The Saturday News Quiz: Six Questions on a Wild October 10

October 10 packed a strange amount of news into a single day. Missed half of it? This Saturday news quiz doubles as a crash course. A president announced a diesel deal with Moscow. A hurricane came ashore on the Gulf Coast. Two earthquakes rattled Panama. A prime minister swatted down a billionaire's separatist pitch. Google set a launch date for a new fitness tracker. And Red Lobster decided the answer to its problems was dollar shrimp. This Saturday news quiz turns six of those stories into six questions, with the answer and the backstory under each one.

The rules of this Saturday news quiz are simple. Read the question, pick an answer before scrolling, then check the bolded line. There is a scoring guide at the bottom for bragging rights. If Friday's headlines are a blur, The October News Quiz: Six Headlines From Friday, October 9 is the warm-up round.

The six questions

Every question in this Saturday news quiz comes from a story that broke in the last couple of days. Nothing here is a trick. It is only a check on whether the news cycle left any residue, and six right answers is a perfect Saturday news quiz score.

1. On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that Russia would immediately supply how much diesel to the United States?

Answer: more than three hundred thousand tons. Trump announced the deal on social media after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a call that had originally been expected to cover a suspected case of plague in Russia. The schedule after that: five hundred thousand tons in November, one million tons immediately after that, and three million tons more within a short period, the Associated Press reported. The timing raised eyebrows because Trump had signed a sweeping Russia sanctions law only weeks earlier to choke off Moscow's energy revenue, and Ukraine's president publicly called the move a weak decision. The Treasury Department also issued a general license authorizing transactions in Russian-origin diesel through April 7, 2027.

2. Hurricane Isaias made landfall on the Gulf Coast on Friday as what category of storm?

Answer: a Category two hurricane. The storm came ashore in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama on Friday, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people and leaving flooded roads and downed trees behind, the Associated Press reported. Isaias then pushed north through Alabama with its winds dropping fast, but the threat of life-threatening storm surge lingered for parts of the Panhandle while heavy rain and flash-flood risk spread across much of the Southeast for the weekend.

3. Elon Musk publicly backed separatism in Canada this week. Which three provinces did he name?

Answer: Quebec, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Prime Minister Mark Carney pushed back on Thursday, saying the future of Canada would be decided by Canadians and by the priorities of the people of Quebec, the Associated Press reported. Carney added that Canadians should be free to live according to their languages and cultures without interference from foreign governments or large tech firms that believe they can dictate the country's future.

4. Google confirmed a launch date for its new Fitbit Edge fitness tracker. When is it?

Answer: October 12. Google officially teased the device and confirmed the October 12 launch date this week. It arrives during a restless stretch for wearables and voice assistants: Amazon also shuffled leadership in its Alexa division, with longtime vice president Daniel Rausch stepping away after the company's first tablet launch.

5. How many powerful earthquakes struck Panama this week, prompting evacuations?

Answer: two. Panama was hit by two powerful earthquakes plus multiple aftershocks, and authorities ordered evacuations in affected coastal and hillside communities. The quakes ranked among the week's most disruptive international stories, alongside a strike on a Saudi airport and an agreement between the European Union and China to halve hybrid vehicle exports.

6. Red Lobster is fighting for customers with what pricing tactic?

Answer: one-dollar deals. The chain is leaning on aggressive promotional pricing, including one-dollar deals and an extension of its Endless Shrimp offer, as it tries to pull diners back, according to a seafood-industry digest citing UndercurrentNews.

Score yourself

Add up the correct answers for a final Saturday news quiz score. Six correct: headline-desk material. Four or five: respectable group-chat energy. Two or three: the feed gave you everything except the actual news. Zero or one: tomorrow is another news day. For anyone who wants a rematch, The Nobel Peace Prize Quiz is still live, which closes out this Saturday news quiz.