Bitesize News

Lausanne's grey metal Vélobox bike shelters, mocked as "Soviet bunkers" since their rollout in January, are getting an artistic makeover

A 31-year-old Vaudois cook is finding a global audience for a very local idea — low-calorie versions of classic comfort food

Lake Zurich is at its lowest level ever recorded, 22 centimetres below the previous 1952 low

Ticks are moving to higher altitudes in Switzerland, with researchers now recording them at up to 2,300 metres

The Federal Office of Public Health expects Switzerland's flu wave to hit from mid-December, but some vaccine deliveries are already running late

French criminal networks are recruiting teenagers on Snapchat and TikTok to break into Swiss gun shops and feed the black market across the border

New evidence in the Crans-Montana fire inquiry shows the bar's operators warned their own staff about the danger of firework candles, then kept using them anyway

Three-quarters of the Vaud companies that received state financial support in 2025 did not actually need it to carry out their projects, a damning audit by the cantonal Court of Audit has found

Americans living in Switzerland have less than a month to vote in the US midterms on 3 November

The Federal Court has struck down the Ville de Genève's rule forcing city employees to live near the capital

Staff on Switzerland's rail network face around ten incidents of abuse or threat every working day, with insults, racist comments and physical attacks all on the rise since the pandemic

Even middle-class Swiss households say they are struggling to make ends meet, with 89% of Swiss now tracking spending every month

The Building Bridges conference has opened in Geneva, bringing finance houses, NGOs, companies and academics together for three days on climate and sustainability

Police fired tear gas yesterday at student demonstrators outside Lycée Monge in Chambéry, as the lycée protests that shut Haute-Savoie schools last week spread into neighbouring Savoie

Swiss basic health premiums could pass CHF 1,000.- a month within 15 years if the current rate of increase holds

Switzerland is being pulled into a global surge in borrowing costs

Only 6% of Swiss residents say they would be willing to sell their car to fight climate change

Swiss homeowners are being warned that the same property can be valued by two different brokers with a gap of up to CHF 180,000

Switzerland will decide on 29 November whether to raise VAT to pay for the 13th state pension

Switzerland is deeply divided over whether to make a second national language compulsory in primary schools nationwide

A majority of National Councillors want the Confederation to step in to rescue Lake Geneva's historic steamships

A new forum in Lausanne drew more than 500 people over the weekend to debate the Lake Geneva region's record prison overcrowding

Geneva and five neighbouring communes have filed legal challenges against the A412 motorway in Haute-Savoie, fearing a flood of extra traffic through Rive gauche villages once the road opens

Guy Parmelin's successor on the Federal Council must be chosen by December, with the UDC under pressure to put forward a woman for only the second time in a quarter-century

Around 1,500 people marched through Geneva on Saturday to demand Switzerland impose sanctions on Israel, three years after the 7 October attacks that triggered the Gaza war

La Chaux-de-Fonds is testing a resident-only 'super-app' built on top of its local currency

Vaud and Valais are opening public consultation on the biggest piece of the third Rhône correction, a 14-kilometre stretch through the Chablais

Coop has opened its thousandth Swiss supermarket, in Emmen

The National Council has approved up to CHF 200 million in federal funding for the 2038 Winter Olympics in Switzerland, by 137 votes to 40

Health insurance premiums in Switzerland will rise by an average of 5% in 2027, with big differences between cantons

The Matterhorn is standing without snow at the end of September, a rare sight that has gone viral on social media

Nearly half of Europeans, Switzerland included, breathed poor or very poor air over the first eight months of 2026, according to a new Copernicus report

Parliament has once again turned down a plan to introduce mandatory earthquake insurance for property owners in Switzerland

The Lausanne-based public health centre Unisanté has been designated a World Health Organization collaborating centre for migrant health

Vaud winemakers say the 2026 harvest is shaping up to be exceptional, with intense sugar levels producing dense, rich wines

The Council of States has agreed that European Union students at Switzerland's federal polytechnic schools should pay the same tuition fees as Swiss nationals

The former Crans-Montana councillor in charge of security between 2017 and 2020 has been questioned for the first time by Valais prosecutors over the Constellation fire on New Year's Day

Federal Railways have backed Transport Minister Albert Rösti's Transport'45 plan but warn that current funding is not enough to deliver its promised upgrades

Geneva-based UNHCR warns that shrinking international aid could leave 8.3 million refugees and displaced people without protection this year

The Upper house has voted to introduce a new incentive tax on immigration, going further than the Federal Council proposed

Fuel prices between Lausanne and Geneva differ by only a few centimes, and Lake Geneva remains the most expensive region in Switzerland to fill up

Val de Bagnes has banned residents from using the irrigation network to water gardens and lawns, as Valais water reserves fall to critical levels

Switzerland's Socialist Party is expected to launch signature collection today for an initiative linking health insurance premiums to household income

The Lausanne-Geneva rail line must be Switzerland's "absolute priority", according to the country's public transport association

Nearly 360,000 Swiss workers already earn too little to support their households, and the imminent health premium announcement threatens to push more families under

Several new streets in central Lausanne will drop to 30 kilometres per hour from 12 October, day and night, according to a letter the city has sent to affected residents

The population of canton Vaud will pass one million residents by 2046, according to new demographic projections released Friday

UBS shares jumped more than 3% on the Swiss exchange on Friday after a US news outlet reported the bank is weighing a merger with a foreign rival and a move of its head office

Switzerland is heading into a summery final week of September, with temperatures forecast to climb into the late-20s this week

Cross-border French communes near Geneva have laid down their conditions for Cern's proposed 90.7-kilometre particle collider, warning they will not sign off without guarantees

The Council of States has rejected a popular initiative that would have let foreigners apply for citizenship after just five years, closing the parliamentary door on the biggest attempt in years to loosen one of Europe's strictest naturalisation regimes

Seven people are in French police custody after a shooting Monday evening at a drug-dealing spot in Ville-la-Grand, on the edge of Annemasse

The canton of Geneva is set to become the sole owner of the land beneath Stade de Genève, buying out a parcel held by federal railways CFF for CHF 15.84 million

Farmers warn that another summer like this one would eat through their remaining reserves and force cuts to herds and crops

The Swiss National Bank has kept its key interest rate at zero, sticking with a policy that has held since June 2025 even as oil-driven inflation ticks higher

A Swisscom technician who spent 38 years at the company says he was fired for helping his 80-year-old neighbour cancel a subscription she never wanted

Voices in the Swiss watch industry are calling for a new '100% Swiss made' label to distinguish fully home-produced timepieces from those partly manufactured in Asia

Valais is rolling out an interactive workshop for 2,600 secondary school pupils to help them spot hidden marketing on social media

The Council of States has backed a 90% capital-coverage rule for UBS's foreign subsidiaries — a compromise stopping short of the Federal Council's push for full coverage

Switzerland's housing crisis will ease only marginally next year, according to a new study

Valais police say a fresh wave of phone scams has cost residents nearly CHF 150,000 in the past week alone

Job cuts at the UN's Geneva-based health and food agencies will weaken food safety worldwide according to report

Geneva's 24-week parental leave is finally on track after the National Council cleared the last federal obstacle on yesterday

Zurich now carries the highest housing-bubble risk of any city in the world, according to UBS's Global Real Estate Bubble Index

Prosecutors in the Crans-Montana fire case have scheduled four fresh hearings before the end of the year — and could add more

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross says Switzerland and the Geneva-based humanitarian body should keep their neutralities distinct

Gendarmes and municipal police handed out 135-euro fines to cyclists caught ignoring a road closure along Lake Annecy this weekend

Switzerland's football captain Granit Xhaka has admitted procuring a fake Covid vaccination certificate and will miss the next four Nations League matches

Swiss households with solar panels face a significant change from 1 January

Swiss mountain guides are sounding the alarm over hikers using ChatGPT and similar tools to plan trips into the Alps.

For the first time in Geneva Airport's history, more passengers are flying to and from China than to and from the United States

Summer droughts have forced many Swiss cattle herders down from Alpine pastures earlier than usual, but the traditional désalpes will still take place across Romandy this autumn

Switzerland is heading to the polls on nuclear power after opponents gathered more than 125,000 signatures in just three months

Geneva's chronic housing shortage is pushing developers to build up — literally, by adding storeys to existing buildings

Thousands of people marched in Geneva and Lausanne on Saturday to demand action on climate change after the summer's heatwaves