Here is this week’s Extemp Central news quiz. Good luck!
1. Which six states were affected by a tornado outbreak over the weekend?
Spoiler
Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee. More than forty tornadoes hit late Friday night and created extensive damage along a path of up to 250 miles. More than ninety people were killed by the event.
2. Who was recently named as Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”?
Spoiler
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla. Some have criticized the selection, arguing that healthcare professionals or those who developed the COVID-19 vaccines should have been picked instead.
3. Vice President Kamala Harris recently unveiled a plan to tackle the root causes of Central American migration to the United States. What is in this plan?
Spoiler
The plan calls for $540 million in new investments from corporations such as Pepsi, Microsoft, and PriceSmart so that there can be job creation across Central America. The idea is to improve the livelihoods of peoples in the region so they do not make the perilous journey to the United States. The Biden administration has been under fire for record numbers of migrants coming to the U.S.-Mexican border as more than 1.6 million have been intercepted by U.S. border agents since the beginning of the year.
4. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently said that President Biden’s “Build Back Better” package would grow the deficit by how much over the next ten years?
Spoiler
$3 trillion. The CBO’s scoring of the legislation is a blow to the Biden administration’s claims that the package would pay for itself. It has been seized by fiscal conservatives to argue against the package and could cause some headaches for the Biden administration in selling it to moderate Democrats on Capitol Hill.
5. Why are West African nations threatening sanctions against Mali?
Spoiler
West African leaders are threatening sanctions if Mali’s military regime does not make progress toward holding democratic elections by February, something that Mali’s junta has previously pledged to do. The sanctions threat comes from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a fifteen member body that was established in 1975.
6. Who did France’s centre-right Republicans (LR) nominate as their candidate for the 2022 French presidential election?
Spoiler
Valerie Pecresse. Pecresse is currently the President of the Regional Council of Ile-de-France, a post she has served since 2015. Pecresse’s platform is to increase policing, crackdown on immigration, reduce the size of government, abolish the thirty-five-hour work week, and opposes the growth of a federal European Union (EU). Political observers believe that Pecresse is French President Emmanuel Macron’s most formidable challenger. If elected, Pecresse would be France’s first female president.
7. What did Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently claim is a “threat to democracy”?
Spoiler
Social media. Erdogan made the comments last week as part of a push for legislation to criminalize the spreading of fake news and disinformation online. Critics argue that the move is one of many by Erdogan to strip away civil liberties in Turkey. They also point to how social media is one way people can get other perspectives on domestic events because most traditional media in Turkey is government controlled.
8. Which country has the world’s largest supply of lithium?
Spoiler
Bolivia. Demand for lithium is surging because of the need for electric vehicle batteries and batteries for solar panels and wind turbines, and economists speculate that Bolivia could supply 40% of the world’s lithium by 2030, providing more than 130,000 jobs for its population. It is estimated that the country could have 21 million metric tons of the resource. This dwarfs Australia, the world’s largest producer at present, which has 6.3 million metric tons. However, political unrest and questions about whether Bolivia can effectively harvest the resource could hinder those dreams.
9. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recently made an important visit to which country?
Spoiler
The United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both nations share a fear of Iranian expansion in the Middle East and Bennett met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. The two have had a formal relationship since August of last year, an important step in Israel’s quest to have stronger allies in the region, especially among states that have traditionally favored the Palestinian cause in recent decades.
10. To reduce climate change, the Biden administration has recently called for the construction of what in the United States?
Spoiler
500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. The recently passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill gives $5 billion for state transportation agencies to increase their charging networks. The administration hopes to start constructing a nationwide network of charging stations. President Biden has set a goal that half of all new car and truck sales be electric by 2030.
