Newspaper Ilta-Sanomat dug into the history of a 71-year-old man suspected of deliberately starting a fire in his own apartment and causing the deaths of five people — including three young children — in a neighbouring flat.
It said the man had been living in Vantaa's Pähkinärinne neighbourhood apartment for many years before Tuesday morning's tragedy.
He had run into problems with his landlord in late 2021, allegedly due to being two months late in paying rent. Citing district court records, Ilta-Sanomat noted the man was ordered to pay his delinquent rent — as well as legal costs.
He was also ordered to move out of the apartment. But for some reason that did not happen, as the rental company withdrew its legal filing on the matter, shortly after the court issued its decision, IS reported.
Citing documents, the paper said the man first moved into the apartment in the summer of 2006, meaning he had lived there for nearly two decades.
Other records showed that the man had other debt problems after failing to pay some of his bills.
Earlier this week, the paper reported that the Vantaa arson suspect had previously been convicted of attempting to stab to death his then-wife in the early 2000s. Then in 2014, the man was convicted of assaulting the same woman, according to IS.
Authorities continue to investigate the suspected arson case in Vantaa. On Wednesday, police said the probe would likely last for months.
US travel advisory
In a new travel advisory update, the United States' Center for Disease Control (CDC) urged international travellers from America to make sure their polio vaccines are up to date, newspaper Iltalehti reported on Thursday morning.
The CDC's advisory concerns travel to 32 countries, including Finland, the paper noted. The list includes a number of other European, African and Middle Eastern countries.
The agency's webpage regarding travel to Finland states that "travelers to Finland are at increased risk of exposure to poliovirus", as the infectious disease has been detected in the country "in the past year".
Yle reported on the matter about a year ago, noting that poliovirus had been detected during a routine check of wastewater in Tampere. However, further examination of the matter found that the source of the virus had arrived from abroad (West Africa) and that the virus had not caused any polio cases in Finland.
According to THL, the polio vaccine helped Finland eradicate the devastating disease in the 1960s. However, Finland did see a short-lived polio outbreak in 1984, but a full scale epidemic was thwarted by a vaccination programme targeting the entire population, Iltalehti noted.
Finland's disappearing microbreweries
Finland's microbrewery boom is over, according to Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet.
It said that small beer companies have been dropping like flies in recent years. One example is the Espoo-based Oma Panimo, which recently announced that it was filing for bankruptcy.
Esa Salminen, from the small brewers association, Pienpanimoliitto, told HBL that the boom is definitely over.
"Ten years ago, there were more new breweries every year, but now it's the opposite. Two to three breweries close down or go bankrupt every year," Salminen told the paper.
So far, it is the smallest of companies that have been most affected, while large brewers appear more able to withstand market changes.
One example of the bigger brewers is another Espoo-based company, Fat Lizard, according to the paper. But even they have felt the pressure.
Fat Lizard's creative director, Topi Kairenius, said: "we have only focused on survival".
But the firm's business was booming during the Covid pandemic, breaking all sales records. They had plans to expand, and even reserved a plot of land in Espoo to do so.
"Thank goodness we put the plans on hold. If we hadn't done that, we wouldn't be here today," Kairenius told HBL.
Citing brewing news outlet Juomaposti, the paper reported that roughly a dozen small breweries went bust each year from 2022-2024.
There are a number of reasons that the beer bubble is bursting.
One is taxation policies based on a firm's production output. Breweries that make less than 500,000 litres per year receive a 50-percent tax break. But over that limit, the discount drops to 30 percent.
The brewers' association's Salminen said companies find profitability to be difficult with production levels below half a million litres per year.
Another factor is inflation, Huvfudstadsbladet noted. Higher prices have not only raised production costs — consumers are also more careful about how they spend their money.
Kairenius said that people seem to be eschewing local microbrews and turning to more affordable alternatives.
A third factor is that people are drinking less alcohol, according to Kairenius.
"We started the company to make craft beer and never thought we would start making light beer and non-alcoholic beer, but that's what people want now," he told the paper.
