I don’t think anyone but US people got confused by those headlines. Makes sense though. When there are two places with identical names, you hear more often about the one closest to you, so that’d be your first assumption.

Maybe they taught it in grade school, I don't know. I avoided learning much of what was taught in grade/middle/high school. I didn't learn the US states and their capitals either.

Of course if I had paid attention I probably would have just learned "USSR" at the time. But maybe that makes it even less forgivable since it was current events.

Where are you from? Many kids in my quite large country learn the name of 50 states and the capital city of each before they are 11.