip IV drew the only possible conclusion from this situation and rapidly came to terms with the United Provinces, recognizing their full independence

But Philip IV had not changed his basic policy. He wanted to have his hands free for a final effort against France, even after Catalonia had surrendered. Once again the temporary weakness of France during the Fronde confirmed the Spanish court in its disastrous military policy.

More important than these relatively minor territorial losses was the realization throughout Europe that Spain’s pretensions to hegemony had definitely and irremediably failed. The Spaniards themselves were slow to admit it. Philip IV had made concessions to France in order, once again, to have his hands free against the last unforgiven enemy, Portugal. There was no longer any rational basis for his hopes of success. All schemes for financial and tax reforms were still being blocked by vested interests, and the government again had declared bankruptcies in 1647 and 1653.

The Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) and the left bank of the Rhine had been major battlefields in the war against the coalition, and French victories in those sectors were followed by military occupation, requisitions, and taxation but also by the abolition of feudalism and similar reforms. In 1795 Belgium was annexed to France and divided into departments, which would henceforth be treated like other French départements.

Strategic considerations and French national interest were the main engines of French foreign policy in the Revolutionary decade but not the only ones. Elsewhere in Europe, native patriots invited French support against their own ruling princes or oligarchies.

abortive revolutionary movements had already occurred in the Austrian Netherlands and in the United Provinces (Dutch Netherlands). When French troops occupied their country in 1795, Dutch "Patriots" set up the Batavian Republic, the first of what became a belt of "sister republics" along France’s borders.

By 1797 Prussia and Spain had made peace with France, but Austria and Britain continued the struggle.

In the process, northern Italy was liberated from Austria, and the Habsburgs were driven to the peace table, where they signed the Treaty of Campo Formio on 26 Vendémiaire, year VI (October 17, 1797).

The treasure coming from the sister republics was desperately needed in Paris since French finances were in total disarray.

In 1797 the government finally engineered a painful return to hard currency and in effect wrote down the accumulated national debt by two-thirds of its value in exchange for guaranteeing the integrity of the remaining third.

In the Netherlands, 400 more people died in the next-to-last week of July than normally would have during a typical summer week, the country’s statistics agency said Friday

On the other side of the planet, a heat wave in Japan stretched from July 29 to Aug. 4 and killed at least 57 people, while more than 18,000 others were taken to hospitals, with 100 in serious condition

NHK reported that 45 people in Tokyo had died in a week because of the heat.

A 2008 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that extreme heat events “are the most prominent cause of weather-related human mortality in the U.S., responsible for more deaths annually than hurricanes, lightning, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes combined.”

Climate change would cause illnesses such as asthma and hay fever to become more severe, while wildfires and pollution also posed a risk to respiratory health. Rising temperatures would alter the geographic distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests, endangering new populations.

“Climate change is a public health crisis,” Vijay Limaye told The Post. “The science is really strong in telling us that with climate change accelerating, we expect heat waves to be more frequent, more intense and longer.”

“As a nation and as a globe, we are not prepared to confront an ever-mounting heat risk in terms of our health,” he said. For example, while air conditioning was known to save lives, Limaye warned that increased reliance on the technology could have a harmful long-term effect if the energy used for cooling continued to come from fossil fuels.

In the Netherlands, the PVV surged to become the largest party among 18- to 34-year-olds, winning 17% of their vote against 7% previously. In Sweden’s 2022 ballot, 22% of the 18-21 cohort voted for the far-right Sweden Democrats, against 12% in 2018.

“I am not a racist because I voted for Wilders. It frustrates me that migrants receive more help from the government than Dutch people – but I’m not against Islam; I don’t want mosques closed. I just think we need to control immigration better.”

Koen, 19, a student in Amsterdam, echoed that view. “I still live with my parents – I can’t afford a room in Amsterdam,” he said. “I have to commute every day. Wilders wants to give housing to people who are from here – I don’t think that’s strange.”

Far-right parties are not the preferred option – or even second choice – for younger voters everywhere in Europe, analysts caution. The trend appears strongest in countries such as Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark

In Spain, the ultra-conservative Vox party’s share of the under-35 vote soared from 22% in April 2019 to a record 34% that November, echoing its rollercoaster performance with the electorate as a whole. It fell back in July this year but still stands at 27%.

Issues such as housing, overcrowded classes and struggling hospitals were key to the youth vote, De Vries said. “Wilders may want ‘Dutch people first’ but he promises to fix these things,” she said. “The government parties imposed austerity.”

Zerka also identified economic insecurity as the most significant factor. “Young voters haven’t moved rightwards on migration, abortion, minority rights,” he said. “Far-right parties have convinced them that they offer a credible economic alternative.”

Other factors include some far-right parties “managing to position themselves as a ‘cool’ electoral option”, Zerka said. “They are increasingly offering younger voters equally young, often charismatic politicians – people who speak their language.”

Zerka also cites far-right parties’ social media skills: Spain’s Vox has a particularly slick operation, and Sławomir Mentzen, the 37-year-old leader of Poland’s ultra-liberal far-right Konfederacja (Confederation) party, has 800,000 followers on TikTok.

Jacob Davey, the head of policy and research at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue thinktank, identified the influence of a far- and ultra-right youth counterculture, typified by the far-right pan-European Generation Identity group, as an additional factor.

Even if “economic grievances, insecurities around housing, jobs, futures” may account for much of the youth vote, he said, “we’re seeing the growth to fruition of a concerted far- and extreme-right effort to reach and radicalise young people”.

finally, said De Vries, there was “simply, normalisation. For many of these young voters, far-right parties have been part of the political landscape their whole lives. They’ve grown up with them. There’s not the stigmatisation there once was.”

“My mother’s a nurse, and healthcare is not coping. Wilders campaigned on investing in healthcare and old people’s homes. When it comes to migration, people from a war country deserve a better life here but it shouldn’t be at the expense of Dutch people.”

the most commonly cited economic statistics — such as per capita gross domestic product — continue to show that the United States has maintained its lead as the world’s richest large country. But those numbers are averages, which do not capture the distribution of income.

Three broad factors appear to be driving much of the weak income performance in the United States. First, educational attainment in the United States has risen far more slowly than in much of the industrialized world over the last three decades, making it harder for the American economy to maintain its share of highly skilled, well-paying jobs.

technology skills that are above average relative to 55- to 65-year-olds in rest of the industrialized world

Younger Americans, though, are not keeping pace: Those between 16 and 24 rank near the bottom among rich countries, well behind their counterparts in Canada, Australia, Japan and Scandinavia

Finally, governments in Canada and Western Europe take more aggressive steps to raise the take-home pay of low- and middle-income households by redistributing income.

Whatever the causes, the stagnation of income has left many Americans dissatisfied with the state of the country. Only about 30 percent of people believe the country is headed in the right direction,

both opinion surveys and interviews suggest that the public mood in Canada and Northern Europe is less sour than in the United States today.

Elsewhere in Europe, economic growth has been slower in the last few years than in the United States, as the Continent has struggled to escape the financial crisis. But incomes for most families in Sweden and several other Northern European countries have still outpaced those in the United States, where much of the fruits of recent economic growth have flowed into corporate profits or top incomes.

Even in Germany, though, the poor have fared better than in the United States, where per capita income has declined between 2000 and 2010 at the 40th percentile, as well as at the 30th, 20th, 10th and 5th.

the poor in the United States have trailed their counterparts in at least a few other countries since the early 1980s. With slow income growth since then, the American poor now clearly trail the poor in several other rich countries. At the 20th percentile — where someone is making less than four-fifths of the population — income in both the Netherlands and Canada was 15 percent higher than income in the United States in 2010.

By contrast, Americans at the 95th percentile of the distribution — with $58,600 in after-tax per capita income, not including capital gains — still make 20 percent more than their counterparts in Canada, 26 percent more than those in Britain and 50 percent more than those in the Netherlands. For these well-off families, the United States still has easily the world’s most prosperous major economy.

Some Caribbean nations have already begun assessing the lasting damage they suffered, ranging from stunted educational and economic opportunities to dietary and health problems, Mr. Day said.

In the treaty with the Dutch, France agreed that the United Provinces should annex part of Gelderland and should retain certain barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands.

In the treaty with Prussia, France acknowledged Frederick I’s royal title (claimed in 1701) and recognized his claim to Neuchâtel (in present Switzerland) and southeast Gelderland

The question of the Spanish Succession was finally settled in favour of the Bourbon Philip V, grandson of France’s Louis XIV

Spain’s treaty with Britain (July 13) gave Gibraltar and Minorca to Britain

the Spanish treaty with Savoy was concluded, ceding the former Spanish possession of Sicily to Victor Amadeus II as his share of the spoils of war

In the treaty with Savoy, France recognized Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy, as king of Sicily and that he should rule Sicily and Nice. The treaty with Portugal recognized its sovereignty on both banks of the Amazon River.

In international politics the settlement at Utrecht established a pattern for the next 20 years.

Neither he nor his courtiers knew much about England

Charles V’s ambition and Mary’s suggestibility

Both the Ottoman threat and the schism would go (he thought) with Germany to his brother Ferdinand, but the French rivalry would remain to Spain

A marriage to the Queen of England provided the perfect solution – a powerbase in the north from which the Netherlands could be secured

Mary secured the English succession in July 1553

Throughout Edward’s reign (1547-53) she had attempted to defend her father’s religious settlement, and when her brother died young in July 1553 she was the heir by law, and a notorious religious conservative

She also owed, and willingly acknowledged, a debt of gratitude to Charles, who had defended her by diplomatic means over many years

There were only three candidates: Dom Luis of Portugal, the brother of King Juan; Edward Courtenay, son of the Marquis of Exeter (executed in 1539) and related through his mother to Edward IV; and Prince Philip

Elizabeth would never have come to the throne, the country would have remained Roman Catholic, and England would have been linked for an indefinite period with the Netherlands in a dynastic union

Although his support remained, there is no evidence that the Queen ever had any intention of marrying him

There were protests in Parliament which Mary brushed aside, and a briefly serious rebellion in Kent in January 1554, which was with some difficulty suppressed

As a result, the prince found himself with little more than the title of King of England

had no authority in England independent of the Queen, and must surrender his title if she should die childless

Their numerous titles had been officially proclaimed, and ‘King and Queen of England, France and Ireland …’ duly took precedence.

Whether by calculation or oversight, he found that he had two households, one Spanish, one English, and in spite of fair-minded attempts to divide his service between them, he was besieged with complaints on all sides

Mary’s much heralded pregnancy turned out to be an illusion

If Henry’s settlement was reversed, the whole process of dissolution could be declared invalid, and the land reclaimed by the Church, at the cost of immense disruption. Such a situation would be unacceptable to the English Parliament

Philip therefore used Habsburg clout in Rome to persuade Pope Julius III to do a deal. If he waived the Church’s claim to these lands, the King and Queen would reconcile England to his ecclesiastical authority

By the middle of January 1555, Philip had performed his first major service to the realm of England

The Queen consorts of Henry VIII had all been given generous settlements, but Philip got nothing

The Queen was sick, bewitched, even dead; there was a substitution plot in which Philip was implicated

On August 3rd the royal couple removed to Oatlands, and on the 5th, as soon as he could decently leave her, Philip departed for the Netherlands

Within a few weeks he had taken over his father’s authority in the Low Countries, and the real test of Charles’s intentions had arrived

Charles V abdicated in Brussels in September 1555, and handed over the Crowns of Spain to Philip in January 1556

There was talk of the council being divided into King’s men and Queen’s men, and the Duke of Alba urged him to get a grip on the appointments to English offices

The war with France, temporarily suspended by truce in February 1556, flared up again in the autumn, and Mary’s increasingly desperate pleas for Philip’s return were met with professions of affection, and bland excuses

Both his honour and his shortage of resources necessitated that England join him in his war against France. Mary was only too anxious to do something to gratify him that would not compromise her authority in England, so she was keen to oblige

Philip had left in July, and when in January 1558 the Queen announced that she was again pregnant, no one believed her. This was not only immensely sad, it was also a warning that there was something seriously wrong with her health, and Philip got the message. Ever since he had abandoned his campaign for a coronation in 1556, the King had had his eye upon Elizabeth

At first the King sought to neutralise Elizabeth by marriage to one of his loyal dependents, the Duke of Savoy

The princess was the heir by English law – the same law which had brought Mary to the throne – but the heir in the eyes of the Catholic church should have been Mary Stuart, the granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister, Margaret. Mary was in France and betrothed to the Dauphin, so that neither Philip nor Mary wanted her on the English throne

As her health deteriorated in the early autumn of 1558, to Mary’s intense distress, her husband concentrated on ensuring that Elizabeth’s succession would be as smooth as possible

Mary’s death was a relief to Philip. The affection in their relationship had been all on her side, and he urgently needed a fertile wife who would bear him more children. In the event he had failed to transcend the limitations of his marriage treaty, and his power in England had remained extremely limited. In the course of time, the country became a liability

he also brought it into the war which cost Calais; but he protected Elizabeth during the latter part of the reign, and made sure that she came safely to the throne. Paradoxically, that was his most lasting achievement as King of England

Rivalries within the royal family lay at the heart of English politics between the reigns of Edward III (1327-77) and Henry VII (1485-1509), not least the Wars of the Roses. This was also the case in France and Scotland in the second half of the sixteenth century. The Habsburgs provide the exception: with only a few lapses, they were almost the model of family loyalty

As an heir of Henry VII, Mary could not challenge the legitimacy of the Tudor line as a whole

If Anne Boleyn was as promiscuous as was charged, then Henry VIII’s paternity was in doubt

Illegitimacy was used to justify the removal of Elizabeth and Mary from the succession in Edward VI’s settlement of the crown on Lady Jane Grey in 1553. This was of major significance. If the events of 1553 united Mary and Elizabeth in common defence of their rights as heirs to Henry VIII, they also brought the Queen of Scots to the fore as a rival to both. The basis of Mary Stuart’s claim from this point on was that she was the one descendent of Henry VII untainted by either illegitimacy or heresy

The Wars of the Roses effectively destroyed the male members of the House of Lancaster (the descendants of John of Gaunt) and Henry VII and Henry VIII completed the process. By Edward VI’s death in 1553 all the main claimants to the English crown were women, and such men as had a claim owed it to a female descent. This was the case with Henry VII himself, and moreover his mother (Lady Margaret Beaufort) was descended from John of Gaunt’s illegitimate family

Elizabeth’s alienation from Philip also inspired a reconciliation with France that effectively lasted for the rest of her reign

The events of 1553 made Elizabeth’s place in the succession an international issue.

Elizabeth’s ability to turn to France on her accession was hampered by Mary Stuart’s position as Dauphine and, after July 1559, Queen of France. Until her death in 1587, Mary was the pole around which Elizabeth’s foreign policy revolved

The furthest concession Elizabeth appears to have made to Mary was to offer a new settlement that would have circumvented the treaty of Edinburgh in the months following James VI’s birth in June 1566.

The revelation of Mary’s understanding with Philip II and their plans for Elizabeth’s deposition marked the next stage in Elizabeth’s foreign relations

Philip of Spain had a strong claim as descendant of the legitimate daughters of Gaunt’s second marriage

Elizabeth’s hesitation over the Netherlands was overcome by the arrival of Don Juan of Austria as the new Governor General in late 1576

Throughout the ensuing negotiations she made no secret of the fact that what she really wanted was an alliance with Henry III. What she could not control was the decision of William of Orange in the winter of 1579-80 (partly on the strength of the marriage negotiations) to break with Spain and offer the lordship of the Netherlands to Anjou

Enterprise of England she could not allow Philip II to regain the Netherlands, whatever Henry III did

She now had the opportunity to form a new relationship in defence of his claim to the succession

Navarre was heir to the childless Henry III under the Salic Law, but bitterly opposed on account of his religion. This – it was now appreciated in England – was something that Henry III was trying to circumvent. In 1589 the two kings allied and following Henry III’s assassination in July, Navarre succeeded him as Henry IV

Throughout the 1590s, even if the war with Spain was not as successful as was occasionally hoped, defeat was not an issue

Henry IV may have converted and then made a separate peace with Philip II in 1598, but he remained an ally

If there was an ironic aspect to Elizabeth taking Mary’s place as James’s mother, this was also the case with Essex

However, Elizabeth, James and Henry formed a triumvirate of monarchs

She is a haughty woman, falling easily into rebuke, and above all when any speak of the king [Henry IV] whom she considers for a long time to have been greatly beholding to her

Philip II’s last years were embittered by disparaging comparisons

These last twenty-one years that the queen of England has spent in the service of the world will be the most outstanding known of in history

He spent the rest of his life in exile in the Netherlands, where he died at age 82.

Wilhelm’s childhood was shaped by two events, one medical and one political. His birth had been traumatic; in the course of a complicated delivery, the doctor permanently damaged Wilhelm’s left arm. In addition to its smaller size, the arm was useless for such ordinary tasks as cutting certain foods with a knife at mealtime.

In 1881, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta Victoria (1858-1921) of Schleswig-Holstein. The couple would go on to have seven children

Wilhelm damaged his political position in a number of ways. He meddled in German foreign policy on the basis of his emotions, resulting in incoherence and inconsistency in German relations with other nations. He also made a number of public blunders, the worst of which was The Daily Telegraph affair of 1908. Wilhelm gave an interview to the London-based newspaper in which he offended the British by saying such things as: “You English are mad, mad, mad as March hares.”

The kaiser supported the plans of Alfred von Tirpitz (1849-1930), his chief admiral, who maintained that Germany could gain diplomatic power over Britain by stationing a fleet of warships in the North Sea. By 1914, however, the naval buildup had caused severe financial problems for Wilhelm’s government.

Wilhelm’s behavior during the crisis that led to war in August 1914 is still controversial. There is little doubt that he had been broken psychologically by the criticism that followed the Eulenburg-Harden and Daily Telegraph scandals; he suffered an episode of depression in 1908. In addition, the kaiser was out of touch with the realities of international politics in 1914; he thought that his blood relationships to other European monarchs were sufficient to manage the crisis that followed the June 1914 assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914) in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Although Wilhelm signed the order for German mobilization following pressure from his generals–Germany declared war against Russia and France during the first week of August 1914– he is reported to have said, “You will regret this, gentlemen.”

In late 1918, popular unrest in Germany (which had suffered greatly during the war) combined with a naval mutiny convinced civilian political leaders that the kaiser had to abdicate to preserve order. In fact, Wilhelm’s abdication was announced on November 9, 1918, before he had actually consented to it. He agreed to leave when the leaders of the army told him he had lost their support as well. On November 10, the former emperor took a train across the border into the Netherlands, which had remained neutral throughout the war. He eventually bought a manor house in the town of Doorn, and remained there for the remainder of his life.

After two decades in exile, he died in the Netherlands on June 4, 1941, at the age of 82.

The Netherlands has so far avoided the sort of attacks witnessed in other European countries, although several people have been jailed for plotting to take part in terrorism.

“It sends the message that Germany lost control of the pandemic entirely,” Melissa said. “The schools got sacrificed because they failed to lock down everything else strictly enough.”

The coming weeks are now especially uncertain for schools. Germany, a country long committed to data privacy, has not leaned into online learning software, which makes a transition to remote learning even more difficult.

Similar trends are playing out across Europe and the world.

Coronavirus-related deaths in young people are remarkably rare. Since the pandemic began, The Times has identified only about 90 deaths involving college employees and students out of more than 397,000 infections.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch prime minister is expected to announce a monthlong lockdown during which schools will close

In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan called for schools to close early for Christmas, even as Boris Johnson, the prime minister, fought to keep them open.

Employees at local businesses in Ithaca, N.Y., home to Cornell University, have started a petition to shut down indoor dining, receive hazard pay and maintain clear safety protocols

Student athletes at Harvard University struggled through a fall semester of at-home workouts and Zoom meetings, Alex Koller and Ema Schumer reported for The Harvard Crimson, the student paper.

Connie Chang’s daughter started the school year in distance learning. But without constant surveillance, she could move freely through the internet with relative ease.

She spoke with experts and shared a few tips for other parents worried about dialing back the digital overload. Some suggestions: Normalize digital play and respect your child’s need for communication, while teaching children how to navigate the internet as a literate user.

Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) had ridden a populist wave to challenge for presidential power (albeit in a largely ceremonial role). The race had appeared close, but on Sunday Hofer conceded to left-wing independent Alexander Van der Bellen when early returns ran against him

Marine Le Pen, leader since 2011, has tried to "detoxify" the party founded by her father Jean-Marie of its reputation for racism and xenophobia -- and has seen its share of the vote rise to 27% in last year's regional elections

Formed in 2013, the anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) was initially galvanized into action by what it saw as Merkel's bungled handling of the eurozone crisis -- specifically the multiple Greek bailouts

The National Front leader has utilized similar tactics to the US President-elect by tapping into frustrations of the French electorate and focusing on a more nationalistic agenda to sway voters to her corner.

Farage was one of the chief architects of the Brexit campaign for Britain to leave the European Union

since the 2008 economic crisis unemployment has risen from 7.1% to around 10%, while almost a quarter of the nation's youth is now out of work.

Voters in the Netherlands are set to elect a new parliament in March 2017, when the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Party for Freedom (PVV) hopes to build on its strong showing in the past two elections

Wilders has run on a party manifesto focused on a so-called "de-Islamification" of the Netherlands

The National Crime Agency (NCA) established that the gang trafficked drugs, packaged in colour-coded parcels and hidden behind false panels in the ambulances, from the Netherlands to the UK.

Sources within the NCA said they believed 20 different gangs around the UK relied on the ambulance racket for supplies of class A drugs.

He said: “The prosecution suggest this was a top-level, audacious, and – up to the point of interception and the arrests – a successful and lucrative criminal conspiracy.”

Inside the back of the ambulance, concealed behind panels in six “hides”, were neatly stacked, colour-coded packets of class A drugs, including cocaine with a street value of more than £30m and heroin worth £8m. Officers also found 60,000 ecstasy tablets.

The court was told that the company’s records showed the fake ambulance journeys had been “going on over weeks and months”. In all, at least 45 trips were made in 14 months.

Bijlsma was described in the court as Schoon’s right-hand man. The prosecution told the jury that a rivet gun was found with Bijlsma’s DNA on it. It said this gun was used to fasten the panels inside the ambulance.