The Aporia · Thursday news quiz: Liz is absurd, Apu finds words and a bloke steals a bird

Thursday news quiz: Liz is absurd, Apu finds words and a bloke steals a bird

Read the original at The Guardian ↗

Cite

APA MLA Chicago

Belam, M. (2026, October 22). Thursday news quiz: Liz is absurd, Apu finds words and a bloke steals a bird. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/oct/22/the-guardian-thursday-quiz-general-knowledge-topical-news-trivia-270

Dated from the outlet's own feed. Check the original for its byline.

Quick Summary

The Thursday news quiz offers a weekly round-up of current events, pop culture, and general knowledge trivia with questions based on recent happenings like political figures' short tenures, such as the new "Zacharia" period measuring five days. The article invites readers to participate in the quiz while also providing an alternative suggestion: watching a music video by Jonathan Bree featuring Adah Dylan titled "Don’t Call It Love."

Written by AI on 2026-10-22, from this article's own text only (the story summary below draws on all the coverage).

AI analysis

Story summary

The latest edition of The Guardian's Thursday news quiz, numbered 270, includes references to recent political events such as former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s brief tenure measured as a new unit of time called the "Liz Truss," equivalent to 49 days. This quiz also mentions another new unit based on a five-day period related to an unnamed event, dubbed the "Zacharia." The weekly column provides humorous questions and answers on current events, pop culture, and general knowledge without offering any prizes except for personal pride or shame in one's trivia abilities.

Written for “Thursday News Quiz” on 2026-11-01, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.

How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted

sentences that state something as happening or true

Uncertain

0 of 4 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")

Leaning

not political

takes no side on a contested political question

Publisher signals

66/100

The Guardian's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.

Outlets on this story

Politics

Same framing elsewhere

articles that frame the event the way this one does

Analyzed 2026-10-22 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability

Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

The Guardian · 2765 article(s) · 6 correction(s) detected

Running correction rate · 6 correction(s)

2026-10-19

Mother assessed as posing no immediate risk to others three weeks before Elizabeth Struhs’ manslaughter, inquest hears

2026-10-14

Rachel Smith will turn 39 in prison. The high court says she could freeze her eggs from behind bars

2026-10-03

Tennessee’s top prison official resigning after botched execution of Christa Pike

2026-10-01

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

2026-09-28

Extra 1,000 prison beds announced in NSW as union warns against arresting ‘our way out of domestic violence’

2026-09-05

Australia’s housing prices are trending down. See which suburbs have had the biggest falls

Who wrote this

Martin Belam

23 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction

🔮 JD Vance letter may offer last chance to avert fresh conflict between US and Iran Hopes of averting a major new conflagration between Iran and the US could rest on Iran’s response to a personal letter from the US vice-president, JD Vance.

2026-10-30 · assertive framing · First Thing: Alaska Senate race descends into legal acrimony over second Dan Sullivan

🔮 The campaign of the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola was behind an effort to recruit a challenger with almost the same name as the Republican US senator Dan Sullivan, who will both appear on the ballot in next week’s midterm elections, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

2026-10-29 · assertive framing · Explosive book targets Jared Kushner’s role in US foreign policy | First Thing

🔮 Israel could be in for weeks of political haggling after exit polls and partial official results showed neither Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc led by the former general Gadi Eisenkot had won enough seats to form a government.

2026-10-28 · assertive framing · Both blocs claim upper hand in crucial Israeli election | First Thing

🔮 Donald Trump has been ordered by a US judge to cooperate with the discovery process mandated for his lawsuit against the BBC and to sit for a deposition by 11 December – or else he could be subject to sanctions, including possible dismissal of the $10bn lawsuit. - What request has Trump claimed he made of Google?

2026-10-23 · assertive framing · First Thing: Former DHS aide Lewandowski investigated over claims he profited from government role

🔮 “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump said.

2026-10-16 · assertive framing · First Thing: Three young children killed in Oregon elementary school shooting

🔮 She said she would “vigorously defend my name, my reputation and my integrity” and that “my commitment to President Trump, the America First movement, and the country I love will never end”.

2026-10-14 · assertive framing · First Thing: Pope Leo recovering from surgery after lung cancer diagnosis

🔮 The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said the execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be livestreamed next month, in a radical departure from the previous norm.

2026-10-09 · assertive framing · Hegseth promises execution live stream as Trump appears to ‘pause’ war on Iran | First Thing

🔮 California couple charged with child abuse in surrogacy scheme involving at least 21 children Silvia Zhang and her husband, Guojun Xuan, are expected to face conspiracy to commit child abuse charges.

2026-10-07 · assertive framing · Israel marks third anniversary of 7 October Hamas attacks | First Thing

🔮 Brazil’s presidential race will go to a second round after the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, beat the incumbent leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but failed to secure the outright majority he needed to avoid a runoff.

2026-10-05 · assertive framing · Son of disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro takes election lead in Brazil | First Thing

🔮 The New York attorney general, Letitia James, said the federal government was showing “callous disregard” for Americans’ health and the environment, and future generations would pay the price.

2026-10-02 · assertive framing · Christa Pike left in ‘critical condition’ as Tennessee halts all executions | First Thing

Also by Martin Belam

First Thing: Alaska Senate race descends into legal acrimony over second Dan Sullivan

2026-10-30 · The Guardian

Explosive book targets Jared Kushner’s role in US foreign policy | First Thing

2026-10-29 · The Guardian

Both blocs claim upper hand in crucial Israeli election | First Thing

2026-10-28 · The Guardian

First Thing: Former DHS aide Lewandowski investigated over claims he profited from government role

2026-10-23 · The Guardian

Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

All 23 articles by Martin Belam →

Topics

No topics tagged.

Subjects

Adah Dylan PERSON · 1× Jonathan Bree PERSON · 1× Scaramucci PERSON · 1× Zacharia PERSON · 1× the Liz Truss PERSON · 1×

Narrative

The Thursday news quiz, No 270 If you really do think there has been an egregious error in one of the questions or answers – and can show your working and are absolutely 100% positive you aren’t attempting to factcheck a joke – you can complain about it in the comments below.

framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-10-22

2026-10-22 · The Guardian

Thursday news quiz: Liz is absurd, Apu finds words and a bloke steals a bird · assertive framing

Claims (4 extracted, 0 hedged)

Now a new unit of measurement has entered the chat: the Zacharia (five days). asserted

unit → enter → chat

But whatever arbitrary length of time the world invents to measure chaos, political downfalls or social media meltdowns, the Thursday news quiz remains resolutely fixed. asserted

quiz → invent → chaos

Which means, once again, it is time for some questions on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge, with no prizes on offer except pride. asserted

it → mean → pride

you → think → comments