What do the Federal Reserve, chicken corpses, and umbrellas have in common? More than the usual; find out in our Week to Week news quiz.
Here are some random but real hints: reporters could just say "them there"; they're not tank proof; the jobs package came complete with a complement of 10,000 U.S. troops; and it's the next step after exploding cigars. Answers are below the quiz.
1. Since leaving his post as chairman of the Federal Reserve, what is Ben Bernanke having trouble doing?
a. Earning money; he only commands $1,000 for giving a speech
b. He recently complained that he is on the TSA's no-fly list
c. He was unable to refinance his home mortgage
d. Advising the president; he told MSNBC that Obama hasn't spoken with him once since he left the Fed
2. Who is receiving $5,000 from Foster Farms?
a. Competitor Perdue, after Foster's CEO tweeted derogatory messages about Perdue's CEO
b. A vegetarian activist who won a reduced award in court after being escorted from a Foster Farms shareholders meeting
c. People who tipped off police about four California teenagers who allegedly killed more than 900 chickens with a golf club at a Foster Farms ranch
d. Foster's CEO, who sued his own company because his executive bathroom was unusable for two months while it was being renovated
3. What is the Federal Communications Commission considering banning?
a. Nudity on pay cable movie channels
b. Speech that "insults or questions" religious beliefs
c. Use of Washington, D.C.'s NFL team name
d. Reality TV
4. What is the umbrella revolution?
a. Model Heidi Klum's new line of rainproof evening wear
b. Pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, in which the protestors use umbrellas to defend against pepper spray
c. A strike by 8,000 umbrella factory workers in South Korea over pay and work hours
d. The Obama administration's plans to expand Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile defenses to provide "umbrellas of protection" for Eastern European allies
5. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai got a new job this week. What will he be doing?
a. He succeeded Larry Ellison as CEO of Oracle
b. He is President Obama's choice to succeed Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general
c. He is the new president of Afghanistan
d. He was named CEO of NYC's new Freedom Tower
6. Declassified documents reveal that then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wanted Gerald Ford to do what if he won the 1976 presidential election?
a. Go to war with Cuba
b. Send military aid to underground resistance fighters in the Soviet Union
c. Make Kissinger vice president
d. Pull out of NATO
7. Why have the FBI and the U.S. attorney general criticized Apple and Google?
a. Between bendy phones and celebrity nude photos, the two companies have "hurt the international reputation of American business tech and security"
b. The two companies announced plans to move their headquarters off-shore to low-tax havens
c. They demanded that the companies prevent customers from accessing websites and other online platforms operated by terrorist groups
d. They don't like the companies' efforts to make their mobile platforms difficult for the government to monitor
8. On October 1, what did San Francisco begin giving out free in its public parks?
a. Condoms
b. Marijuana
c. Letters from city lawyers warning park users to clean up after themselves or face up to a week in jail
d. WiFi
9. What new policy did Florida's First Green Bank announce this week?
a. Free Money Fridays!
b. It will refuse to open accounts for Democrats, non-Christians, and "cyber-radicals"
c. Open a new checking account, get a lifetime NRA membership
d. All employees will be paid at least a living wage
10. Who is Julia Pierson and why did she quit her job?
a. She is the CEO of a company that overcharged the military $100 million for unneeded trucks
b. She is an Illinois waitress who resigned after being left a $150,000 tip by a visiting billionaire
c. She is the chief of the Secret Service, which has been under criticism over security lapses involving the president and his family
d. She is the Texas district head of the Centers for Disease Control, which announced its first U.S. case of Ebola this week
BONUS. A security company's experiment in London got people to agree to what in exchange for free WiFi service?
a. They had to agree that the NSA and Britain's security service had free access to all of their private data
b. The recipients agreed "to assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity"
c. Independence for Scotland
d. To never actually use the free WiFi service
Want the live news quiz experience? Join us Monday, October 13 in downtown San Francisco for our next live Week to Week political roundtable with a news quiz and a social hour at The Commonwealth Club of California. Panelists include Huffington Post's Mollie Reilly and San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli and C.W. Nevius.
ANSWERS:
1) c.
2) c.
3) c.
4) b.
5) c.
6) a.
7) d.
8) d.
9) d.
10) c.
BONUS) b.
Explanations of the hints: reporters could just say "them there": the FCC's considering banning the use of the Redskins official name, which will make play-by-play a bit interesting; they're not tank proof: the umbrellas are to withstand the pepper spray, but China has demonstrated more effective ways to deal with big democracy protests; the jobs package came complete with a complement of 10,000 U.S. troops: the U.S. hoped to get the new Afghan president to sign an agreement to allow 10,000 U.S. troops to remain after NATO leaves; and it's the next step after exploding cigars: Kissinger's plan to attack Cuba would have been the next in a line of U.S. ploys to destroy or undermine the communist government on the island, ploys that at one point infamously included trying to deploy exploding cigars. That didn't work.