Switzerland

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Thousands of Tourists Get Stranded at Ski Resort

They have to be airlifted out of the Swiss resort of Zermatt after 2 days

(Newser) - Thousands of tourists came to the Zermatt ski resort in Switzerland for a winter adventure, and that's exactly what they got. It just wasn't the one they anticipated. About 13,000 people got snowed in at the resort for two days before helicopters began airlifting them out on...

Switzerland Builds World's Steepest Funicular Railway

Stoosbahn climbs at dizzying angle

(Newser) - Swiss President Doris Leuthard is afraid of heights, but she was still able to go on the maiden voyage of a dizzyingly steep new railway after cutting the ribbon for its opening ceremony Friday. Swiss authorities say the new Stoosbahn line is the world's steepest funicular railway, climbing 2,...

Daredevils Jump From Mountain Into a Plane

Vince Reffet, Fred Fugen pay homage to fellow French base jumper

(Newser) - Vince Reffet initially thought the stunt would be relatively easy. He soon learned that base jumping from a 13,000-foot mountain peak, gliding and hitting a target little bigger than a body is the opposite of easy. After two months of training, however, that's exactly what Reffet and fellow...

Why Pay for Swiss Trip When You Can Get Paid to Move There?

Tiny village in Switzerland may pay families tens of thousands of dollars to relocate there

(Newser) - A tiny village in Switzerland just asked the Italian town of Bormida to hold its beer. Earlier this year, Bormida was offering $2,175 to people willing to move there in an effort to stave off its extinction. Facing the prospect of a similar future, little Albinen may soon significantly...

They Found $2M in Gold ... in Sewage

And that's just the annual amount discarded in Switzerland

(Newser) - There's more than cash going down the drain in Switzerland. About $2 million in gold and $1.8 million in silver ends up in Switzerland's sewers each year, according to an environmental study commissioned by the Swiss government. Strange as it sounds, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute...

New Rape Accusations Against Roman Polanski

German former actress says director raped her in 1972 when she was 15

(Newser) - Roman Polanski is now facing sexual assault charges from a fourth woman, the New York Times reports. Renate Langer says the director raped her in February 1972 when she was 15 years old. The 61-year-old former actress says she was visiting Polanski, who she met while working at a modeling...

Only One Country Beat US for Most Competitive Economy

Switzerland is No. 1 in World Economic Forum ranking

(Newser) - One of Donald Trump's platforms during the presidential campaign was to "restore America's competitive edge," but the US might not be doing so shabby after all. Quartz , which features the World Economic Forum's new Global Competitiveness Report , notes that the United States has actually ascended...

Toilet Clogs in Geneva Had Unlikely Source

$120K in 500-euro bills found in 4 toilets in May

(Newser) - Some $120,000 has gone down the drain in Switzerland—literally. Prosecutors say 500-euro bank notes were found stuffed in a toilet serving a vault containing safe deposit boxes at Geneva's USB bank back in May, per Bloomberg . A few days later, per Reuters , 500-euro notes, which "had...

Chainsaw Assailant at Large After Attack in Switzerland

2 people seriously injured

(Newser) - Police in Switzerland are looking for the assailant in a bizarre attack: Authorities say a man injured five people with a chainsaw Monday morning in a small town, reports the BBC . Two of the victims were injured seriously. It's not clear what prompted the assault in the town of...

Receding Glacier Reveals Couple Frozen 75 Years

Bodies of missing couple discovered in Switzerland

(Newser) - Marcelin and Francine Dumoulin were 40 and 37, respectively, when they went out to milk their cows in the Swiss Alps on Aug. 15, 1942. They never returned, leaving behind seven children who were divided among other families in the region. The children became strangers, but "we spent our...

This Village Was Temporarily Too Beautiful for Photographs

Bergün/Bravuogn eases its 'friendly' photo ban

(Newser) - A quaint mountainside village in Switzerland found itself the subject of headlines across the globe after instituting a cheeky photo ban—one that lasted all of a few days. In what was admittedly at least one-half marketing scheme from the get-go, Bergün/Bravuogn in Switzerland on May 29 decide to...

Man Fined $4K for Giving the Thumbs-Up on Facebook

Could be a first in Switzerland, or anywhere

(Newser) - Be careful what you like online, especially if you're in Switzerland—it may get you in trouble for defamation. In what Fortune reports could be a first, a court there has fined an unidentified man the equivalent of more than $4,000 after he liked defamatory comments on Facebook...

Parents Told They Can't Name Their Baby 'J'

Swiss court says the name would cause too much confusion

(Newser) - J is not OK—as a name, that is, according to a Swiss court. The Zurich administrative court said in a ruling released Tuesday it had upheld a local registry office's decision to reject the letter as a given name in the best interests of the child, Switzerland's...

Man Convicted of Rape for Taking Condom Off During Sex

Woman would not have consented had she known, court rules

(Newser) - A 47-year-old French man and a Swiss woman he met on Tinder were having sex during their second date when the man slipped his condom off without telling the woman—and now he's been convicted of rape. Switzerland's highest court determined that the woman, whose lawyer calls this...

Woman Denied Swiss Passport for Being 'Annoying'

Nancy Holten meets all legal requirements

(Newser) - A vocal vegan in Switzerland seems to have voiced her discontent with certain Swiss traditions too many times. Nancy Holten was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Switzerland since she was 8; she'd like to gain Swiss citizenship, which her children have, but despite meeting all legal...

American Dies in Fall From Matterhorn

And yet he may one day return

(Newser) - Patrick Harper loved the Matterhorn so much that his ashes will one day be spread there—at the site of his death. The 52-year-old mountain climber and engineer from Butler, Pa., had been repeating his 2007 ascent of the 14,692-foot mountain in the Swiss Alps in order to recreate...

Police: Gunman Dead After Swiss Mosque Attack

Suspect shot 3 in Islamic center's prayer room

(Newser) - A suspect believed to have opened fire inside a mosque in Switzerland's largest city is dead, police say. Zurich police say a man found dead near the scene of the Monday evening attack is the suspect who stormed an Islamic center and shot three people, injuring two of them...

Train Service Begins Through Longest Tunnel

Swiss send first regular passenger trains through Gotthard Base Tunnel

(Newser) - Switzerland's national rail company, SBB, has started regular service through the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world's longest railway tunnel . The first trains ran from Zurich to Lugano on Sunday, SBB said in a statement and YouTube video . The 35.4-mile tunnel cuts journey times by 30 minutes or...

The World&#39;s 10 Richest Countries
The World's 10
Richest Countries
Nov 22, 2016 5:26 PM CST

The World's 10 Richest Countries

The US just makes the list

(Newser) - While some countries are rich in culture and history, others are actually rich. 24/7 Wall St. has compiled a list of the world's 25 wealthiest countries based on gross national income, which it says is a "more useful measure of national wealth" than gross domestic product. The site...

This Is the Shortest International Flight in the World


Buckle Up for
This 8-Minute
Plane Ride
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Nov 6, 2016 10:04 AM CST

Buckle Up for This 8-Minute Plane Ride

From Switzerland to Friedrichshafen, Germany—the world's shortest international commercial flight

(Newser) - The world's longest nonstop commercial flight is nearly 15 hours; the shortest, about eight minutes. CNN reports on the latter out of Europe, where the puddle jumper (water droplet jumper?) between Switzerland's St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport and Germany's Friedrichshafen Airport is a commuter fantasy come to life as...

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