Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether to limit the country’s population to 10 million people. Critics say the anti-immigration measure could upend Switzerland’s economy.

The referendum has been “likened to a ‘Swiss Brexit,’” said Reuters. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party asserts that migration-driven population growth is increasing “rents and crime” and pushing roads and other local infrastructure “to the limits.” 

Foreign residents now make up 28% of the population, growing Switzerland’s population from 7.3 million to 9.1 million over the last quarter-century. But opponents in the business community fear this measure would “limit Switzerland’s access to skilled labor and damage relations” with the European Union, said Reuters.

Rupturing EU relations
The proposed cap features “two main measures” to curb population growth, said The New Yorker. One imposes “restrictions in the areas of asylum and family reunification” if the population exceeds 9.5 million. The other would terminate the right of EU citizens to “work, study and live” in Switzerland if the population exceeds 10 million, a target that could be reached as soon as 2033. 

Business leaders say those measures would also damage the Swiss economy. Google parent company Alphabet employs “5,000 foreign workers from 85 countries” in Zurich, said Seeking Alpha. And the pharmaceutical company Roche employs thousands more. The country “cannot meet the need for bright minds on its own,” said Roche CEO Severin Schwan to shareholders earlier this year. 

The EU is more than a source of workers for Switzerland’s businesses, said Seeking Alpha. It’s also the “biggest export destination” for Swiss products, and that business could dry up if the referendum passes.

‘Voters don’t like immigrants’
The vote reflects a “broader European trend” of right-wing parties “capitalizing on anxieties surrounding immigration, housing and public services,” said The Independent. That’s creating a dilemma for EU governments. Their “rich economies” need workers to create wealth, said Alan Beattie at the Financial Times, but their voters “don’t like immigrants.” Polling shows that “supporters and opponents are neck and neck,” said Swiss news agency SWI, with 52% opposed to the initiative and 45% in support. 

Another element of aviation is causing trouble for the air travel industry, and this time it’s the airplanes themselves. The companies that manufacture aircraft engines are increasingly coming under fire for alleged price gouging, which airlines say is making it harder to afford new planes. Combined with increased demand from travelers, airlines have found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Why are engines more expensive?
They have “emerged as an acute flashpoint for the industry, both in terms of their performance and lack of availability,” said Bloomberg. Many airplane manufacturers also increasingly rely on “less than a handful of manufacturers, creating quasi-monopolies and dependencies.” 

Many manufacturers are also turning toward a trend in energy-efficient engines, but this comes with its own problems. Continuing shortages of the industry’s “most fuel-efficient aircraft engines have sent their market values soaring,” said the Financial Times.

These factors mean that engines have become one of the most expensive elements of building new airplanes. A pair of jet engines now represents up to 80% of the total market value of a new plane, according to aviation finance company Avolon. It represents a marked change from two decades ago, when engines would have only accounted for “20% to 30% of an aircraft’s value,” said the Financial Times.

How are airlines reacting?
Airline executives are angry at the inflated cost of engines. Most say they are “being forced to remove engines and take them for maintenance into crowded shops earlier than expected, which is driving up costs,” said CNBC. The increased prices represent a “paradox: Engine makers dazzled carriers with more fuel-efficient options for new planes from Boeing and Airbus,” but now “production shortfalls and disappointing reliability with those engines are becoming costly problems.”

So far, most engines have “not reached the reliability that airlines need, though there have been improvements,” said CNBC. As airplanes “push the limits, it sometimes comes at the cost of reliability,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech, the CEO of Canadian carrier WestJet, to CNBC. “A lot of the fuel savings are in fact eaten up by unplanned maintenance costs.”

Fireworks light up the night sky around the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, to celebrate Pope Leo’s blessing of the basilica’s Jesus Christ tower. The building of the tower marks a major step toward completion of the basilica, which has been under construction for 144 years. 
Manaure Quintero / AFP via Getty Images

Summers are the perfect time to explore, and that includes museums. These new exhibitions — an examination of American Pop Art, a closer look at the scandalous painting that rocked early 20th-century France, and an immersive celebration of Yoko Ono — are all worth the trek.

‘Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now’
The evolution of American Pop Art is explored in this exhibition of 29 pioneering and contemporary artists, like Maurizio Cattelan (pictured above), Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol at The Guggenheim Museum in New York City. By placing historic works alongside recent acquisitions by current artists, the Guggenheim aims to demonstrate how the art form, as a “strategy, continues to inspire, provoke and evolve,” said Lauren Hinkson, the museum’s curator of collections. (through Jan. 10, 2027)

‘Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal”
When Henri Matisse debuted “Femme au chapeau (Woman with a Hat)” in 1905, it was a “clanging bell” that announced the “split between Postimpressionism and Fauvism,” the French avant-garde art movement, said Galerie. “Matisse’s Femme au chapeau: A Modern Scandal” at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art tells the “full story” of how the painting changed the rules. (through Sept. 13, 2026)

‘Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind’
A “cultural reframing” of Yoko Ono’s legacy is underway, and she’s now “widely understood” to be one of the “foundational figures of conceptual and performance art,” said Vogue. “Music of the Mind” at The Broad in Los Angeles features works that “underscore” this, like “Freedom,” a 1970 film addressing women’s liberation, and original typed pages of her 1964 book, “Grapefruit.” (through Oct. 11, 2026)