140,000 Shelved Asylum Claims, a Tax Plan in Trouble, and a Porridge World Champion

An EU court says the Netherlands can't keep more than 140,000 Ukrainian asylum applications on hold indefinitely, and that adds pressure to an asylum system that's already badly backed up. The minority cabinet's tax plans run into trouble in the Senate, Amsterdam keeps losing rental homes, and Booking.com takes its works council to court over office days. Plus a check on whether you're overpaying for your power connection, a new cleaners' strike, a Nobel Prize for catching neutrinos, De Kooning beside The Night Watch, and a Dutch porridge champion.

Wednesday, 7 October 2026 · 14 min