The trial of a man accused of sexually abusing hundreds of children began on Monday. The 27-year-old has been charged with carrying out various sexual offences on 361 children between 2019 and 2022. Police said there may be many more, even as high as 900, as some 530 potential victims have yet to be identified.

The public presentation of the case is taking place at the Pirkanmaa district court in Finland, and will continue privately on Tuesday. It is believed to be Finland’s largest-ever sexual crimes case in its legal history.

The known victims were all boys from across the country and aged between nine and 15 years old.

In December 2025, Finnish police said they were investigating a 27-year-old man suspected of 364 sexual offences against children. The National Prosecution Authority then said in June that prosecutors had decided not to press charges in three of the cases.

The crimes allegedly took place via Snapchat, where the defendant posed as a woman and asked the children for photos and videos. He then used screen recording technology to keep the photographs without the youngster’s knowledge, police said.

Thousands of videos and images of unidentified children had been found on the man’s phone in 2022, when police searched his device in connection with another criminal case.

According to Finnish broadcaster Yle, Detectives do not believe that the 27-year-old met any of the children in person.

The court heard that the then-20-year-old defendant had sexual intercourse with his 14-year-old male student while he was working as a substitute teacher at a primary school in the region. He also sent the boy hundreds of sexually suggestive messages, images, and videos.

The investigation of this case led the police to confiscate the suspect’s phone, where they subsequently found thousands of sexualised images and videos of children.

The main charges against him were aggravated sexual abuse of children, sexual abuse of children and aggravated distribution of an image depicting children in a sexual manner, the prosecutor told the AFP news agency ahead of the trial.

The man partly admitted to the offences during the investigation.

With approximately 45 hearing days dedicated to the case, the proceedings are expected to last “at least until the end of this year,” according to the court.

A new hijab, burka and headscarf ban has started in a European country. The rules must be followed by girls under 14 in Austrian schools. “Traditional Muslim” head coverings are no longer allowed, with headscarves denounced by the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) as “a sign of oppression and a means of controlling girls from the earliest childhood”. The country is currently governed by a coalition of three parties: the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the liberal Neos, along with the ÖVP.

But opponents have suggested that the move “restricts the fundamental right to freedom of religion“, the BBC reports.

A 2025 petition in the UK called for the prohibition of full-face coverings in public, including niqabs, burqas, balaclavas and ski masks. It stated: “We believe face coverings hinder social cohesion, alienate communities and discourage integration. We believe they undermine British values of openness and interaction while also posing security risks.”

The online document garnered 71,144 signatures, but the Government shot it down. Officials wrote: “It is not government policy to ban the burka or other face coverings in public.”

It added: “Britain has a proud tradition of religious tolerance within the law. The government is committed to creating a strong and integrated society in which hatred and prejudice are not tolerated and in which all people are free to express their religious identity without fear of it resulting in harassment, discrimination or attack.

“We recognise the huge contribution of people of faith to public life, locally and nationally, and are committed to celebrating and promoting this.

“There is no current legislation that bans the wearing of religious or non-religious face coverings and the government has no intention to introduce any.”

The Government also pointed out that, under the Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights), “everyone has the legal right to freedom of religion, including the right to express their religion”.

“This includes the right to wear religious attire except where limitations are prescribed by law for specific limited purposes,” it added.

“Restrictions on face coverings that are worn for religious reasons engage this right and must be carefully justified. The government does not currently consider there are reasons to change the approach set out in UK legislation on this issue.

“A similar approach applies to face coverings worn for non-religious purposes, which in some cases will be a form of personal and cultural expression protected under the fundamental right to freedom of expression (Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights).”

Researchers may have found Noah’s Ark in Turkey as their confidence that an odd-shaped rock is home to the biblical ship growing with ‘each passing day’.

The story of the ark is found in the Book of Genesis, where it is said God instructed Noah to build a vessel to save his family and animals from a 40-day flood. Noah does so by bringing two of each species onboard, and as floodwater recedes, the ark comes to a rest in the mountains of Ararat — which is now eastern Turkey.

A new study has revealed the chemical composition of the soil suggests organic matter is much more prevalent at the centre of the rock formation than the edges, researcher Andrew Jones said.

“The differences between the ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ samples are statistically staggering,” he told Fox News.

“Organic matter was three times more inside the boat shape versus the soil just right outside. If it was random mountainside earth that came down around a rock, then the soil would be the same.”

Turkish scientists working in the field said they found 38 percent more potassium inside the rock formation than outside it, a chemical usually associated with wood ash.

Jones, from a group called Noah’s Ark Scans, says his thinking has shifted following the soil samples.

He added: “We’ve moved from asking ‘does it look like a boat?’ to ‘why is there a three-layered, right-angled inside structure, carbon-rich boat formation the exact length of Noah’s Ark given in the bible buried in the middle of a mountainside in the mountains of Ararat?'”

While the leader of the Turkish researchers is waiting for the final results before jumping to any conclusions, even he says the ‘current data increases the likelihood that it is Noah’s Ark with each passing day’.

Dr. Cenker Atila, from Sivas Cumhuriyet University, has used advanced radar designed for the US Air Force to build a 3D model of the interior of the rock formation.

He told local news outlet iHA: “This was one of the most important studies for us. We were looking for cavities, wooden remnants, or remains that could form a ship’s shape underground.

“Current data increases the likelihood that it is Noah’s Ark with each passing day.”

Final results will be confirmed in two months’ time, he added, which will ‘provide more illuminating information’.