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

Read the original at The Guardian ↗
Cite

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.

The Guardian · collected 2026-10-22 · by Martin Belam

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 locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-22, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

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 2026-10-22, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Thursday News Quiz
Politics · 1 article(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
4
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
0%
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
1
Politics
Same framing elsewhere
1
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 · 2255 article(s) · 6 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 6 correction(s)
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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
19 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction
🔮 “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
🔮 Anthropic is telling investors that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity”, according to reports, as it prepares for a potential $2tn flotation.
2026-09-29 · assertive framing · Anthropic warns of AI ‘existential risk’ as concerns emerge over Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s model | First Thing
🔮 He branded Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a “tyrant”, described Zohran Mamdani as the “antisemitic mayor of New York”, and declared that Israel’s war in Gaza was not a genocide, “it’s the opposite of genocide”.
2026-09-25 · assertive framing · Netanyahu lambasts Israel’s critics at UN as New York protesters detained | First Thing
🔮 The president doubled down on his defence of AI development, saying warnings about runaway agents were a “hoax”; announced the US would build new military bases in Greenland; attacked the international criminal court as a “rogue organisation”; and prompted the Cuba’s delegation to stage a walkout when he described the country as a “failed state”.
2026-09-23 · assertive framing · Trump addresses UN with mixture of boasts, threats and jibes | First Thing
🔮 With major US networks agreeing to not cover the president while the dispute continues, on Monday the White House announced the new 24/7 YouTube live stream, which it promised would feature “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place”.
2026-09-22 · assertive framing · ‘Literally state-run TV’: Trump launches YouTube channel amid boycott by US networks
Also by Martin Belam
First Thing: Three young children killed in Oregon elementary school shooting
2026-10-16 · The Guardian
First Thing: Pope Leo recovering from surgery after lung cancer diagnosis
2026-10-14 · The Guardian
Hegseth promises execution live stream as Trump appears to ‘pause’ war on Iran | First Thing
2026-10-09 · The Guardian
Israel marks third anniversary of 7 October Hamas attacks | First Thing
2026-10-07 · The Guardian
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 19 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
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. asserted
you → think → comments
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Articles to 22 Oct 2026