The March 24 News Quiz: What’s a Raccoon Dog?

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on March 20, 2023. He is the first world leader to meet the Russian leader, a few days after the International Criminal Court charged him with war crimes in Ukraine. Xi presented China as a global peacemaker intent on ending the Ukraine war. In its peace plan, China calls for formal respect for Ukrainian sovereignty, protection of civilians, and prohibition of nuclear weapons. Russia applauded China’s willingness to play a constructive role, but Western leaders dismissed the peace plan, arguing that Beijing lacks the international credibility to mediate. China looks to Russia as a source of oil and gas for its energy-hungry economy and a partner in opposing what both see as American dominance in global affairs.

Fun fact: On the same day, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited Kyiv. Kishida and Xi’s visits highlight deep divisions in northeast Asia over the Ukraine war, with Japan promising substantial assistance to Kyiv while China remains isolated in its support of Putin.

Maria Lvova-Belova is a Russian politician and the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights. She is accused of unlawfully deporting children from Ukraine to Russia during the invasion. The EU and Japan have sanctioned her, and the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against her and Russian President Putin on March 17, 2023. Lvova-Belova has five biological and eighteen adopted children with her husband, Pavel Kogelman, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church and formerly a programmer, who she married in 2003.

Alfred Escher helped build Switzerland’s railways and founded Credit Suisse. He was affectionately known as King Alfred I. In 2023, UBS saved Credit Suisse in a deal worth 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion). As much as the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy,” it centers additional risks on one banking giant, UBS Group AG. Credit Suisse shareholders will get just 1 UBS share for every 22.5 Credit Suisse shares.

On March 17, 2023, scientists unveiled new data on the possible origins of the Covid-19 pandemic — and put this confusing creature in the spotlight. Raccoon dogs are members of the canine family, which includes domestic dogs but are most closely related to foxes. They are native to East Asia, including parts of China, Korea, and Japan. Raccoon dogs have long been farmed for their fur and sold for their meat in live animal markets. The animals were occasionally sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where many virologists suspect the Covid-19 pandemic may have started.

Hundreds of elite officers in Israel’s military reserves said they would not show up for duty starting Mar. 19, 2023. This is in protest against the ruling coalition’s planned overhaul of the judicial system. The protesters say the plan undermines democracy by restricting the power of the Supreme Court. The protests paused after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and the reservists did not follow their threat.

Google released its conversational AI bot Bard on March 21, 2023, as a stand-alone webpage featuring a question box. Google’s Bard is a chatbot trained to be informative and comprehensive, while Microsoft’s Bing is a chatbot optimized for search results. This makes Bard a noticeably less effective tool than Bing at surfacing useful information from the internet. However, it is supposedly better at answering questions that require a conversational approach. Google now allows limited public access to its Bard AI chatbot in some territories, granting access to tens of thousands of users who join a waiting list.

On March 17, 2023, YouTube allowed Former President Trump back on the platform. The announcement came after similar decisions by Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. It’s one of the first significant content decisions YouTube has taken under its recently appointed chief executive, Neal Mohan, who assumed the top job in February 2023. Ten days earlier, YouTube loosened its profanity rules so that creators who used swear words at the start of a video could still profit from the content.

According to 2019 court documents originally filed by Terry Sanderson, a retired optometrist seeking more than $300,000 in damages, the accident happened while he and Gwyneth Paltrow were skiing in 2016 at Deer Valley Resort in Utah. No vehicles were involved in the incident. Paltrow allegedly “skied out of control… knocking him down hard, knocking him out, and causing a brain injury, four broken ribs, and other serious injuries”. Paltrow filed a countersuit against Sanderson seeking $1 million in damages, claiming he skied into her. The trial began on March 21, 2023.

Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal was in the hospital getting a replaced hip. On March 19, 2023, he posted a photo of himself in a hospital gown on Twitter, which caused concern among fans. O’Neal had his hip replacement surgery on March 15.

Born in 1955, Bruce Willis is about the same age as Kevin Costner and Rowan Atkinson. For the first time after being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Willis celebrated his 68th birthday with his family on March 19, 2023. During a video shared by Demi Moore to raise awareness of the disease, the Hollywood star sang happy birthday with his daughters and wife, Emma Heming. He then blew out two candles. Over the past four decades, Willis has starred in over 100 movies, including Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, and The Sixth Sense.

Reddick played the multi-skilled Continental Hotel concierge Charon in Lionsgate’s “John Wick” movies, including the fourth in the series that releases later in March 2023. He starred on the Fox series “Fringe” as special agent Phillip Broyles, the smartly dressed Matthew Abaddon on “Lost,” played recurring roles on “Intelligence” and “American Horror Story,” and was on the show “Bosch” for its seven-year run. His yet-to-be-released projects include 20th Century’s remake of “White Men Can’t Jump” and Netflix’s biopic of former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. He was also slated to appear in the “John Wick” spinoff “Ballerina,” as well as “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.” Reddick died suddenly on March 17, 2023, at 60.

Fun Fact: Due to scheduling difficulties, Gal Gadot’s appearance in Shazam! Fury of the Gods was performed separately from the rest of the cast and had to be digitally composited into the movie’s Wonder Woman date scene. A body double was there to reference lighting and ensure director David F. Sandberg got full coverage of the scene. Sandberg tweeted this explanation on March 18, 2023, to clarify rumors that a Gal Gadot deep fake was used in the film.