Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s news quiz. Join us each week to test your knowledge of the stories making the headlines.
This week: ArriveCan, the COVID-era app for international travellers, is back in the headlines, this time as the focus for a government operations committee investigating the app’s final price tag. Still in Ottawa, premiers of all political stripes joined together – a rare sight – to dunk on a shared target (the prime minister). In another show of unity, two Ontario Liberal leadership hopefuls joined together in a bid to prevent a third candidate (the frontrunner) from walking away with the race.
Meanwhile, hearts are break, break, breaking across Vancouver as attempts to buy tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour dates come up short. “Now we got bad blood,” said every aggrieved Swiftie (probably) after failing to secure the goods.
Finally, a longshot Republican presidential hopeful called for a wall (not on the border you’re thinking), Bumble’s getting a new chief executive officer, and a small-town Quebec mayor is calling it quits.
Do you remember these stories? Take our news quiz to find out.
b. The selection process that resulted in hiring GCStrategies. Mr. MacDonald told MPs that Mr. Doan recently lied to them at committee when he testified that he didn’t know who selected GCStrategies to build the ArriveCan app.
a. Jennifer Lawrence. Ms. Lawrence starred in all four of the original movies. Of the franchises’ new movie (starring Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Viola Davis), The Globe’s movie critic Barry Hertz wrote: “After four films of increasingly diminishing dramatic returns, studio executives have unwittingly become players in a Hunger Games of their own making.”
a. The company’s valuation in 2019 and its market cap in 2023. WeWork filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection on Monday. Meanwhile, the company said it wants to shutter four of its Canadian co-working spaces – in Toronto, Vancouver and Burnaby – as part of its restructuring plans.
c. Ontario. The legislation will also require businesses to disclose if artificial intelligence is used during a hiring process.
d. A home heating oil exemption from the carbon price program The country’s premiers unanimously called for fairness in Ottawa’s climate and affordability policies. Premiers of all political stripes criticized Mr. Trudeau’s approach at a news conference in Halifax on Monday. All but two provincial leaders also said the federal government should extend its carbon price exemption to all home heating fuels, not just heating oil.
a. Nate Erskine-Smith and Yasir Naqvi. The candidates released a joint statement calling on Liberal voters to rank each other as their second choice on the ballot. Party members vote Nov. 25 and 26.
c. Slack. Lidiane Jones, the current CEO of Slack, will replace Ms. Herd as chief executive starting in the new year. Ms. Jones said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she wants to integrate AI into Bumble. “AI can play such a big role in accelerating people finding the right person, finding the right friends and the right community,” she said.
a. Rupi Kaur. The poet wrote in an Instagram post she would not attend a Diwali celebration in Washington. “I refuse any invitation from an institution that supports the collective punishment of a trapped civilian population,” she wrote in an Instagram caption.
c. Score 12 or more three-pointers in a game. The fast-food giant will give away free medium fries (with a $3 minimum spend) after a Raptors game with 12 or more three-pointers.
a. Vivek Ramaswamy. The wall, Mr. Ramaswamy said, would stem the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. – even though the numbers show the bulk of the drug is entering the country at official border crossings along the country’s southern border.
b. Burnout. Isabelle Lessard, who was acclaimed in 2021 as mayor, announced Wednesday she will be stepping down next week, suffering the effects of burnout from handling last summer’s historic wildfire season. (It must be said: In 2014, the mayor of San Marino, Calif., did, in fact, resign after a video emerged showing him throwing his dog's poop on a neighbour's lawn.)
a. Toronto. Ms. Swift will perform six shows in Toronto in December. (For the record, Dorval Island has a population of five – but like the rest of us, they can dream!)
d. Earthquakes in the region could trigger a possible volcanic eruption. Guests rushed to leave the spa’s hotels in the early hours of Thursday, after they were rattled awake shortly before 1 a.m. by a magnitude 4.8 quake.
Jessie Willms