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Here is this week’s Extemp Central news quiz. Good luck!
To access a list of all our old quizzes, click here.
1. How many American schools are under investigation from the Department of Education for mishandling cases of sexual violence?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Ninety. The debate over sexual assualt on college campuses has increased over the last few years as a result of Justice Department and Department of Education reports and investigations. Recent controversies over the reporting of an alleged assault on the University of Virginia’s campus in Rolling Stone Magazine and whether adequate due process is accorded to defendants in university disciplinary committees has made the issue more explosive in recent weeks.[/toggle]
2. Why was Stefan Lofven’s call for early elections in Sweden significant?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Lofven has only been in office for two months. His Social Democratic-led government collapsed after the Swedish parliament rejected his proposed budget making him the shortest serving prime minister in the country’s history.[/toggle]
3. Which two cabinet officials did Benjamin Netanyahu fire last week, triggering an early Israeli election?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Netanyahu fired Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. The firings removed political support from his coalition government by Yesh Atid and Hatnuah, the respective political forces of Lapid and Livni, thereby causing Netanyahu’s government to collapse after a mere twenty months. The next Israeli parliamentary election will take place on March 17.[/toggle]
4. Why have conservatives seized on Jonathan Gruber’s comments on the Affordable Care Act?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Gruber is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was consulted by the White House in 2009 when it drafed the Affordable Care Act. Gruber was taped in 2013 saying that the “stupidity of the American voter” helped pass the law, implying that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats were deceiving the public about the law. In testifying before Congress earlier this week, Gruber apologizes for his comments and said that he was not the architect of the ACA. Other Republicans are seizing on Gruber’s comments that the law’s subsidies are limited to state-run exchanges, something that the Supreme Court is now examining. Gruber says those comments were taken out of context.[/toggle]
5. Why did Greek bond yields suffer their worst fall in nearly twenty-five years on Tuesday?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Markets reacted poorly to the news that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in calling a presidential election. The Greek parliament elects the Greek President and if Samaras’s-backed candidates failed, early elections will have to called, which could result in the left-wing Syriza Party winning. Syriza has been vocal in its opposition to Greek austerity measures demanded by the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).[/toggle]
6. An al-Qaeda cell killed an American and South Africa hostage after a failed rescue mission in this counry over the weekend.
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]Yemen. A rescue mission to free American Lucas Somers failed and resulted in his death as well as those of South African nation Pierre Korkie.[/toggle]
7. A Senate Intelligence Committee investigation recently condemned the use of interrogation tactics employed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Bush administration. Name some of its conclusions.
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, argues that the interrogation tactics failed to prevent a terrorist attack and that the CIA used more aggressive tactics than previously known, including waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation for 180 hours. The CIA refutes the report.[/toggle]
8. What is the FARC?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The FARC stands for The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. It is a guerilla organization that has been waging war against the Colombian government since 1964 in an attempt to enact a Marxist-Leninist communist platform. It favors rural over urban areas and hates the Colombian government’s ties to the United States.[/toggle]
9. Back in 2008, what sent Spain’s economy into a recession?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The collapse of its housing market. The collapse was caused by an overheated real estate bubble and the global financial crisis. The country has yet to recover and the country has an alarming 25% unemployment rate.[/toggle]
10. What is the new U.S. unemployment rate?
[toggle title_open=”Close Me” title_closed=”Open Me” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The Labor Department announced on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate remained at 5.8%. U.S. employers added 321,000 jobs in November, the largest monthly hiring in nearly three years. These figures are giving optimism to economists, who see the U.S. economy picking up steam.[/toggle]