Missing Cat from Beverwijk Found in Dordrecht After 4.5 years
A family from Beverwijk has been reunited with their cat Angel after 4.5 years. The cat went missing in 2020, presumably because the animal unintentionally hitched a ride with the family to Dordrecht, which is more than 100 kilometers away.
The family is now certain that Angel traveled to the South Holland city. “We were picking up a cabinet via Marktplaats. She probably traveled under the hood,” says owner Eileen.
In the beginning, the family tried to find their pet, including by handing out flyers in the neighborhood. Peter, the other owner, says that the hope for a good ending diminished over time. “A year becomes two years, three years. So at some point, you think: she’s never coming back.”
Until Eileen received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number last week. “Hello, are you the owner of Angel?” The message included a photo of the cat, now eleven years old. The next day, the family picked up their lost pet. “When she heard our voices, she immediately came to us and gave us head bumps,” the family said.
Shingles vaccination to be free for people about sixty
People aged sixty or older will soon be able to get vaccinated against shingles for free. The cabinet wants to include the vaccination in the National Immunization Program, insiders confirm to the press agency.
The free vaccinations are part of a new healthcare agreement that the cabinet and the healthcare sector have been discussing for some time. This agreement is expected to be concluded next week. People currently have to pay for the two necessary shots themselves, which costs a few hundred euros.
The disease has become more common among older people in recent years. The number of people over 65 who went to the doctor with shingles doubled in one year, research institute Nivel reported in late April. This plan will cost the government millions of euros, but it will also prevent many cases of the disease.
For the second year in a row, there are feer victims of international child abduction
The number of child abductions from and to the Netherlands has decreased for the second year in a row, reports the Center for International Child Abduction (Centrum IKO) on Friday.
Last year, two hundred children were victims, which is 23 percent less than the year before, when the number was 260 children. And in 2022, it involved 292 abducted children. “Still, every child abduction is one too many,” says IKO director Coskun Çörüz.
In 2024, the mother was the perpetrator in most cases (74 percent). In 26 percent, it was the father. Most children who were abducted abroad ended up in Poland, Germany, or the United States. 55 percent of them were five years old or younger.
According to IKO, the decrease may be explained by the fact that the center organized more contact moments between parents, aid workers, and other parties involved. There were also 30 percent more preventive advice sessions.
New Method May Allow Us to Recognize Deepfakes
Researchers at the University of Amsterdam have developed a new technique that helps to recognize so-called deepfake videos. It looks at the veins and color differences on a person’s face, features that are missing in fake videos.
When viewing videos, the researchers focused on the expansion and contraction of veins in the face, which causes a subtle but measurable color difference.
The technique can only be put into practice once the research has been scientifically published, says Zeno Geradts, who will present the results in May at a conference in Dublin. But according to the forensic digital investigator and distinguished professor at the UvA, it is only a matter of time before the technique is applied.
Deepfake videos are appearing more and more often. In such a video, you can, for example, have someone say something that they never actually said. That’s a problem. Especially when the videos are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from real ones.