13/12/2025 - What in the World?
Free catch-up on the News Cycle
Have you been paying attention?
A wrap up of things in the news lately! These are just things caught my attention, over a variety of topics.
Quizzers are often beset by question setters who watch the news. They see a cool fact, and add it to their quiz - but if you’ve been busy that week you’ll never get it correct!
I don’t have a wide network of friends to keep me up to date! I don’t have a newspaper subscription! I don’t keep up with all the politics and sports stats - I get my news how the powers that be intended... Youtubers giving me their half-baked opinions two weeks after the event occurs.
If only someone could read all the news and distil it for me into discrete chunks of important information. Et Voila! A niche!
The quizzing community at large likes using a tool called WikiQuiz. Here is a link below. If you think you are a news watching guru, try your hand at a competitive quiz by following the link below. This link will only last a day!
If you’d like to just learn the news in a quiz format - or you’re viewing this more than a day after it was published - scroll down.
Now the goal of this is to get more people into the quizzing community and to share a lot of knowledge. I don’t want your money! I want you to enjoy trivia! But, these questions take a surprising amount of man-power and caffeine to write. So if you have cash to burn, want to learn more, get access to the full 20 questions, and to compare your score with those around the world - feel free to shout me a coffee.
QUIZ: WHAT’S NEW IN THE WORLD? 13/12/2025
ENTERTAINMENT: Iceland has joined Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Slovenia in boycotting what - after the confirmation of another participant for 2026.
CINEMA: What is the subtitle of the upcoming Avatar movie by James Cameron - the third in the series?
SPORTS: The 2025 Squash World Cup is ongoing in which city of India - which also held it in 2023 and 2011. It sits on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India, it’s the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, and used to be called Madras.
NOTABLE DEATHS: Which legendary architect - constructor of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, the Dancing House in Prague, and El Peix d’Or in Barcelona - died last week aged 96. The Pritzker winner ‘defies categorisation‘, and has been quoted about his liquid architecture: “If I knew where I was going, I wouldn’t do it.“
GLOBAL POLITICS: Maria Corina Machado - The Nobel peace prize winner (narrowly beating Donald Trump by… I think every single vote) is a prominent leader of the opposition to the administrations of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Which country does Maria Machado hail from - who just this week left her homeland after more than a year in hiding to join in the Nobel Price festivities in Oslo. Her government now considers her a fugitive, and will likely not allow Machado to return - potentially escalating the brinkmanship between this country and the USA.
TRENDS: Australia has initiaited a world first in banning what - which comes into effect this week? With differing views splitting the nations parents, rest assured that children will continue being hit with gambling ads for online gaming and loot boxes.
MUSIC: A streak of 8 consecutive weeks since its release - which song by Taylor Swift was top of the Billboard Hot 100 until its streak was broken this week by… predictably… Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. The song can be summarised by the following picture by John Everett Millais of Hamlet’s lost love.
SCIENCE AND TECH: Gaining huge online impact over the past few weeks, the name of which thought experiment, consisting of two letters followed by a year, was written by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean? It predicts a potential scenario - one backed by the forecasts of some of the top researchers on the planet - about the building of superintelligence. It predicts human extinction much much sooner than expected.
SPORTS: The Second Test of which cricketing urn between the UK and Australia concluded last week? You may answer with what is used to predict the future in the art of spodomancy. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after Australia’s 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and that “the body will be cremated and taken to Australia”.
MISC: The Fijian government is set to repeal a 2010 law that offered free access to things like Cloudbreak. What type of people would predominantly pay for access to Cloudbreak?
ANSWERS! NO PEEKING
ENTERTAINMENT: Iceland has joined Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Slovenia in boycotting what - after the confirmation of another participant for 2026.
EUROVISION. They are protesting Israel’s continued participation.
CINEMA: What is the subtitle of the upcoming Avatar movie by James Cameron - the third in the series?
FIRE AND ASH
SPORTS: The 2025 Squash World Cup is ongoing in which city of India - which also held it in 2023 and 2011. It sits on the Bay of Bengal in eastern India, is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu, and used to be called Madras.
CHENNAI
NOTABLE DEATHS: Which legendary architect - constructor of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, the Dancing House in Prague, and El Peix d’Or in Barcelona - died last week aged 96. The Pritzker winner ‘defies categorisation‘, and has been quoted about his liquid architecture: “If I knew where I was going, I wouldn’t do it.“
Frank GEHRY
GLOBAL POLITICS: Maria Corina Machado - The Nobel peace prize winner (narrowly beating Donald Trump by… I think every single vote) is a prominent leader of the opposition to the administrations of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Which country does Maria Machado hail from - who just this week left her homeland after more than a year in hiding to join in the Nobel Price festivities in Oslo. Her government now considers her a fugitive, and will likely not let Machado to return - potentially escalating the brinkmanship between this country and the USA.
VENEZUELA
TRENDS: Australia has a world first in banning what - which comes into effect this week?
SOCIAL MEDIA
MUSIC: A streak of 8 consecutive weeks since its release - which song by Taylor Swift was top of the Billboard Hot 100 until its streak was broken by… predictably… Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. The song can be summarised by the following picture by John Everett Millais of Hamlet’s lost love.
THE FATE OF OPHELIA
SCIENCE AND TECH: Gaining huge online impact over the past few weeks, the name of which thought experiment, consisting of two letters followed by a year, was written by Daniel Kokotajlo, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean? It predicts a potential scenario - one backed by the forecasts of some of the top researchers on the planet - about the building of superintelligence. It predicts human extinction much much sooner than expected.
AI 2027. It is terrifying.
SPORTS: The Second Test of which cricketing urn between the UK and Australia concluded last week? You may answer with what is divinated in spodomancy. The term originated in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after Australia’s 1882 victory at The Oval, its first Test win on English soil. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and that “the body will be cremated and taken to Australia”.
The ASHES
MISC: The Fijian government is set to repeal a 2010 law that offered free access to things like Cloudbreak. What type of people would predominantly pay for Cloudbreak access?
SURFERS. Cloudbreak is a reef break. The hope is to attempt to compensate traditional owners of the land.