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Here is this week’s Extemp Central news quiz.  Good luck!

To accesquiz-01s a list of all our old quizzes, click here.

1. This controversial former Canadian mayor passed away last week.

[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”]Rob Ford.  Ford was the mayor of Toronto between 2010-2014 and became an international sensation after video evidence showed him smoking crack cocaine.  He passed away from cancer.[/toggle]

2. Why did Iain Duncan Smith resign as Great Britain’s welfare minister?

[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”]Smith claimed that cuts to disability benefits went “too far” in the austerity budget proposed by George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Smith is also a supporter of a Brexit, though, so some see that as one of the underlying motives behind his resignation.[/toggle]

3. Faculty at this university system are looking to strike in two weeks.

[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”]California State University (CSU).  Thousands of instructors are threatening to walk off the job if they do not receive a bigger salary increase than what the university is offering them.  Instructors are demanding a 5% pay increase that they think will help students and the public interest.  CSU has twenty-three campuses that collectively have an estimated 460,000 students.  If the strike takes place it could become the largest in U.S. education history.[/toggle]

4. Who was recently named as the interim superintendent of the Chicago Police Department (CPD)?

[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”]Eddie Johnson.  Johnson is a twenty-seven-year veteran of the CPD and his selection took place despite the opposition of a Police Board convened by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  African American leaders appeared pleased with the selection, arguing that an insider that was African American was preferable to fix some of the perceived issues that the department has in its handling of minority suspects and communities.[/toggle]

5. California voters will decide this November whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to this amount.

[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”]$15.  The vote will take place after enough signatures were gathered for the initiative to take place.  California lawmakers are also looking into expanding the minimum wage before the vote, seeking to gradually impose increases until the $15 amount was reached in 2022.  The measure has the approval of 70% of voters according to polls, but small business owners warn that the wage hike could prove devastating.[/toggle]

6. When would Senate Democrats like to hold a confirmation vote on Merrick Garland?

[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”]In May just before Memorial Day.  Senate Democrats are calling for hearings by late April, but Senate Republicans have shown little appetite for pursuing such hearings at the present time.[/toggle]

7. China recently detained more than a dozen people that put together an anonymous letter. What did that letter advocate?

[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 resignation of President Xi Jinping.  The letter was published anonymously online this month, simply being signed by “loyal Communist Party members.”  Jinping’s anti-corruption drive has created tensions within the Communist Party, with some seeing it as an excuse to purge rivals and silence opposition.[/toggle]

8. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump recently said that these two nations should consider building nuclear weapons arsenals.

[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”]Japan and South Korea.  According to Trump, the United States would not have to spend money on a nuclear arsenal to protect both nations with its nuclear arsenal.  Both nations gave a startled reaction to Trump’s proposal.[/toggle]

9. Georgia’s governor recently announced that they would veto a bill that would have done this.

[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 bill, referred to as House Bill 757, would have allowed clergy to refuse to perform gay marriages and protected those who would refuse to attend gay ceremonies.  Also, religious groups would have been allowed to not hire or serve someone that did not follow their faith.  Business owners criticized the legislation saying that it would lead to a damaging boycott of the state.  Atlanta is supposed to host the Super Bowl in 2020.[/toggle]

10. This country experienced a suicide attack on Easter, which killed at least seventy people.

[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”]Pakistan.  A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat uh-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack.  It is the fifth such attack in the country since December.  Pakistan has two million Christians and Easter is deemed a public holiday even though the nation has a Muslim majority.[/toggle]