The US tech giant cleared hundreds of hectares of forest for planned facilities before completing environmental impact assessments
Finnish police have launched a criminal investigation into suspected environmental violations at a planned Google data center site, where hundreds of hectares of forest were cleared before the completion of mandatory environmental impact assessments.
The Oulu Police Department announced on Thursday that it was investigating suspected environmental damage at the site in Muhos, northern Finland, following complaints about the activities of Google’s local subsidiary, Tuike Finland.
According to Finnish public broadcaster Yle, police have received five requests for an investigation, including one from the Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV), which oversees environmental permits and assessments.
Investigators have identified possible irregularities in drainage and water management at the construction site. Authorities are examining whether the work violated environmental legislation and caused damage to surrounding waterways.
Google has acknowledged clearing approximately 330 hectares of forest in Muhos and nearly 200 hectares at another planned data center site in Kajaani, despite environmental impact assessments for both projects remaining incomplete.
Ecologist Mari Annala of the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation told The Guardian that Google had felled an estimated 250,000 trees in Muhos and another 150,000 in Otanmaki, bringing the total to approximately 400,000 trees.
Earlier this month, Finnish regulators ordered the company to suspend preparatory work at both locations, citing concerns about extensive logging, excavation and drainage. The company confirmed on October 14 that it had complied with the order.
The LVV has also warned that excavation and drainage at the Muhos site could release acidic, metal-contaminated water because of the area’s black shale deposits. The regulator has demanded a more detailed water management plan by November 5.
Google’s Finland country manager, Antti Jarvinen, apologized earlier this month for the extensive forest clearing but maintained that the company had acted according to its understanding of Finnish law.
“I am extremely sorry that we are in this situation,” he told Finnish public broadcaster Yle.
Jarvinen insisted that Google had worked with authorities and experts but declined to identify which officials had been informed about the clearing.
The controversy comes amid growing opposition to data center construction in the US, where residents have protested against the facilities’ enormous electricity and water demands, potential environmental damage and rising utility costs. In Virginia, hundreds of demonstrators recently demanded a halt to new projects, while in Arizona, residents have opposed planned facilities over concerns about water shortages and electricity costs.
Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia reportedly admitted sharing classified information with journalists and struggled with multiple polygraph tests
The Pentagon’s former top military planner allegedly leaked classified information about Iran and Ukraine to journalists, Axios reported on Thursday, citing an internal investigation.
US War Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Army Lieutenant General Brett Sylvia as head of strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Staff earlier this week. Without mentioning Sylvia by name, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on Thursday that the department had “zero tolerance for the intentional, unauthorized disclosure of classified information.” He added that the Pentagon “took necessary personnel action to protect sensitive information.”
According to Axios, Sylvia admitted to leaking information as early as June 2025, before most media outlets were barred from the Pentagon. He allegedly continued communicating with reporters through the encrypted messaging app Signal and once met a journalist at a diner to discuss military aid to Ukraine without authorization.
“He had trouble passing multiple polygraph interviews,” the report said, according to Axios.
Officials reportedly suspect that the general deliberately deleted records of his communications with a reporter while claiming the deletion was accidental. Sylvia also allegedly admitted to being a source for another story criticizing Pentagon leadership.
Sylvia’s departure comes amid reports that the US and Israel are preparing to resume strikes on Iran following next week’s US midterm elections. US President Donald Trump has indicated that he may take military action if Tehran refuses to accept his terms for a peace deal.
Since returning to the White House in early 2025, Trump has sought to crack down on government leaks, repeatedly accusing news outlets of conducting a smear campaign against him.
In July, Hegseth said the Pentagon and Justice Department had established a joint task force to “identify and prosecute leakers.”
In April 2025, Hegseth fired three senior Pentagon aides, Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, amid an investigation into alleged leaks of sensitive information to the media. All three denied wrongdoing, and none was subsequently charged with a crime. Caldwell later returned to the Trump administration in a position at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Andrzej Jez has been found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse by priests in his diocese
A Polish court has found Catholic Bishop Andrzej Jez guilty of deliberately failing to report two priests accused of sexually abusing children, in a landmark ruling against one of the country’s senior Catholic clerics.
The District Court in Tarnow described Thursday’s verdict as “unprecedented,” noting that Jez is the highest-ranking Catholic official in Poland to have been convicted of such an offense.
The court found that the bishop had knowingly withheld information from police about abuse committed by two priests who served in his diocese.
Jez pleaded not guilty, arguing that he had first referred the cases to the Vatican and notified Polish authorities only after establishing the relevant facts. He also invoked the papal secret, a confidentiality rule governing sensitive Church matters.
The judge rejected his defense, ruling that Church regulations could not override Polish law. She stressed that investigating abuse allegations was the responsibility of law enforcement, not religious authorities.
Under Polish law, failure to report certain child sexual abuse offenses carries a maximum prison sentence of three years.
Jez avoided jail but received a two-year restriction of liberty, requiring monthly deductions of 25% of his salary to support a foundation assisting abused children. He was also fined the equivalent of about $5,000 and ordered to cover court costs.
The ruling is not final and can be appealed.
The case comes as the Catholic Church continues to face sexual abuse scandals and allegations of institutional cover-ups worldwide.
Earlier this month, former Australian Catholic Bishop Christopher Saunders was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two young Indigenous men. A leaked internal Church investigation suggested that his misconduct could have been far more extensive.
In Spain, El Pais reported in April that its investigation had identified more than 3,000 people sexually abused within the Catholic Church since the 1940s. The newspaper accused Church authorities of responding with “opacity and denial,” reporting that some accused priests had been transferred to other parishes or sent abroad.
In the US, the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed earlier this year to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 child sexual abuse lawsuits, following a series of costly settlements and bankruptcy filings involving other dioceses and archdioceses.
The Russian president says Moscow supports restoring ties with Europe despite criticism of the Finnish-Norwegian initiative
Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed a rare phone call from the leaders of Finland and Norway, saying Moscow has always supported efforts to normalize relations with European countries.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store spoke with Putin on Tuesday, breaking with the longstanding practice among Western European leaders of avoiding direct contact with Moscow since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The initiative drew criticism from Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who questioned its effectiveness and said it had not been coordinated with European partners.
Speaking at a press conference in the Kremlin on Thursday, Putin said he welcomed dialogue with Western countries despite their military support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.
“I believe it was the right thing to do. After all, there are people in Europe who, unlike some others, do not want to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia but instead want to establish some kind of constructive dialogue,” Putin said.
He added that Russia would support “any steps aimed at restoring full-fledged and comprehensive relations” with European countries, whether through the EU as a whole or on a bilateral basis.
Putin reiterated that Russia was not seeking a broader conflict with the EU or NATO. “We do not want any war with Europe. If some of them want one, let them prepare. But they have not achieved their goal of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia, and it is unlikely that this will be possible by 2030,” he said.
And if things go too far, there will be no winners at all. Let no one forget that.
The leaders of Norway and Finland said they had sought to convey messages directly to Putin “regarding future negotiations to help to end the war,” ahead of US-mediated Russia-Ukraine talks expected to take place in Abu Dhabi in the near future. They described the conversation as a follow-up to their meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in Oslo on October 20.
Norway and the Kremlin disputed a report by the British newspaper Financial Times claiming that Putin had spent much of the call lecturing his counterparts on Russian and Slavic history.
Stubb has cultivated a close relationship with US President Donald Trump, with whom he has frequently discussed the Ukraine conflict, earning him the nickname “Trump whisperer” in Western media.
The Finnish leader has also emphasized his country’s long experience of dealing with Russia. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer border with its eastern neighbor and maintained peaceful, if sometimes uneasy, relations with Moscow throughout the Cold War.
The call came amid growing tensions between Kiev and Washington after Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel exports and subsequently waived additional restrictions following Zelensky’s refusal to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, which Trump blamed for soaring fuel prices.
Moscow has repeatedly accused European leaders of sabotaging the 2022 peace talks with Ukraine and seeking to undermine Trump’s ongoing efforts to broker a deal.
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