10-Question Quiz: 2026 News, So Far

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

Here's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone, as we continue in our all the money and half the time short and full fundraiser. And during the membership drive, we're going to do a 10 question quiz every day around the middle of the show to break things up and have a little fun and hopefully give away some stuff while we're otherwise discussing serious things and asking you to support the station. We will do today's 10 question quiz right now, get two in a row right, excuse me, and win a Brian Lehrer Show baseball hat or our new WNYC Pro Democracy Tote. People have called up after I gave the phone number to get in line. As people finish up, you can get in line at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, and we'll have a different quiz topic each day. Today's is very general. It's 10 question News of the Year quiz. Have you been paying attention in 2026? 10 question quiz beginning with Nadia in Parsippany. Hey Nadia, ready to play?

Yes, sure. Yeah, I'll try. Okay, question one, true or false? The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amadei, said this year that people should not be cruel to his chatbot, Claude, because Claude might be conscious.

False. Sorry, Nadia, thanks for trying that. And I understand why somebody would say false, right? It sounds kind of unbelievable. But it's true, he told the New York Times in February, quote, We don't know if the models are conscious. We are not even sure that we know what it would mean for a model to be conscious or whether a model can be conscious. But we're open to the idea that it could be, unquote, for Amadei. And then this month, Anthropic released a policy that said users should not engage in sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior toward its AI models. So can their AI chatbots be conscious enough to experience cruelty? Apparently, their creator thinks that is possible. Unbelievable news from this year. But true. Sophie in Westchester, ready to play? Hi, Sophie. Hi. Very ready. Okay, question two in this 10-question quiz. Many DSA candidates won primaries this year. One DSA who lost one candidate was Francesca Hong, who ran in the Democratic primary for Governor of Wisconsin. She was a rare DSA candidate who AOC declined to endorse, for example. But she made news this year, Francesca Hong, saying a major national holiday should be abolished. She said it back in 2020 And I'll say for the record that she has since retracted this, but it became a part of the debate in her primary. What holiday did she want to abolish?

Oh, my goodness, I wonder. Thanks.

Wait, you dropped off for a second. Did you, did you give an answer? Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is exactly right. She thought it was, you know, a colonizer's holiday. Question three for the tote bag or the hat. In April, NASA launched the first deep space mission with people on board since 1972 Sending a four-person crew to circumvent, circumnavigate the moon. Do you know the name of that mission?

Sorry, Sophie, say it louder. We have a not great connection. No, no, I don't. I don't know the name of that mission. Okay. I'm going to give you a second bite at this apple. It was, it was Artemis 2, that one. But question 4 is, how did astronaut Christina Koch make history on that flight? If you know that one, you'll win a hat or a tote. Oh.

I don't know. Okay. Well, thanks for trying. Christina Koch made history by becoming the first woman to leave low Earth orbit and to fly around the moon.

All right. Stephen in Westchester, ready to play?

I'm ready to play, Brian. Who won the FIFA World Cup? Stephen. What country?

Wasn't it Spain? It was Spain. And one more World Cup related question for The Hat or The Tote. Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau skipped his country's first World Cup match to attend a USA game instead, with his girlfriend, an American celebrity. Who's that celebrity girlfriend of the Canadian Prime Minister?

I'm going to be honest, I don't know. All right. Thanks for trying. It was Katy Perry. We're going to go next to Susan in Brooklyn. Hi Susan, ready to play?

Oh, could be. Could be. We will find out. Question seven, the New York Knicks won the NBA Championship for the first time in a long time this June. Maybe the most joyous three words in New York this year were Knicks and five. So I've got two questions on that, that were very much in the news at the time. First, who were they playing against? Or in what year did they last win the championship? Answer either one.