"An attack on the police is an attack on Finnish society as a whole. Violence should not be accepted or said to be the new norm," Jonne Rinne, chair of the Finnish Police Union (SPJL), told Helsingin Sanomat, following the attempted murders of police officers this week.
Three police officers were the targets of suspected attempted murder within 24 hours in the capital region. On Thursday night, a man shot at two police officers in Espoo. Later in the day, another man shot at a police officer with a crossbow in Helsinki.
In neither case were the police officers injured. Both men involved in the incidents are now suspected of attempted murder.
National Police Commissioner Ilkka Koskimäki also commented on violence against police in a Thursday posting on X.
He pointed out that the environment in which police officers operate has become more dangerous.
"Every single day, the police are faced with violence and threats of violence," he wrote.
According to Koskimäki, drug use and the growing availability of illegal weapons are among the causes of violence targeting police. Other factors he mentioned include mental health problems and attitudes towards authorities.
He wrote that he suspects that three incidents in 24 hours is not just a coincidence, but a sign of a change in society.
Koskimäki believes that this trend is due to the fact that people are increasingly carrying guns and police are increasingly confronted with firearms.
"The guy who used to have a knife or a knuckle duster now has a gun," he stated.
Helsingin Sanomat notes that this is the reason that the Police Union has been pushing for stricter legislation on illegal firearms. The more guns in circulation, the more likely they are to be used.
According to SPJL chair Rinne, it is important to find out where the illegal firearms are coming from in order to curb the phenomenon.
"What are the routes through which the weapons come in? Close cooperation is needed with the police, Customs and the Border Guard. A bit like with drug offences," he told HS.
Immigrant income
Employers' organisations are warning that the government's plan to raise the income threshold for residence permits could have unintended consequences, according to Ilta-Sanomat.
The paper reported that employers' organisations have raised their concerns in Parliament, where a government proposal to raise the lower monthly income limit for residence permits to 1,600 euros is currently being discussed in committee.
At present, a residence permit requires a monthly earning in line with collective wage agreements or an income of around 1,400 euros.
According to Olli Varmo, labour market director for the Finnish Hospitality Association MaRa, the income limit will create problems for the tourism and restaurant industry in particular. The sector is seasonal and demand is concentrated on certain days of the week and even certain hours. As a result, mainly part-time jobs are on offer in the sector.
"If you look at the food restaurant sector, where the majority of turnover is generated on Friday and Saturday, there are not always hours on offer, but there is still a need for labour to do the work," Varmo pointed out.
If labour is not available on the domestic market, workers will be recruited from abroad, IS noted.
"If this fixed income limit comes in and only part-time work is available, then in practice more hours will have to be contracted for these [foreign] workers, which could lead to potentially fewer hours being available for domestic labour. This may also raise problems of worker equality," said Varmo.
Mikko Räsänen, an immigration expert at the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK, told IS it would be good to get an opinion from Ministry of Labour law experts or from occupational health and safety authorities on whether the income limit on residence permits is an acceptable reason to put workers in a unequal positions.
Albert Mäkelä, from the entrepreneurs' association Suomen Yrittäjät, sees raising the income requirement as possibly becoming a big problem for some sectors and some individual employers.
"Strange situations could arise if it turns out that a foreigner cannot be hired for part-time work, but should be offered a full-time job, while a Finn can be offered part-time work. I'm not quite sure whether this was the objective that was being pursued," Mäkelä said.
News consumption
Almost 90 percent of Finns read newspapers in digital form, according to the latest annual Finnish National Readership Survey.
According to a review of the survey by the STT news agency, a preference for digital formats is most common in the 35-54 age group, of which 95 percent read online newspaper content.
Commissioned by the print media's MediaAuditFinland, the survey found that those aged 65 and over are the least likely to turn to online newspaper services. Even in this age group, however, four out of five read either solely online newspapers or in conjunction with hard copies. Digital readership in the 65+ age group overtook print a year ago, and the latest results show the trend continuing.
Two million Finns read newspapers in digital format alone. More than 70 percent of respondents said they read digital content mainly on their phones.
Print newspapers, on the other hand, are read by around half of all Finns. This proportion has fallen by almost 12 percent since the 2023 survey.
In total, 96 percent of Finns aged 15 and over read newspapers, and almost 60 percent of households subscribe to paid print or digital newspapers.
Mysterious or mundane?
The discovery this week of an underground "mystery structure" during transport project construction in Helsinki has attracted massive interest in the Finnish press and on social media.
Some of the wilder, and not so necessarily serious suggestions as to its identity have including it being the lost pharaoh's tomb, a nuclear bunker, the Ark of the Covenant, a leftover from an ancient alien civilisation, and even the tomb of the American trade union leader Jimmy Hoffa who went missing in 1975.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, Päivi Litmanen-Peitsala is probably the closest to the truth.
Digging through newspaper archives, Litmanen-Peitsala found a clue pointing to a construction project close by the site of the find in the 1970s.
A photograph published by Kansan Uutiset in 1977 shows a tower crane standing in roughly the same place as the concrete block below ground, and the assumption is that it could be the support for a large crane.
Jussi Kainulainen, project manager of the Crown Bridges transport project, whose workers found the structure agrees that this is a likely explanation.
He told HS that nowadays this kind of temporary structure would be demolished when no longer needed, but that wasn't always the case in the past.
However, Lauri Hänninen, communications manager for the Crown Bridges transport project who examined the archive photo, believes that the crane pictured is not in the exact same spot.
The mystery might be solved sometime Friday, when workers drill into the concrete structure for a closer look.
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