The September 28 News Quiz: Six Questions, Six Answers

Monday delivered one of those news days where every feed felt like a different channel. A Chinese tech giant bought its way onto an NBA jersey, a teenager rewrote the swimming record book, the US government told carmakers to relax about gas mileage, two pandas crossed the Pacific on their own chartered jet, an island nation shook, and a voice on a phone call cost an Italian bank ninety-five million euros. Welcome to the September 28 news quiz, six questions built from the stories you will be arguing about at lunch tomorrow.

The rules for this September 28 news quiz are the same as last time. Read each question, lock in your answer, and only then read the rest of the section, because the reveal is waiting at the end of it. Keep a running tally as you go. The score breakdown at the bottom will tell you whether you can claim you were paying attention all weekend, or whether the algorithm did your thinking for you.

1. Which company just became the Brooklyn Nets' jersey patch partner?

Alibaba. The Chinese technology group and Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment announced a multi-year partnership on Monday naming Alibaba an official technology and cloud partner of the Nets, with the company's name going on the team's jerseys. The timing lines up with the franchise's sixtieth anniversary season.

The deal goes well past the patch. Alibaba's cloud technology will power a real-time replay system at Barclays Center that renders the action in a full three-hundred-sixty degrees, and an in-arena "Nets Figure Lab" will let fans create personalized collectible cards with the company's tech, according to the announcement reported by CNA. The September 28 news quiz opens with the business of sports.

"The Brooklyn Nets are committed to investing in technology to enhance the fan experience and elevate how basketball is experienced at Barclays Center," said Sam Zussman, chief executive of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, in the announcement. "We are excited to team up with the Brooklyn Nets to unlock new possibilities in sports innovation," said Toby Xu, chief financial officer of Alibaba Group, in the same statement. Answer: Alibaba.

2. How many gold medals did swimmer Zhang Zhanshuo win at the Asian Games?

The second question in the September 28 news quiz goes to the pool. Seven. The nineteen-year-old Chinese freestyler closed out his first Asian Games with seven gold medals, becoming the first swimmer ever to win that many at a single edition of the Games. His haul equaled the all-time record for golds by one athlete at a single Asian Games, set by North Korean shooter So Gin-man in nineteen eighty-two.

The final medal came in the four-hundred-metre freestyle, which he won in three minutes forty-one point two eight seconds, a Games record. He also took the two-hundred, eight-hundred, and fifteen-hundred-metre freestyle titles plus three relay golds, winning seven of the eight events he entered, according to the Hindustan Times. His seven-title haul topped the six-gold benchmark set by teammate Zhang Yufei at the previous Asian Games.

Zhang celebrated by sitting on the lane divider and counting the medals on his fingers, the defining image of this September 28 news quiz question. "I think the most important thing is to stay grounded and focused, because the Asian Games are not my ultimate goal," he said, as quoted by the Hindustan Times, with the Los Angeles Olympics less than two years away. For more from these Games, see our report on Elavenil Valarivan's shooting silver. Answer: seven.

3. Which Caribbean nation was hit by a magnitude six point four earthquake on Monday?

The third question in the September 28 news quiz goes to the Caribbean. A magnitude six point four earthquake was recorded in the Dominican Republic, according to initial reports published by Times Now, although details about the quake's depth, exact location, and any damage or casualties had not yet been confirmed. Question three is the one most likely to have slipped past you, because the details were still developing when most people were waking up.

Authorities were expected to assess the impact and determine whether buildings or infrastructure suffered any significant damage, Times Now reported, describing the report as a breaking story that would be updated as officials worked through the situation. Answer: the Dominican Republic.

4. How many miles per gallon will new US cars need to average by twenty thirty-one?

Question four in the September 28 news quiz is about your next car. Thirty-four point nine. The Trump administration finalized sharply lower Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards on Monday, requiring carmakers to improve fleet fuel efficiency by up to one percent a year and reach a fleetwide average of thirty-four point nine miles per gallon by model year twenty thirty-one. That is well down from the Biden-era target of fifty point four miles per gallon, NPR reported.

The administration's argument is affordability. Officials estimate that scaling back the standards will shave about thirteen hundred dollars off the sticker price of a new car, which is why the car question in this September 28 news quiz comes with a dollar figure attached. "This administration is delivering relief to families and reviving the beating heart of American manufacturing," said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in an online statement announcing the change.

President Trump weighed in on Truth Social over the weekend, writing that the new standards would take the waste out of building cars in America and deliver lower prices for families. Climate advocates called it another step in rolling back Biden-era climate policy, alongside the cut to the federal tax credit for electric vehicle buyers, according to NPR. Answer: thirty-four point nine miles per gallon.

5. What are the names of the two giant pandas that just arrived in Atlanta?

Question five in the September 28 news quiz is the cute one. Ping Ping and Fu Shuang. The male and female giant pandas touched down in Atlanta on Sunday after a sixteen-hour flight from Chengdu aboard a FedEx-chartered Boeing jet nicknamed the Panda Express, the Malay Mail reported, citing Agence France-Presse. It brings panda diplomacy back to a city that had been without the bears since twenty twenty-four.

Both pandas were born in twenty twenty and raised at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. They will spend about a month in quarantine before their public debut at Zoo Atlanta, which is hosting them on a ten-year loan under an agreement announced during Chinese President Xi Jinping's summit with President Trump, TBS News reported.

"This is a thrilling day for Zoo Atlanta and a historic moment for the City of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and beyond," said zoo president and chief executive Raymond King in a statement. The pandas' transfer was one of the few concrete outcomes of the summit, which the Malay Mail described as heavy on symbolism and light on major breakthroughs. Answer: Ping Ping and Fu Shuang.

6. What did fraudsters use to steal ninety-five million euros from an Italian bank?

The final question in the September 28 news quiz is the scary one. An AI-cloned voice on a phone call. The scheme began in February, when the then-chairman of Fideuram, the private banking arm of Intesa Sanpaolo, received a WhatsApp message that appeared to come from his own chief executive, Carlo Messina, asking for urgent help with an overseas transaction. A follow-up call that seemed to come from a senior partner at a prominent law firm confirmed the instruction. According to Reuters sources cited by NDTV, the callers had used AI technology to replicate the lawyer's voice.

Convinced the request was genuine, the chairman ordered a series of transfers to foreign accounts, mainly in China and Hong Kong, totaling about ninety-five million euros. Fideuram spotted irregularities quickly and alerted banks and authorities in several countries. Roughly fifty-three million euros was recovered through cooperation between authorities in China, Portugal, and Italy, but some thirty-six million remains missing after being routed through overseas accounts and converted into cryptocurrency, NDTV reported.

The story is a reminder that the scam call is getting harder to spot than the scam email ever was. For the phone in your own pocket, Apple's new scam detection feature watches for exactly this kind of live social engineering attack; we explained how to turn it on, which makes a fitting closer for this September 28 news quiz. Answer: an AI-cloned voice.

Score yourself

Six out of six on this September 28 news quiz means your group chat gets its news from you. Four or five right is a strong weekend of paying attention. Two or three means the headlines blurred together, which is fair, since this was a genuinely packed few days. Zero or one means the algorithm won and the news happened somewhere else entirely.

Missed the last round? Try the late September 2026 quiz for a rematch, and share this September 28 news quiz with the friend who always claims to have read everything.