Weekly News Quiz for Students

Brady, 43, outplayed his much younger counterpart, Patrick Mahomes, to deliver his first title to the Buccaneers, who signed Brady to a two-year deal after he spent two decades with the New England Patriots. 

Defying age, Brady was the oldest player to participate in a Super Bowl at any position. He was the only quarterback to start a Super Bowl after age 40, and on Sunday he did it for the third time. He also claimed his record seventh Super Bowl title, two more rings than previous record holder Charles Haley, a linebacker who won his last title in 1996.

This Super Bowl win was, for Brady, almost certainly his hardest, his sweetest, and his strangest, too, captured at the end of the most improbable season in N.F.L. history. The final game is always an exhausting, exhilarating conclusion to the N.F.L. calendar, but never before had so many events—such as a global pandemic and national civil unrest—surrounding the field of play threatened to pause the nation’s most popular sport.

The game itself wasn’t competitive, but there were plenty of interesting things that happened off the field—and, for some brief moments, on it. 

The 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman, who at 19 became the country’s first Youth Poet Laureate and who became the youngest inaugural poet in American history, became the first poet ever to perform for the Super Bowl.

In a halftime show performance clearly designed for at-home consumption, the Weeknd focused intently on the cameras. Behind him was a band and choir interspersed among a neon cityscape, and often he was surrounded by dancers—their faces bandaged, in keeping with the fame-skeptic iconography of his recent music videos—but often, the Weeknd stood alone.

Jeep persuaded Bruce Springsteen to appear in his first commercial ever, a two-minute call for national unity that was scheduled to run in the fourth quarter.

The sun had not come up yet on Feb. 2 when a group of F.B.I. agents assigned to investigate criminals who prey on children online approached the Water Terrace apartments in Sunrise, Florida, to execute a search warrant, a routine part of the job that is always fraught with risk.

What exactly happened in the ensuing minutes is unknown, but a gun battle broke out, rousting neighbors out of bed in the quiet residential community. Law enforcement officials called emergency dispatchers. Multiple shots fired, they reported. Send air rescue.

Two F.B.I. agents died and three more were injured. No agent had been shot and killed on duty since 2008. A similarly bloody shootout took place in a Miami suburb 35 years ago, killing two F.B.I. agents and injuring five others.

The man being investigated in the case, which the authorities said involved violent crimes against children, had barricaded himself inside the complex and was found dead. A law enforcement official said it appeared that the man had killed himself before agents were able to arrest him. His identity was not released until his family could be notified of his death.

In the most extensive real-world test so far, Israel has demonstrated that a robust coronavirus vaccination program can have a quick and powerful impact, showing the world a plausible way out of the pandemic.

Cases of Covid-19 and hospitalizations dropped dramatically among people who were vaccinated within just a few weeks, according to new studies in Israel. And early data suggests that the vaccines are working nearly as well in practice as they did in clinical trials.

In comparison, the United Kingdom has inoculated more than 18% and the United States has immunized around 9.5% of its citizens.

After a 15-hour voting session that stretched overnight, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived early in the morning to the Senate dais, where she cast her first tie-breaking vote. The Senate adopted the budget measure by a vote of 51 to 50 at about 5:30 a.m.

The package was passed without any G.O.P. support, as Republicans say it would cost too much and prefer to focus on scaled-back measures. Although the Biden administration has sought to foster compromise between the two parties, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, indicated that the president would not be giving much ground in this debate.

“He reiterated, however, that he will not slow down work on this urgent crisis response, and will not settle for a package that fails to meet the moment,” she said.

Later on Friday, the House gave final approval to a budget blueprint that included President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan, advancing it over unanimous Republican opposition as Democrats pressed forward with plans to begin drafting the aid package this week and move it through the House by the end of the month. Among other things, the package includes $1,400 direct payments for those who meet certain requirements, $20 billion for a national Covid vaccination program, and $130 billion dollars for public K-12 schools, including funds to help schools return to in-person learning safely.

On Jan. 27, an online army of small investors on Reddit banded together to send video-game retailer GameStop’s stock price soaring, with its share up to 135 percent, on a mission to challenge the dominance of Wall Street investors. 

But in the last two weeks, the GameStop roller coaster has wiped out wealth almost as fast as it created it.

Since its peak of $483 on Jan. 28, GameStop’s shares are down 81 percent. On paper, that means $27 billion in market value has disappeared, much of it from the brokerage accounts of small retail investors.

His confirmation underscored the support Pete Buttigieg had received from lawmakers in both parties as he described plans for an infrastructure overhaul that aligned with President Biden’s goals on climate change, racial justice, job creation, and economic recovery.

Buttigieg now faces a challenge. He will take over an agency that employs 55,000 people and controls around $87 billion in transportation funding at a time when the country’s modes of public transportation are reeling from the pandemic.