Ripped from the Headlines: August 2020: This Week In Words: August 8–14, 2020

Bob Woodward is an investigative reporter who became famous in the early 1970s covering the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon's presidency. His second book about the Trump White House, titled Rage, comes out on September 15. Among other documents, it includes transcripts of letters between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.

Israel and the United Arab Emirates have agreed to full and open diplomatic relations. Driven by their shared mistrust of Iran, the deal is Israel's first such relationship with an Arab country in the Persian Gulf region, and only its third in the world; Egypt and Jordan both have peace treaties with Israel as well. As part of the agreement, Israel agreed not to annex a big part of the West Bank.

Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Center for Disease Control, said that everyone in America needs to wear masks whenever they're in public or the fall and winter will be catastrophically bad. In addition to wearing masks, he reiterated the other three key strategies for getting the virus under control: social distancing, hand washing, and avoiding crowds. "I'm not asking some of America to do it," said. "We all gotta do it."

Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his running mate. Harris, a Senator from California, is the first Indian-American and first Black woman on an American Presidential ticket. The two candidates appeared together with their spouses at a socially distant video conference where they both made speeches celebrating their partnership and harshly criticizing the current administration for its mishandling of the pandemic and more.

The World Health Organization is warning that governments will have to step in to ensure the fair distribution of a vaccine when one is found to be safe and effective. A gouge is a cut or gash in something, but as a verb it means to raise the price of something sharply because it's urgently needed and people will pay any price to get it. The word is likely of Gaelic origin.

Teachers' unions are mobilizing against what they see as dangerous orders to reopen schools around the country. With the virus spreading out of control in much of the country, many teachers fear that going back to school in person will endanger their students and themselves, making a severe crisis even worse. Murmur, a Latin word, is the sound a crowd of people make when they're talking to each other in low voices.

President Trump says he doesn't want to fund the United States Post Office because it will allow people to vote by mail. He rejected $25 billion in a House bill, and an additional $3.5 billion in election resource funds, to prop up the struggling institution. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the money is needed to ensure continued delivery of the mail, including prescriptions and other essentials.

A study at Duke University rated the performance of various different types of face masks at preventing the spread of small exhaled droplets, the main means of transmitting Covid-19. Masks with vents, which filter air coming in but allow unfiltered air out, are ineffective. Even worse are neck gaiters, often worn by runners in cold weather, which break droplets up into smaller particles — which can stay airborne longer — and are worse than wearing no mask at all.

Besides massive physical damage, the huge explosion in Beirut has upended the social and political situation in Lebanon as well. The country was already in an economic crisis, and now the ruined capital city means that poverty and homelessness are spiraling out of control. The government resigned last week, and demonstrators have taken over a number of official buildings.

The Trump administration is removing restrictions on methane emissions from natural gas drilling and refining facilities. Methane is a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Environmentalists say that removing the rule will accelerate climate change, and many in the industry also want the rule to stay, since it helps to market natural gas as being cleaner than coal.