Ripped from the Headlines: February 2020: This Week In Words: February 1–7, 2020

The E.U. is considering adding a "sustainability charge" to meat in order to offset the high environmental cost of animal farming and meat production. After the ten-year phase-in period, it's estimated that the fees would cut emissions by 120 million tons and raise €32 billion per year. Abstemious comes from the Latin abstemius, meaning "to abstain from wine."

Senate Republicans voted to acquit the President on both impeachment charges brought by the House. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican in a tough reelection fight, said that she thought the President's actions were "inappropriate" but not serious enough to justify removing him from office. Democrats derided the Senate trial as a farce, saying that without witnesses and documents it was nothing more than a coverup of the President's alleged crimes.

The Justice Department is investigating Apple and other big tech companies for antitrust violations. In this case, Apple is accused of removing a parental control app from the app store while it developed its own version, then allowing the competing app back on after six months, by which time demand had dried up.

Twitter announced a new policy to regulate fake stories, images, and video. The rule will cover deceptive editing as well as "deepfake" content manufactured using new technology. Such content will be removed, or in some cases marked as fake, or linked to a page containing more information about the subject. Egregius means "outstanding" or "excellent" in Latin, but was often used sarcastically. Now it refers to something obviously and exceptionally terrible.

The civil war in Libya has grown more complicated since Turkey began sending Syrian fighters allied with Al-Qaeda and ISIS to support the U.N.-backed government. Estimates put the total number of Syrians fighting in Libya at 4,000. Fatigue is French for "tired," and originally referred to the clothing soldiers wore to do menial work.

The coronavirus continues to spread, and though it's much less dangerous than previous epidemics it's still causing widespread concern. Over 20,000 cases have been confirmed in China, and around 425 people have died. The World Health Organization declared the situation a global health emergency. The WHO also said that economic and travel restrictions were ineffective and counterproductive.

President Trump gave the State of the Union speech, and immediately afterward House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore her copy in half. She described the speech as a manifesto that was full of lies, and that ripping it up was the appropriate response. Manifesto is an Italian word, derived from the Lain manifestum meaning "piece of evidence." Now it means an announcement or proclamation, often specifically with the intention of rousing others to join a cause or take action.

The Senate voted to acquit the President on both counts for which the House impeached him. All Democrats voted guilty. Mitt Romney, Republican Senator from Utah and former presidential nominee, was the only Republican who joined them, voting guilty on the abuse of power charge, He voted not guilty on the second count, obstruction of Congress.

The coronavirus currently causing a serious healthemergency in China has the temporary official designation 2019-CoV but will soon have a real, easy-to-say name like SARS, the previous major epidemic that originated in China. Officials in charge of choosing the name have rules in place to prevent panic and discrimination: no mention of a country, a culture, a food, or a person's name can be made.

The app designed to tally votes in the Iowa caucus failed spectacularly, leading to a frantic scramble to count paper ballots and get accurate totals out to the public. The company that designed the app expressed regret at the failure. The issue highlights the serious problems with using technology in voting; so far nothing is anywhere near as secure and hack-proof as old-fashioned paper ballots. Travail is a French word meaning "painful effort"