Weekly News Quiz for Students

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on April 12 that Michigan needed to enact shutdown measures in response to its worst-in-the-nation surge of coronavirus infections, rebuffing efforts by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to secure an extra supply of vaccine doses.

Whitmer has pleaded with the White House to send extra doses, even as her state has used just 78 percent of those delivered so far, according to data reported by the C.D.C. She said on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on April 11 that the White House should reconsider its refusal to alter its distribution plan—currently based on population—so that localities that face flare-ups could get extra doses.

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, father of Prince Charles, and patriarch of a turbulent royal family that he sought to ensure would not be Britain’s last, died on April 9 at Windsor Castle in England. He was 99. As “the first gentleman in the land,” Philip tried to preserve the crown and shepherd into the 20th century a monarchy encrusted with the trappings of the 19th.

The same day, DMX, the full-throated yet soulful rapper whose string of No. 1 albums electrified audiences and reflected his gritty past, died at 50. He had been on life support at a New York hospital after suffering what his family called a “catastrophic cardiac arrest” a week earlier. 

Matsuyama’s victory will make him a national hero in golf-crazed Japan, which has had a rich history of producing world-class male golfers who have come close to winning a major championship over the past several decades but have fallen short. Matsuyama’s breakthrough victory comes at a time of unrest over racially targeted violence against Asians and Asian-Americans during the pandemic.

Matsuyama, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour and the low amateur at the 2011 Masters, has long been considered the golfer from Japan who would break through on the sport’s biggest stage for men. Two Japanese women have been major champions.

The particle is the muon, which is akin to an electron but far heavier, and is an integral element of the cosmos. An international team of 200 physicists from seven countries found that muons did not behave as predicted when shot through an intense magnetic field.

The result, physicists say, suggests that there are forms of matter and energy vital to the nature and evolution of the cosmos that are not yet known to science. The new work, they said, could eventually lead to breakthroughs more dramatic than the discovery in 2012 of the Higgs boson, a particle that imbues other particles with mass.

The lopsided outcome at the 6,000-person warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, came even as the pandemic’s effect on the economy and the election of a pro-labor president had made the country more aware of the plight of essential workers.

Amazon, which has repeatedly quashed labor activism, had appeared vulnerable as it faced increasing scrutiny in Washington and around the world for its market power and influence. President Biden signaled support for the union effort, as did Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The pandemic, which drove millions of people to shop online, also raised questions about Amazon’s ability to keep those employees safe.

But in an aggressive campaign, the company argued that its workers had access to rewarding jobs without needing to involve a union. The victory leaves Amazon free to handle employees on its own terms as it has gone on a hiring spree and expanded its work force to more than 1.3 million people.

It’s C. The other countries shown on the map: A is Kazakhstan; B is Mongolia; and D is Nepal.

The blackout injected new uncertainty into diplomatic efforts that began last week to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal repudiated by the Trump administration.

Iran did not say precisely what had caused the blackout at the heavily fortified site, which has been a target of previous sabotage, and Israel publicly declined to confirm or deny any responsibility. But American and Israeli intelligence officials said there had been an Israeli role.

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, vowed revenge against Israel on April 12, highlighting the risk of escalation in a yearslong shadow war between Iran and Israel.

For decades, a brutal conflict raged in Northern Ireland between unionists, who are determined to remain part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who want Northern Ireland to become part of the independent Republic of Ireland. The violence mostly ended in 1998 after a peace agreement was signed, but experts have warned that Brexit might undermine that treaty.

Now, for almost a week, scenes of violence familiar from Northern Ireland’s past—such as a bus set on fire and masked youths rioting—returned in a stark warning of the fragility of a peace process that is under growing political and sectarian strain.

According to ufologists (pronounced “yoof-ologists”), as those who study the phenomena call themselves, the trend is not necessarily the result of an alien invasion. Rather, it was likely caused in part by another invader: the coronavirus.

Pushed to stay home by lockdown restrictions, many found themselves with more time to look up. In New York, droves of urbanites fleeing the virus took up residence in places like the Catskills and the Adirondacks, where skies are largely free from light pollution. About a quarter of the reports nationally came in March and April of last year, when lockdowns were at their most strict. Glimmers wobbling across the sky have gone viral on TikTok, racking up millions of views.

Longtime U.F.O. enthusiasts say the pandemic clearly has more people scanning the night skies. But there is another reason that the public might be newly receptive to the idea that the flicker on the horizon is worth reporting: The Pentagon revealed over the summer that it would soon convene a new task force to investigate so-called “unidentified aerial phenomena” observed from military aircraft. Last year, it declassified three videos of such sightings.