Ripped from the Headlines: May 2026: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for May 10–May 16, 2026

The NCAA will augment next year's March Madness by increasing the number of teams in the men's and women's basketball tournaments. While past competitions included 68 teams, there will now be 76, an expansion that will be funded by increased commercial sponsorship opportunities. The eight additional teams will mean an initial round of 12 games played by 24 teams in the first days of the tournament. Augment derives from the Latin augere, "to increase or enlarge."

Dozens of high-profile artists boycotted the Venice Biennale, officially withdrawing their names from award consideration in protest of ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Over 250 curators, workers, and artists signed two letters demanding the exclusion of Israel, Russia, and the United States from the event. The statements followed the resignation of the Biennale's five-member jury; later, 27 pavilions at the exhibition shut down for one day in solidarity with the boycotters.

Oregon's most unusual gubernatorial candidate is an anthropomorphic pencil. The unlikely aspiring governor wears a yellow pencil costume — and goes by the name Pencil. Running as a write-in candidate to publicize the state's education crisis, Pencil is especially concerned with Oregon's low fourth-grade literacy rate. Gubernatorial is an 18th-century American coinage, from a Latin root meaning "a governor."

David Attenborough, one of the world's most famous and beloved naturalists, turned 100. For over 70 years, he has examined and documented the natural world, filming plants and animals around the globe and presenting them enthusiastically to television viewers. Attenborough's best-known work is the BBC documentary Life on Earth, which includes the first-ever footage of birds of paradise engaging in their bizarre mating rituals, and in which he socializes with Rwandan gorillas.

The Defense Department released decades of formerly classified UFO documents, including photographs and sketches of "unidentified phenomena." More than 150 records spanning nearly 80 years were made publicly available, including an unexplained "fairly bright light source" seen by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Other unusual reports included a description of a fast-moving object "making 90-degree turns" and "doing corkscrews" that was seen by passengers in a jet over Kazakhstan.

A South Dakota mining company canceled an exploratory drilling project after weeks of protests. Nine Native American tribes and local residents objected to the project's proximity to Pe’Sla, a sacred site in the Black Hills. The meadow, traditionally used for ceremonies, prayer, and buffalo grazing, is located just a half mile north of the proposed graphite mining site. The Latin root of proximity is proximitatem, "nearness."

The American Academy of Pediatrics updated their policy on school recess, stating it is too important to be withheld for academic or punitive reasons. It's the group's first update to the policy in 13 years, citing recent research showing that recess benefits students academically, mentally, and physically. The policy emphasized that breaks in the school day should not be taken away as a form of punishment. The Latin root of punitive is punire, "to punish."

A new study shows that regulations helped dramatically reduce the level of "forever chemicals" in Canadian seabird eggs. Researchers analyzed 55 years of data, comparing levels of PFAS in northern gannet eggs before and after government rules pushed companies to stop using these dangerous synthetic chemicals in products. By 2024, levels of PFAS in the eggs had dropped 74 percent from a peak high. Regulation is derived from a Latin root meaning "to control by rule."

An Indian billionaire offered to adopt dozens of Colombia's rogue hippos, which have become a threat to residents and their environment. The enormous nonnative animals, descendants of hippos brought into the country in the 1980s, have no natural predators. As their population has grown from four to over 200, they have caused widespread destruction of the local food chain and shown unpredictably aggressive behavior toward humans.

A German court vindicated an angry tourist who sued a tour company for allowing hotel guests to reserve poolside chairs with their towels, awarding him $1,200. The man and his family spent a week at a resort on the Greek island of Kos. Every morning they found rows of unoccupied lounge chairs, each of which had been claimed at dawn. Furious about the injustice of having to sit on the ground beside the pool, he filed the lawsuit and won 15 percent of the trip's total cost in compensation.