AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) – Talk about a good day for beachcombing.

Thousands of tennis shoes, aluminum briefcases and toys washed onto the beach of a Dutch island Friday, drawing crowds of treasure-hunting residents.

The booty came from a load of containers that was swept from the P&O Nedlloyd ship Mondriaan, which got caught in a storm Thursday night about 9 miles off the coast of Terschelling in the North Sea, coast guard officials said.

“We now believe 58 containers were washed overboard. Nine landed intact on the beach and two others are stuck in the breakers, which means many others may have sunk or are still drifting around,” spokesman Kees Koning said.

The containers had no hazardous materials, and carried such items as frozen hamburgers and corned beef, he said. Axe handles, baseball hats and hammers also reportedly landed ashore. The Mondriaan was traveling from Southhampton, England, to Hamburg, Germany.

Police were summoned to safeguard the nine unopened containers but did not try to prevent people from taking the odd pair of sneakers or toy. “It’s human nature, right?” Koning said.

Solitaire playing gets worker fired

NEW YORK (AP) – Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t playing games. After he saw a game of solitaire on a city employee’s computer screen, he fired him.

The Republican mayor stopped by the city’s legislative office in Albany a few weeks ago while visiting the state Capitol to hear the governor’s State of the State address.

Office assistant Edward Greenwood IX was going over some papers at his desk as Bloomberg made the rounds with his photographer, greeting workers and posing for pictures. When the mayor reached him, Greenwood stood, they shook hands and the photographer snapped a photo.

But the mayor noticed Greenwood’s game of solitaire glowing on his screen. He said nothing about it to Greenwood but later told an aide to give him the ax.

The story was reported by the New York Post on Thursday, and Bloomberg defended his no-tolerance decision.

“The workplace is not an appropriate place for games,” Bloomberg said. “It’s a place where you’ve got to do the job that you’re getting paid for.”

Greenwood, who earned $27,000 a year and had worked in the office for six years, said he limited his play time to his one-hour lunch or during quick breaks when he needed a moment of distraction. “It wasn’t like I spent hours and hours a day playing, because I had plenty to do,” he said.

Thieves take wall, can climb it later

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Worrying about thieves is nothing new for retail stores, but Outdoors Inc. thought its 6,000-pound, 30-foot-tall rock-climbing wall was safe. It wasn’t.

Someone made off with the $30,000 wall Wednesday morning, but it was recovered Friday at a vacant lot near the Memphis airport.

The wall was stolen from a storage lot used by Outdoor Inc., which rents the wall to organizers of outdoors events and festivals.

“I don’t know what to think,” co-owner Lawrence Migliara said. “Why would someone steal that? I just didn’t know that wall was that desirable, to take that much of a risk.”

An employee of the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority had seen the wall near the airport earlier, but did not call police until he heard it had been stolen.

Police were investigating, but said they had no leads.

Sex offender never lived here

BELLA VISTA, Ark. (AP) – A woman hung a sign on a neighbor’s door warning people that the man who lived there was a sex offender. But there was a problem: She had the wrong house.

Carolyn Hansen told sheriff’s investigators she had been told by her daughter that a sex offender who moved to the neighborhood lived in the home.

“Don’t play here. Child molester lives here,” said a sign on the house, according to a police report. Hansen acknowledged she posted that sign, as well as one in nearby park that read: “There is a child molester here. Keep children out of the park.”

The signs were removed after someone called the sheriff’s office, but a deputy saw Hansen posting similar fliers again, the report said.

After Hansen learned she had the wrong address, she apologized to the man who lives in the house. He declined to press charges, said Benton County sheriff’s investigator Barb Shrum.

Even if Hansen had the correct address, authorities said, those postings can’t be used to target convicts. “The whole point of this is to be able to keep your family and your neighborhood safe from these people, but you can’t harass them,” Shrum said.