The outflow of water from lake Lugano to Italy will be increased from the current three to eight cubic metres per second for a period of ten days. This will allow more water to flow into lake Maggiore and into the Italian rice-growing areas near Nova...

The Swiss government and parliament have rejected the food security initiative. On Tuesday, Economics Minister Guy Parmelin addressed the media in Bern to explain why the government was recommending voters reject the issue on September 27. The initia...

A new regulation allows the Swiss cross to be used on goods manufactured abroad. According to two surveys, SMEs and voters are firmly opposed to the new regulation, the Swiss Trade Association told the media in Bern. Both business owners and voters f...

In the city of Bern the shortage of protective glasses in the run-up to the solar eclipse on Wednesday has resulted in a long queue. Several hundred people were waiting outside the specialist shop Foto Zumstein Video on Tuesday afternoon. The queue, ...

Insurers have had a relatively quiet first half of 2026 in terms of natural disasters, according to estimates from the Zurich-based reinsurer Swiss Re. However, the cost could rise in the second half of the year. In the first half of 2026, the cost o...

A project straight out of a spy film is taking shape in canton Obwalden in the heart of the Central Swiss Alps. Beneath the mountains of the Brünig Pass, near the village of Lungern, entrepreneur Thomas Gasser, chairman of the board of directors at ...

Social media has only partially democratised the debate on climate change. Established players continue to dominate, and climate-sceptical voices are gaining disproportionate visibility, according to a study by the Universities of Zurich and Münster...

Raphael Hefti has won this year’s Paul Boesch Art Prize, which will be awarded at the Kunstmuseum Bern on August 25. Hefti is a visual artist whose works express a highly distinctive aesthetic language, according to the museum. It said Hefti, born ...

The Swiss government believes that current practice has proved its worth when it comes to neutrality. A stricter definition would reduce Switzerland’s room for manoeuvre, it says. The government therefore rejects the initiative on neutrality, which...

Nowhere else in Switzerland has there been such a high number of tropical nights since records began: so far this summer, the temperature in Locarno-Monti has not fallen below 20°C on 47 nights. In Lugano, Ticino’s largest city, the figure stands ...

Gianni Infantino, the Swiss president of world football's governing body, is under immense pressure. In his hour of need, a close friend has now come to his aid – and is warning the world football governing body against making a terrible mistake. T...

Owing to the return of a heatwave, the Swiss city of Geneva and canton Vaud reactivated their heatwave plan on Monday. The heatwave is expected to peak between Thursday and Saturday. It is more important than ever to remain vigilant, they said. After...

Low water levels mean the River Rhine is now barely navigable for cargo ships at one point. However, this does not affect the supply of essential goods to Switzerland. At the village of Kaub, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the water lev...

Switzerland is closely monitoring the situation in Colombia following the violent earthquake that struck the country on Monday and stands ready to provide support should it be necessary, said Swiss President Guy Parmelin. Parmelin also expressed his ...

The St Alban ferry in Basel has been closed since Monday morning due to low water levels and will remain so until further notice. The other three ferries on the River Rhine are still operating, Dieter Bühler, president of the Basel Ferries Foundatio...

Streaming and cloud-based work above the clouds: Lufthansa is launching its first plane equipped with high-speed wi-fi from the US provider Starlink – and Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) is set to follow suit soon. The Lufthansa Group is equi...

A Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) aircraft flying from Zurich to Boston was forced to make an unscheduled landing in the Irish capital, Dublin, on Sunday night. The unexpected stop was caused by smoke on board, which was triggered by a powerban...

Even at altitudes above 3,000 metres with permanent snow, the high temperatures are making themselves felt. The Marco e Rosa mountain hut – situated at 3,609 metres in Valmalenco, 300 metres from the Swiss border – is witness to this. The hut is ...

On Monday the ALPS Alpine Museum of Switzerland returned a late-Gothic statue of a saint to the municipality of Baltschieder in canton Valais after more than 100 years. The statue was collected from a warehouse in Zollikofen, Bern, on Monday morning ...

Four criminals have broken into the Watch Museum in Le Locle, canton Neuchâtel. Fewer than ten items – mostly watches – were stolen. According to a statement from the cantonal police, the thieves forced open the front door on the north side of t...

Switzerland, and much of Europe, continues to swelter in the heatwave. On Sunday in Meiringen, canton Bern, the temperature reached 34.6°C, a record for the town in August. During the summer of 2003, temperatures reached 34.4°C in this Bernese muni...

On Monday morning around a hundred members of the public, defendants and their lawyers appeared before the Zurich High Court for the appeal hearing against former Raiffeisen chief executive Pierin Vincenz. The main defendant, Pierin Vincenz, arrived ...

Philippe Luchsinger, former president of the Association of General Practitioners, has accused specialists of clinging to a flawed fee schedule for financial gain. Speaking to the Tamedia newspapers, he criticised outdated guidelines for technical he...

As the new school year approaches, there are signs that the teacher shortage in Switzerland is easing in some cantons. In the medium term, falling birth rates and rising student numbers at teacher training colleges could also help to improve the situ...

Organised gangs are targeting GPS systems fitted to tractors and combine harvesters, leading to a surge of thefts in Switzerland. In the canton of Vaud alone, 20 cases have already been recorded in 2026 – a staggering increase compared with the ave...

At least 39 Swiss government ministers were secretly monitored by police during the so-called ‘Secret Files Scandal’ between 1930 and 1989, according the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Reporters have examined hundreds of thousands of surveillance fil...

Zurich’s emergency medical service provided 906 treatments at the Swiss city’s annual Street Parade. Most treatments were for cuts, grazes or alcohol-related issues. Zurich city police also arrested 30 of the 900,000 revellers at the event on Sat...

On Wednesday evening, the Moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun in a rare astronomical spectacle that has not been seen in Switzerland for 27 years. The eclipse on August 12 will be partial and will obscure up to 93% of the Sun’s disc as see...

Swiss interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider wants better protection against sexual violence involving date rape drugs. “We must improve prevention and public information,” Baume-Schneider told the SonntagsBlick newspaper. The public is larg...

The 33rd Street Parade has begun in Zurich with hundreds of thousands of people enjoying the festivities in hot and sunny weather. At 2pm, the first Love Mobiles set off. The parade wound its way round lake Zurich. This year, 30 Love Mobiles are taki...