Did Shakespeare Read The News?

Of all the writers Shakespeare is the least "topical." His silence on the great figures and events of his time is weird. Yet if we know anything about him we are sure that he was a man of the world, a good "mixer," the friend of great men, a Londoner among Londoners. All that he knew about human nature he learned from the life around him. All the pulsations of his genius must have sprung from the events and conditions under which he lived. How came it, then, that this man about whom his period is so silent, is so silent about his period?