Categories
News

News quiz, week ending April 27

1. Rank the following movies in order of their performance at the U.S. box office over the weekend of April 21 and 22:
a. “I Feel Pretty”
b. “A Quiet Place”
c. “Rampage”

2. Former President Barack Obama will deliver a lecture this July in which country?
a. South Africa
b. Kenya
c. New Zealand

3. What is the name of the British royal baby born this week?
a. Arthur Luis Charles
b. Charles Arthur Luis
c. Louis Arthur Charles

4. Amazon this week began delivering packages to which location:
a. Inside people’s homes
b. Inside parked cars
c. Inside Whole Foods stores

5. Which foreign leader did not visit the White House this week?
a. Angela Merkel
b. Emmanuel Macron
c. Theresa May

6. Who said that, over the long term, flip-flopping by the U.S. on international agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord is “insane?”
a. Emmanuel Macron
b. Angela Merkel
c. Theresa May

7. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about which of the following:
a. The Trump administration’s travel ban
b. The Trump administration’s move to end relief for so-called dreamers
c. The scope of the presidential power to pardon

8. Which Trump pick to be secretary of veterans affairs withdrew from consideration?
a. Mike Pompeo
b. Scott Pruitt
c. Ronny Jackson

9. Bill Cosby was convicted of:
a. Aggravated indecent assault
b. Larceny
c. Perjury

10. What first did the meeting between the leaders of North and South Korea mark?
a.The first time a South Korean leader had set foot in the north
b.The first time a North Korean leader had set foot in the south
c.The first time the leaders of North and South Korea have met

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers
1. b, c, a
2. a
3. c
4. b
5. c
6. a
7. a
8. c
9. a
10. b

Categories
News

News quiz, week ending April 20

1. Who headlined the Coachella music festival?
a. Beyoncé
b. Jay-Z
c. Chance the Rapper

2. Desiree Linden became the first American woman to win the Boston Marathon in how many years?
a. 18
b. 25
c. 33

3. Who won the Pulitzer Prize for music?
a. Kendrick Lamar
b. Michael Gilbertson
c. Ted Hearne

4. What is the mission of TESS, which NASA launched on Wednesday?
a. To search for the most distant stars
b. To search for planets that resemble Earth
c. To measure the mass of black holes

5. A passenger aboard a flight by which airline died after an engine exploded?
a. Southwest Airlines
b. Delta Airlines
c. United Airlines

6. A victory next month by Stacy Abrams, a Democrat who is running to be governor of Georgia, would mark which of the following firsts?
a. Abrams would be Georgia’s first Democratic governor
b. Abrams would be the first Democratic governor of a southern state in 15 years
c. Abrams would be the first black woman to be the governor of any state in the country

7. Which top U.S. official met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over Easter weekend?
a. The director of the CIA
b. The ambassador to the UN
c. The national security adviser

8. Which of the following distinctions did Barbara Bush not earn?
a. One half of the longest-married couple in presidential history
b. The first woman in American history to have a son of hers follow his father to the White House
c. The first, first lady to insist on hiring a black press secretary

9. Who is Rashon Nelson ?
a. A forward for the Houston Rockets
b. A black man fatally shot by police in Sacramento
c. One of two black men arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia

10. Who is Cuba’s new president?
a. Raul Castro
b. Juan Almeida
c. Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers
1. a
2. c
3. a
4. b
5. a
6. c
7. a
8. b
9. c
10. c

Categories
News

News quiz, week ending April 13

1. A van in which country drove into a crowd, killing and injuring pedestrians?
a. France
b. Spain
c. Germany

2. Russia and Syria blamed which country for an attack on an air base in central Syria that killed 14 people?
a. Turkey
b. Israel
c. Saudi Arabia

3. What was Donald Trump referring to when he talked about “an attack on our country?”
a. A search of his lawyer’s office by the FBI
b. A chemical weapons attack in Syria
c. China’s announcing tariffs on the imports of a list of products from the U.S.

4. Who won the Masters golf tournament?
a. Jordan Spieth
b. Rory McIlroy
c. Patrick Reed

5. Paul Ryan announced he will not run for re-election, bringing to nearly 30 the number of Republicans who have announced their retirements. How many seats must Democrats win to take over the House?
a. 15
b. 24
c. 31

6. Which of the following nations did not join the U.S. in taking military action against Syria?
a. The UK
b. France
c. Germany

7. The Atlantic Gulf Stream current, which carries warm water northward and cold water southward, is now at its weakest in how many years, research shows?
a. 100
b. 1600
c. 2500

8. Who pledged to help the U.S. State Department find “it’s swagger once again?”
a. Mike Pompeo
b. Nikki Haley
c. Lindsey Graham

9. The U.S. might rejoin which of the following trade agreements that it withdrew from in January 2017?
a. The Paris climate agreement
b. The North American Free Trade Agreement
c. The Trans-Pacific Partnership

10. Who wrote that Donald Trump is like a mafia boss and “untethered to the truth?”
a. Hillary Clinton
b. James Comey
c. Stormy Daniels

11. According to a new study, every glass of wine or pint of beer over the daily recommended limit will cut how much time from the expected lifespan of a 40-year-old?
a. 15 minutes
b. 30 minutes
c. 60 minutes

12. President Trump pardoned Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was convicted of felonies related to which act of his?
a. Leaking the identity of a CIA officer
b. Failing to pay federal income tax
c. Lying to Congress

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers
1. c
2. b
3. a
4. c
5. b
6. c
7. b
8. a
9. c
10. b
11. b
12. a

Categories
Law

Trump shows why Congress should reclaim the power to declare war

Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the president to use military force against those responsible.

Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat who represents California’s East Bay region, was the lone member of either the House or Senate to vote against the resolution.

“In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration,” she wrote.  “I could not support such a grant of war-making authority to the president; I believe it would put more innocent lives at risk.”

For that act of bravery and conscience – not to mention a construing of the Constitution as strictly as a hero of the right such as Justice Neil Gorsuch might construe it – Lee received insults and death threats.

Yet the concerns she expressed endure. They arose again on Tuesday, when the president took to Twitterto tell Russia to “get ready” for missiles fired at Syria by the U.S. in retaliation for what appears to have been an attack on civilians using chemical weapons.

In the wake of that tweet, Lee, now joined by three of her colleagues, including two Republicans, issued a statementurging the president to seek authorization from Congress before using military force against Syria.

“The Constitution clearly gives Congress, not the executive branch, the power to authorize war,” they wrote. “Any use of force against Syria requires approval from Congress first.”

The move follows a similar statement last June by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who said that U.S. airstrikes in Syria exceeded the authorization passed in the wake of 9/11.

In 2013, at Lee’s request, the Congressional Research Service compiled a memorandum that listed the uses of military force taken pursuant to the 2001 authorization. They included the use of such force in 10 countries (a number that now stands at least at a dozen after deployments in Niger and Syria), detaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and engaging terrorist groups both “on the high seas” and “around the world.”

In short, the resolution produced a forever war that has strayed from its justification to avenge the 9/11 attacks and now stands on questionable legal footing.

President Barack Obama recognized the problem implicitly in August 2013, when, after being presented with evidence of a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian regime against its own people, he refrained from taking military action until Congress could be heard.

Obama explained his decision as follows:

“[H]aving made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. I’ve long believed that our power is rooted not just in our military might, but in our example as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

A month later, the prospect of a diplomatic solution that called for the Syrian government to hand over its stockpile of chemical weapons spared Congress what some members feared would be a tough vote.

Still, the decision by President Obama to seek authority from Congress marked a move to harmonize the use of military force with the Constitution.

In September 2013, when a vote by Congress on the use of military force in Syria seemed imminent, Donald Trump warned President Obama against attacking Syria. “If you do, many very bad things will happen,” Trump tweeted.

Fast forward to last Sunday, when Trump blasted Obama for failing to take military action against Syria. Though the tweets induce whiplash, they establish that, as president, Trump has about as much regard for the Constitution as he does for consistency.

Categories
Law

Lindsay Lohan loses privacy lawsuit against maker of ‘Grand Theft Auto V’

Lindsay Lohan has lost a lawsuit to hold the maker of “Grand Theft Auto V” (GTAV) responsible for allegedly invading her privacy.

The computer-generated images of a character named “Lacey Jonas” who appears in the video game do not resemble the actress such that she can sue the company that makes and markets the game, New York’s Court of Appeals ruled on March 29.

Lohan, 31, sued Take Two Interactive in 2014, charging the company with creating the character, who describes herself as “really famous,” an “actress slash singer” and “the voice of a generation,” without Lohan’s permission.

New York law prohibits the use of someone’s name, likeness, portrait, picture or voice for use in advertising without their written consent.

But while a computer-generated image can invade someone’s privacy, the Jonas character “merely is an artistic description of a ‘twenty something’ woman without any particular identifying physical characteristics,” Judge Eugene Fahey wrote on behalf of five of his colleagues.

Lohan had charged that two scenes in the game – one featuring Jonas clad in denim shorts, white t-shirt and sunglasses, and another featuring the character wearing a red bikini and bracelets taking a selfie and displaying the peace sign – exploited her image in both the game and material that promoted the Grand Theft Auto series, which has sold more than 275 million units.

The court disagreed. The scenes at issue “are indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look, and persona of a modern beach-going young woman,” Fahey wrote. “Moreover, the ambiguous representations in question are nothing more than cultural comment that is not recognizable as [Lohan] and therefore is not actionable under [the law].”

The ruling represents the latest in a string of lawsuits by Lohan, who in 2010 settled a $100 million claim against E-Trade over a Super Bowl commercial that Lohan alleged mocked her arrests for drugs and alcohol.

Three years later, Lohan sued the rapper Pitbull for defamation. The judge who oversaw the case dismissed it after determining that the song at issue was protected by the First Amendment.

Categories
News

News quiz, week ending April 6

1. At least how many Palestinians were killed as of Friday during protests along the fence that separates Israel from Gaza?
a. 10
b. 27
c. 35

2. Which team won the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship on a shot with 0.1 seconds left in the game?
a. Notre Dame
b. Mississippi State
c. South Carolina

3. A space station belonging to which nation fell to Earth?
a. Russia
b. China
c. India

4. Mark Zuckerberg said the spread of hate speech via Facebook in which country was “a real issue?”
a. The United States
b. Myanmar
c. Germany

5. What distinguishes the star that scientists have dubbed Icaraus?
a. It is smaller than the Sun
b. It is the oldest star ever seen
c. It’s the most distant individual star ever seen that’s not a supernova

6. Steven Bochco, the writer and producer who died last week, is known for creating which of the following TV shows:
a. Hill Street Blues
b. ER
c. The Wire

7. Who is Alex van der Zwaan and why was he sentenced to 30 days in jail?
a. A London-based lawyer who represented Paul Manafort and Rick Gates that admitted lying to the FBI
b. A Dutch soccer star who admitted to falsifying tax returns
c. A Russian businessman who lives in London and who admitted lying to Britsh authorities investigating the posioning in the UK of a former Russian double agent

8. Facebook said it may have improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica the data of a total of how many people
a. 27 million
b. 37 million
c. 87 million

9. Of 160 “active shooter” instances in the U.S. between 2000 and 20013, what percentage were perpetrated by a female shooter?
a. 3.8%
b. 6%
c. 9.1%

10. Of the following countries, which is not currently home to a former president has been charged with corruption?
a. Brazil
b. South Africa
c. South Korea
d. Kenya

11. Which of the following goods is not on the list of 128 U.S. products on which China said it will impose tariffs?
a. Wide-body aircraft
b. Strawberries
c. Ginseng
d. Stainless steel pipes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers
1. b
2. a
3. b
4. b
5. c
6. a
7. a
8. c
9. a
10. d
11. a

Categories
News

News quiz, week ending March 30

1. About how many people are estimated to have attended the March For Our Lives in Washington?

a. 450,000
b. 600,000
c. 800,000

2. What caused snow across mountains in Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria and Romania to turn orange?

a. Dust from a solar storm that drifted through the atmosphere
b. Dust from pollution caused by manufacturing in China
c. Dust from a sandstorm in the Sahara

3. What flight was the CEO of Qantas Airways referring to when he called it “a game changer?”

a. A flight from Perth to London
b. A flight from Sydney to London
c. A flight from Perth to Doha

4. Why did Jewish groups in Britain protest outside Parliament?

a. To object to a decision by the government to sell weapons to the Israeli military
b. To object to what they say is a failure by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to tackle anti-Semitism within the party’s ranks
c. To object to the Labour Party’s alleged criticism of Israel

5. Louis Vuitton named Virgil Abloh as the company’s next artistic director of men’s wear. Which of the following is Abloh best known for?

a. Luxury goods
b. Women’s wear
c. Street wear

6. What foreign leader was aboard an armored train that pulled into Beijing on Monday?

a. Kim Jong Un
b. Moon-Jae
c. Narendra Modi

7. The announcement by the Commerce Department that the U.S. census would reinstate a question about what provoked a backlash?

a. Race
b. Citizenship
c. Sexual orientation

8. A cyberattack hobbled which U.S. city?

a. Chicago
b. Austin
c. Atlanta

9. Why did protestors temporarily take over Sacramento’s city hall on Tuesday?

a. To protest the death of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by two Sacramento police officers
b. To protest problems that the city has found in drinking water supplied to some communities
c. To protest what they charge is a failure of the city to use minority-owned firms in construction projects

10. Donald Trump nominated Ronny Jackson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. What is Jackson’s current job?

a. Director of the National Security Council
b. Assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs
c. Trump’s doctor

11. Which of the following toys are a haven for bacteria, according to a study published Tuesday?

a. Rubber ducks
b. PlayStation VR
c. Lego

12. The oldest documented human footprints in North America where found where?

a. Cuatrocientas, Mexico
b. Calvert Island, British Columbia
c. Helena, Montana

13. Which technology company did Donald Trump attack via Twitter?

a. Facebook
b. Google
c. Amazon

14. Which country held a presidential election that opposition and human rights groups largely labeled a facade?

a. Spain
b. Egypt
c. Peru

15. Who took to Twitter to publish a spoof of an animated series about the Marvel superhero Deadpool that he was working on when the FX network cancelled it?

a. Donald Glover
b. Jay-Z
c. Ta-Neshi Coates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers
1. c
2. c
3. a
4. b
5. c
6. a
7. b
8. c
9. a
10. c
11. a
12. b
13. c
14. b
15. a

Categories
News

News quiz, week ending March 23

1. What action did Russia take in response to British allegations over the poisoning of a former spy?

a. Ordered the closure of the U.K. embassy
b. Charged the U.K. with a breach of international law
c. Expelled 23 British diplomats

2. Sunday’s election victory by Vladimir Putin marks how many terms for Russia’s president?

a. Three
b. Four
c. Five

3. What is the name of the carbon fiber and titanium safety device installed on the cockpits of cars that compete in Formula One?

a. Side
b. Halo
c. Aeroscreen

4. Police in France questioned former President Nicolas Sarkozy over allegations that he receives millions of euros in election funding from which government?

a. The regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi
b. The Chinese government
c. The Russian government

5. Why did Karen McDougal sue the National Enquirer?

a. To recover for an defamatory article about an affair that she allegedly had with Donald Trump
b. To declare as void a contract that prevents her from speaking about an alleged affair with Donald Trump a decade ago
c. For failure to uphold its promise to allow her to be a contributor in return for her agreeing to remain silent about an alleged affair with Donald Trump

6. Where will the ashes of Stephen Hawking be interred?

a. In St. Paul’s Cathedral
b. In outer space
c. In Westminster Abbey

7. What did Israel confirm for the first time this week?

a. That it bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007
b. That it carried out a cyberattack in 2010 that delayed Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear reactor
c. That it recently destroyed Iranian missiles held at a base in Syria

8. Larry Kwong died on Thursday. What milestone did he achieve?

a. He was the National Basketball Association’s first player of Asian descent
b. He was the National Hockey League’s first player of Asian descent
c. He was Major League Baseball’s first player of Asian descent

9. What “incredibly sad news” did the CEO of Uber tweet about?

a. An Uber vehicle in autonomous mode struck and killed a pedestrian
b. An investigation found that female workers at Uber endured a pattern of sexual harassment and discrimination
c. An Uber driver was among the people killed in a series of bombings across Austin

10. Who said: “I know that there was a lot of pressure to speak sooner, but my assessment was that it was more important that what we said was fully accurate.”

a. Christopher Wylie
b. Mark Zuckerberg
c. Sheryl Sandberg

10. Which actress from “Sex and the City” will challenge Andrew Cuomo of New York for the Democratic nomination for governor?

a. Sarah Jessica Parker
b. Cynthia Nixon
c. Kristin Davis
d. Kim Cattrall

11. Why did retailer Best Buy say it would no longer sell phones from Huawei?

a. Because of U.S. Government concerns that Chinese electronics could be used for spying or cyberattacks
b. Because Huawei could not certify that it’s batteries satisfy U.S. safety standards
c. To protest a decision by the Chinese government to block Best Buy from online sales in that country

12. Who will replace HR McMaster as Donald Trump’s national security adviser?

a. John Dowd
b. John Kelly
c. John Bolton

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers

1.c
2. b
3. b
4. a
5. b
6. c
7. a
8. b
9. a
10. b
11. a
12. c

Categories
Privacy

FTC probing whether Facebook violated consent decree, report

In Nov. 2011, Facebook settled charges by the Federal Trade Commission that it deceived consumers by advising them they could keep their information on the social network private and then allowing it to be shared and made public.

In the wake of the revelations about Cambridge Analytica, the FTC reportedly is examining whether Facebook violated the terms of the settlement.

Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling firm, derived data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles that it accessed via a third-party app. A data scientist at Cambridge University harvested the data starting in June 2014.

That may have contravened the 2011 settlement. Among the charges by the FTC that led to the settlement:

Facebook represented that third-party apps that users’ installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users’ personal data – data the apps didn’t need.

The FTC further charged:

Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with “Friends Only.” In fact, selecting “Friends Only” did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.

The settlement barred Facebook from misrepresenting the privacy or security of users’ personal information.

Categories
Economy U.S.

Trump’s lie to Canada’s prime minister about trade suggests disregard for the U.S. economy

At a fundraising dinner last Wednesday, President Trump boasted to supporters that he told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada that the U.S. ran a trade deficit with his country without knowing whether the assertion was true.

It’s not. Though news coverage of the incident focused on the fabrication, the lie, which by now one expects from Trump, also shows that the president cherry picks the trade that he recognizes. And in the calculus of Trump, goods trump services.

As it happens, the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Canada. On the whole, Canadians buy more from us than we buy from them. Though Americans  purchase more goods – think vehicles, machinery and plastics – from Canadians than they buy from us, they buy more services, including software, movies and travel, than Americans buy from them.

Our goods trade deficit with Canada was $12.1 billion in 2016, but our trade surplus with our neighbor to the north was $24.6 billion, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

A similar dynamic holds for China, which Trump also likes to jawbone about trade. As I’ve noted previously, the U.S. imports more goods from China than it exports, but it exports more services to China than it imports. The difference was $37 billion in 2016, up 12.3% from year earlier.

To be sure, the deficits in goods are real. But for Trump, the hammering on trade deficits – regardless of facts – plays to a political base in the Rust Belt, where, apparently, the president has concluded he needs to shore up his base in the hope of reelection.

But the focus disregards the economic well-being of millions of Americans elsewhere. And it’s not just in the so-called blue states such as California or New York that house many of the software, entertainment and financial firms that trade in services.

Canada represents the largest export market for U.S. agriculture. Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, says Trump’s proposed tariffs and threats to abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement show a preference for the Rust Belt over the Farm Belt. “I think he’s looking at the Rust Belt primarily,” Roberts told Bloomberg.