Before you start celebrating the weekend, find out how much you know about this week's news by taking the latest Week to Week news quiz.
Here are some random but real hints: Maybe they'll hide them in matryoshka dolls; one is still the limit; this could have seriously curtailed Castro's legendary long-winded speeches; and the U.S. put on hold its plans for a Turkish version.
1. Who is Ivan Lopez?
a. The new president of Venezuela, the first from the centrist parties in two decades
b. President Obama's compromise candidate for U.S. surgeon general
c. The newly elected governor of Mississippi, who just signed a religious practices bill that has been criticized by LGBT advocates
d. An Iraq war veteran who killed three people and wounded 16 others at Fort Hood
2. Which of the following is not true regarding Ukrainian-Russian relations?
a. Russia nearly doubled the price of natural gas it exports to Ukraine
b. European Union foreign ministers confirmed that Russia has withdrawn troops from its border with Ukraine, as promised
c. NATO's top commander said Russian troops were positioned to attack Ukraine on 12-hour's notice
d. Russia recalled its ambassador to NATO
3. What did the U.S. Supreme Court rule on Wednesday?
a. People can give any amount of money to an individual candidate
b. People can give any amount of money overall to candidates, political parties, and political action campaigns
c. You can't give more than $9,500 to a political action campaign
d. Money is people, too
4. What did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admit in a letter to a U.S. senator?
a. The NSA taps Barack Obama's mobile phone
b. The NSA password for its wiretapping software is "password"
c. U.S. intelligence spies on Americans' emails and phone calls without warrants
d. U.S. intelligence amasses more data than it is able to collate
5. Why is Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory in hot water?
a. He is accused of not following up on accusations of sexual assault by his clergy
b. He absconded with $500,000 from church coffers
c. His girlfriend has sued the church to be released from her vows as a nun
d. He built a $2.2 million mansion for his own use
6. What high-tech initiative did the United States create for Cuba?
a. Exploding e-cigarettes
b. ZunZuneo, a "Cuban Twitter" to undermine the regime in Havana
c. A massive denial-of-service attack against the Cuban government's only mainframe computer
d. A drone that beams internet service to the island
7. Why is Washington mad at Tehran this week?
a. Iran has not lived up to its promises to deescalate its nuclear program
b. Iran wants to name as its ambassador to the United Nations a former student who helped seize the U.S. Embassy in 1979
c. The Obama administration rejected Iran's new ambassador to Washington, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
d. Tehran's government has announced economic sanctions against the United States
8. Who announced plans to retire?
a. Harry Reid
b. Michelle Malkin
c. David Letterman
d. James Franco
9. After Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's pledge to "wipe out Twitter," what happened this week?
a. Twitter no longer exists
b. Twitter has created a special exception for Turkey's Twitter users that allows them to tweet up to 280 characters
c. Turkey's constitutional court said the ban is illegal and had to be lifted
d. Erdogan's party suffered landslide losses in local elections this week
10. In the wake of international publicity about widespread sexual violence, what sentence did an Indian court give to three men convicted of multiple rapes?
a. Death
b. Time served
c. Two years of probation
d. They were forced to marry the victims
BONUS. According to a BBC report, who was arrested in Pakistan and charged with planning a murder?
a. The brother of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
b. A nine-month-old boy
c. The head of a Taliban breakaway faction based in Lahore
d. A Christian woman who had an argument with her neighbor over placement of her mailbox
Want the live news quiz experience? Join us Monday, April 21 in San Francisco for our next live Week to Week political roundtable plus a news quiz and a social hour at The Commonwealth Club. Panelists include Larry Gerston and Martin G. Reynolds.
ANSWERS: 1) d. 2) b. 3) b. 4) c. 5) d. 6) b. 7) b. 8) c. 9) c. 10) a. BONUS) b.
Explanations of the hints: Maybe they'll hide them in matryoshka dolls: Russia said it would move back the troops, but so far at least that does not appear to have happened; one is still the limit: the limits on total giving to an individual candidate remain, but the court lifted the cap on total giving by a person to multiple candidates, parties, and PACs; this could have seriously curtailed Castro's legendary long-winded speeches: if Castro had to keep things under 140 characters, he would have saved everyone a lot of time; and the U.S. put on hold its plans for a Turkish version: the U.S. didn't have to create a Twitter or ZunZuneo for Turkey, because that government was forced to rescind the ban for now.