Just Eat is moving towards a self-employed courier model in Zürich, Bern and Basel. A new report follows the pressure behind the change.
Most of the platform’s roughly 700 employed Swiss riders could lose their jobs, NZZ reports. They would be able to register for delivery work as self-employed couriers, taking on the uncertainty of how many orders arrive.
The report traces the competition with Uber Eats and the difficult economics for restaurants. Unions dispute whether riders who depend on a platform should be treated as independent workers. Behind the convenience of ordering dinner lies a consequential argument about who absorbs the cost of fluctuating demand.
700Employed Swiss riders at Just Eat Most could be affected, NZZ reports
Brazil chooses its president; Serbia’s student movement tests the establishment; Bulgaria votes on its direction.
Art
When a fan becomes a curator
BTS’s RM draws a new public to Korean art at SFMOMA. Elsewhere: street photography and the women behind Morris.
Sports
Fourth row for McLaren
Piastri qualifies seventh and Norris eighth in Austin. Brentford visits Hull; Quins hosts Saracens at The Stoop.
Local News
Zürich & the surrounding region
The delivery battle reaches riders’ employment contracts
25 October. NZZ examines Just Eat’s move towards the self-employed model used by Uber Eats in Zürich, Bern and Basel. Most of roughly 700 employed couriers could be dismissed and offered the chance to register independently. Syndicom says the change shifts demand risk to riders. Restaurants face their own squeeze, with commissions reportedly reaching 35%. For the next takeaway order, the story offers a closer look at the labour behind an apparently simple app. NZZ · German.
The clockmaker who cannot simply turn the hands back
25 October. At Zürich’s Uhrenmuseum zum Rösli, Anny Weber cares for a collection of around 500 clocks. Today’s return to winter time poses a delicate problem for old mechanisms: turning their hands backwards can cause damage. Some are stopped, then restarted an hour later. SRF’s portrait of the 23-year-old clockmaker is a lovely meeting of craft, design and patience—and an invitation to notice the engineering inside everyday objects. SRF · German.
Baden’s former industrial offices become a small urban centre
24 October. The Konnex building has undergone a renovation costing more than CHF70 million, combining workplaces with furnished apartments, food and fitness facilities. Cembra is moving its headquarters from Zürich, bringing about 600 jobs. SRF tests the promise against the appeal of homeworking: shared facilities may improve use of space, but they do not remove commuting or the difficulty of separating work from private life. A nearby example of workplace design in practice. SRF · German.
The Swaddle Daily · Local NewsDesk 01
National News
Switzerland & the United Kingdom
An appeal to share the first thirteenth AHV payment
25 October. Fondation Chance 13 is asking comfortably placed pensioners to donate their additional December pension payment. Its initial partners include Pro Senectute and Pro Juventute, supporting older people in hardship and projects for young people. The founders’ expected fundraising is an ambition, not money already received. The separate vote on financing the additional pension takes place on 29 November; the foundation’s appeal does not change anyone’s entitlement. SRF · German.
Switzerland considers postponing its electric-car levy
25 October. The federal government is examining a later or phased introduction of the proposed levy on electric vehicles, NZZ reports. The original plan envisaged 2030; a revised timetable has not been decided. If you are comparing vehicle ownership costs, the useful distinction is between today’s charges and a future proposal. NZZ puts the intended average burden at roughly CHF600 annually, with mileage affecting individual costs. It is too early to treat a delay as a guaranteed saving. NZZ · German.
England’s housing programme is promised another £1 billion
25 October. Wednesday’s Budget is set to add more than £1 billion for social and affordable housing, taking the ten-year programme above £40 billion, the BBC reports. Mayors and regional leaders are also promised more control, transitional funding and a future borrowing facility. The potential connection to London and the North East is practical: homes, high streets and transport projects could be shaped more locally. These remain announced plans ahead of the Budget’s full detail. BBC News.
France’s mass marches end in clashes and nearly 1,000 arrests
25 October · overnight update. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated on Saturday, with largely peaceful marches followed by clashes in several cities. Officials estimated 410,000 participants; unions put the total near 800,000. Police used tear gas and water cannon, and the interior minister reported almost 1,000 arrests. The scale of destruction was below the previous weekend’s, according to the BBC. Cost-of-living pressures and conditions in schools remain central to a protest movement that is far from settled. BBC News.
25 October. Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro face voters today after Bolsonaro led the first round. The incumbent’s campaign has focused on turnout and democratic sovereignty; his challenger promises tougher action on crime and changes to taxation and spending. The election also tests the reach of a political family whose former president is serving a sentence for coup-plotting. The outcome will matter well beyond Brazil, including its relationship with Washington. No result is available in this morning’s edition. BBC News.
West Bank crossings to close on Israel’s election day
25 October. Israel’s military says all West Bank land crossings will close during Tuesday’s election, with restrictions on Palestinian workers beginning earlier in most settlements. The announcement follows an operation in Hebron after two Israeli soldiers were killed. Israel’s defence minister says around 2,000 residents have been displaced. The immediate human consequences include interrupted work, movement and access to homes; the election context adds another layer to an already volatile situation. BBC News.
The Tyne Tunnel reopened after Saturday’s vehicle fire
24 October · evening update. Both tunnels were briefly held after a vehicle caught fire on the southbound side, causing substantial traffic delays. ChronicleLive’s final recap confirms the routes reopened. That last detail matters if yesterday’s closure headline is still circulating among family or friends: this is an account of the disruption, not a new warning that the tunnel remains closed. The incident added another complication to a weekend already difficult for travel around Tyneside. ChronicleLive.
Who gains—and who misses out—from the Washington Metro loop?
23 October. Councillors are questioning whether the planned extension will adequately serve villages such as Penshaw, Shiney Row and Mount Pleasant. The proposed 13km route would connect South Hylton with Pelaw through three Washington-area stations. ChronicleLive’s local-democracy report follows concerns about station locations and road changes alongside the long-standing ambition to restore the Leamside corridor. It is a useful view of a regional transport project from the communities around its edges. ChronicleLive · Local Democracy Reporting.
Westminster plans to remove 520 council posts
20 October · catch-up. The council says the reductions will concentrate on management rather than frontline roles, as part of addressing a projected £160 million funding gap by 2029. Staff were informed on 20 October, with consultation to follow and departures expected between April and December 2027. The authority also warns of a likely council-tax increase next year, without having set a rate. Its own account sets out the proposal; the effect on services remains to be seen. Westminster City Council.
The Swaddle Daily · Your PlacesDesk 04
Art
New ways of looking
RM’s collection brings a new audience to Korean art
24 October. SFMOMA’s exhibition with BTS member RM has sold more than 66,000 tickets, according to the Guardian. His private collection meets the museum’s holdings, placing Korean painting, calligraphy and sculpture in conversation with international work. The attraction is more than celebrity: personal labels, an audio guide and unexpected juxtapositions invite visitors to follow curiosity before expertise. For your own gallery visits, the room called “I Don’t Know, But I Like It” is a particularly liberating starting point. The Guardian.
Alex Levac’s street photographs arrive at a charged moment
23 October · exhibition opens today. Black Box opens today at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s Eyal Ofer Pavilion, two days before Israel’s election. Around 200 photographs bring together Levac’s political reporting and his eye for public life’s contradictions. Bathers ignoring warning signs can be amusing and unsettling at once. The Art Newspaper explores how his images move between irony, empathy and documentary evidence—a compelling extension of your interest in art that happens in the street. The Art Newspaper.
The women behind William Morris come into view
19 October · weekend catch-up. A new Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition draws on a collection assembled by Morris’s friend and secretary Sydney Cockerell, much of it rarely displayed. The reappraisal brings collaborators including Jane and May Morris and designer Kate Faulkner out of the background. Drawings, textiles and designs make the story of collective making more visible. This earlier-week preview is a rewarding Sunday read for anyone interested in how an apparently individual artistic style is built by many hands. The Art Newspaper.
This morning: enter Christoph Hefti’s textile world
Today, 25 October. The Museum für Gestaltung offers an English-language tour today from 11:00 to 12:00 at Ausstellungsstrasse 60, included with admission. Registration is recommended, with last-minute places subject to availability. In the afternoon, its open studio offers hands-on activities connected to Hefti’s work, in German, from 14:00 to 16:30. The two visits give you different ways into the same exhibition: guided looking first, then making. The studio costs CHF5 per person. Museum für Gestaltung.
Short windows: artESB ends today; Back Bone closes Tuesday
25–29 October. Liestal’s artESB exhibition closes today, with a 15:30 prize-giving after its ten-day run. Closer to home, Urs Jaermann and Florian Fuchs’s Back Bone remains at Galerie 111 until Tuesday. The same Zürich gallery opens Djuna and Christoph Bertschinger’s Zwischenreich on Thursday for just five days. These compact exhibitions are worth putting in the diary now; their dates and original venue listings are collected below. artESB · organiser.
29 October. The designer and curator Damian Fopp introduce the new show at Toni-Areal on 29 October. The opening runs 19:00–22:00, with the exhibition accessible from 19:30; entry is free and no registration is required. Parts of the programme are in English. The exhibition itself runs for months, but this is a one-night opportunity to hear directly from its maker—a particularly good fit for your interest in colour, materials and visual design. Museum für Gestaltung.
The art & performance calendar
Short exhibitions and individual visits • all times Zürich local
Barolo raises a record sum for projects beyond the vineyard
24 October. The sixth Barolo en primeur charity auction has raised €1.14 million, with one further barrel still to be sold in November. WineNews reports that supported projects include skills development and accommodation for seasonal vineyard workers. Fourteen barrels of the 2025 vintage were sold alongside donated lots, and the future bottles will carry Venezuelan artist Sol Calero’s work. Wine, art and the practical conditions of vineyard labour meet unusually neatly in this story. WineNews · Italian.
Beaujolais’s president challenges how France talks about wine
25 October. In a new interview, InterBeaujolais president Sébastien Kargul argues that alcohol-advertising restrictions make it harder to convey wine’s social side. He also discusses his own journey into the industry and younger consumers’ changing habits. This is an industry advocate’s position, rather than a settled explanation for falling sales. The interesting question is cultural: can a region find a less intimidating language without pretending that the reasons people drink—or choose not to—are simple? Vitisphere · French; subscription.
Mud crabs offer a different future for Wadeye’s sea farmers
25 October. ABC follows Theo Dooling and colleagues catching mud crabs for shipment to Darwin, racing the day’s flight and sometimes competing with crocodiles for their pots. Thamarrurr Sea Farmers has grown from a small venture into a commercial operation in a community where jobs are scarce. The report connects food with local knowledge, access to markets and meaningful work. Its hopes for wider economic change remain hopes, but the people doing the fishing make this an absorbing profile. ABC News.
The wine diary
Meet the makers • dates, places and original listings
Capability, access & the consequences of everyday decisions
Cheaper immunotherapy exposes the next access problem
24 October. Indian oncologists tell the Times of India that a lower-cost nivolumab biosimilar is reaching more patients, although national prescription growth has not yet been quantified. The report also asks whether hospitals’ purchasing incentives could prevent lower prices reaching patients. For pharma learning and capability work, the lesson extends beyond a product launch: access depends on procurement and clinical practice as well as price. Treatment suitability remains specific to the cancer and patient. Times of India.
A hospital privacy breach begins with an ordinary camera
25 October. Royal Darwin Hospital has apologised after patient information appeared in social-media posts associated with a medical observer. The doctor says she cannot verify the images’ origin and did not intend to disclose patient information; her attachment has ended. ABC’s report is a concrete governance case for healthcare teams: apparently routine photographs and meeting videos can expose names, histories and care plans. The useful learning question is whether staff can recognise sensitive information before a camera is raised. ABC News.
Accessibility work starts long before the meeting begins
24 October. Vaud parliamentarian Sébastien Kessler describes coordinating five people to reach Bern for the disability session. Assistance at home, transport and station support all have to connect. SRF’s account makes the accumulated organisational burden visible, alongside demands for greater inclusion. For learning programmes and professional communities, it suggests a better test than checking a venue’s entrance: can someone complete the whole journey, participate fully and return without having to personally repair every gap? SRF / RTS · German.
Two close matches • applications and original adverts
Today’s deadline: ICRC Head of Learning & Development
Deadline today · rechecked 25 October. The Geneva vacancy closes today, Sunday 25 October; the advert does not specify an hour, so leave time to submit. It seeks 12–15 years’ experience, organisation-wide capability strategy, senior advisory skills and evidence-led learning. English is required; French and ICRC field experience are assets. The 100% open-ended role includes required six-year rotation and a planned January 2027 start. Its international remit makes it worth a final fit check against your learning leadership background. Original ICRC advert.
Zurich: Skills Strategy & AI Capability Lead, 80–100%
Open listing · rechecked 25 October. The Zürich vacancy remains open and asks for the mix of skills strategy, workforce planning and practical AI learning that runs through your enterprise capability experience. Responsibilities include simulations, role-based pathways, skills data and influencing senior leaders across Life, Health & Bank Distribution. The advert states no closing date and no remote-working option. This is a continuing opportunity: assess the scope of the role and prepare evidence of capability improvements that changed business performance. Original Zurich advert.
The Swaddle Daily · AppointmentsDesk 09
Sports
McLaren • Harlequins • Brentford • Zürich rugby
McLaren starts on the fourth row in Austin
24 October · qualifying. Oscar Piastri qualified seventh and Lando Norris eighth after Norris’s final lap was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 19. Both drivers describe a car with potential that is difficult to extract consistently. McLaren hopes tyre degradation and strategy create chances to recover; that is the team’s expectation, not a prediction of a podium. Kimi Antonelli is on pole as the championship reaches a potentially decisive Sunday. The race is still ahead. McLaren: qualifying report.
25 October · match day. Smith is selected for his 200th Harlequins appearance against Saracens at The Stoop today. Fin Baxter returns after ten months out, while George Furbank adds another organiser to the backline. Kick-off is 15:00 UK / 16:00 Zürich following the clock change. The occasion gives an already important derby an extra emotional charge; the team sheet also offers a first chance to see how Baxter’s return changes the front-row contest. Team announcement via Ultimate Rugby.
Brentford goes to Hull without its usual midfield pairing
25 October · match day. The Bees visit the MKM Stadium at 14:00 UK / 15:00 Zürich. Suspensions for Yehor Yarmoliuk and Vitaly Janelt make this an unusual midfield test: Correlation FC notes that at least one had featured in every league game since the start of 2023–24. Keane Lewis-Potter returns to the club where he developed. With Brentford sixth and Hull ninth before the weekend, this is a useful test of depth as well as a reunion. Brentford: match centre.
Andrew Grill discusses the limits of an AI “second pair of eyes”
21 October · catch-up. Your LinkedIn connection’s 21 October BBC Radio Bristol appearance considers research using facial photographs in clinical assessment. His recap stresses standardised data and a supporting role alongside professional judgement; the work is described as far from hospital use. It is a useful conversation about communicating an early AI result without turning a prototype into a product promise. The recording is linked from his event page, for a short catch-up listen. Andrew Grill: BBC appearance and recording.
Xaver Bühlmann remembers the smoke in the Gotthard tunnel
24 October. Twenty-five years after the fire that killed eleven people, the former firefighter recalls arriving from the north and encountering a wall of smoke three kilometres before the fire itself. SRF’s interview follows the decisions, fear and lasting memory of that response. It is a sober account of what an emergency feels like from inside a team, rather than a retrospective made only of dates and statistics. SRF · German.
Alison Kuo inherits a beard—and a performance tradition
22 October · artist profile. A costume beard worn by her grandmother, a Cantonese opera performer, became the starting point for Kuo’s research and New Museum residency. Her work brings family photographs, Chinatown performers, friends and younger collaborators into a shared theatrical language. The performances ended yesterday; the profile remains a rewarding read about transmission, improvisation and community. It connects nicely with your improv interest while opening a door onto a very different performance tradition. The Art Newspaper.
The Swaddle Daily · PeopleDesk 11
The Back Page
Act • experiment • stretch
Your Sunday action box
25–30 October.Today: check the ICRC application before its deadline; the English Hefti tour starts at 11:00, Zytlos’s art-and-flea market at 15:00, and Vinifera’s final afternoon runs 13:00–18:00. This week: Sabine Marcelis’s opening is Thursday; Daudi Matsiko plays the Le Corbusier pavilion on Friday. Switzerland is now on CET. The linked calendar gives the venue details, prices and booking conditions. Zytlos: original market listing.
A design idea: test the handover, not just the screen
This week’s experiment. Take one learning journey—joining a workshop, completing a simulation or escalating an AI-generated error—and map every handover between people and systems. Ask a participant to walk through it while explaining where they have to wait, repeat information or request help. Improve the weakest transition, then repeat the exercise. Today’s accessibility story is a reminder that a good individual component can still sit inside an exhausting overall experience. Prompted by SRF’s Kessler interview.
Two dice, two different pieces of information
Original Sunday puzzle. You roll two independent, fair six-sided dice, one red and one blue, without seeing them. A: a truthful observer tells you only that at least one die shows six. What is the probability that the total is ten or more? B: instead, you are told specifically that the red die shows six. What is the probability now? The observer is checking exactly the stated condition, with no extra selection rule. Decide whether the two answers should match before counting.
The Swaddle Daily · The Back PageDesk 12
Puzzle solution — open when ready
A: 5/11. There are eleven equally likely ordered outcomes with at least one six. The five whose totals reach ten are (6,4), (6,5), (6,6), (4,6) and (5,6). B: 1/2. Once the red die is fixed at six, the blue die is still equally likely to show 1–6; three values (4, 5, 6) work. Knowing which die shows six changes the set of possible outcomes.