Ripped from the Headlines: March 2021: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for February 27–March 5, 2021

On March 2, three days after their abduction by armed bandits, hundreds of Nigerian girls were released to their families. The girls had been kidnapped from their boarding school. Abductions for ransom have become increasingly common in parts of Nigeria as the country struggles economically.

The Biden administration was able to broker an unusual deal between rival pharmaceutical companies to speed up the vaccination process. Merck & Co will help manufacture Johnson & Johnson's new Covid-19 vaccine, increasing the likelihood that there will be doses available to all adults in the U.S. by the end of May.

On March 1, several months after his corruption trial ended, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of trying to bribe a judge. Sarkozy is the first president in France's modern history to be sentenced to prison. He will serve no actual jail time, however, but must wear an electronic monitoring device while confined to his home. Corruption comes from a Latin root that means "to destroy or spoil."

Charlotte Newman, a senior manager at Amazon, sued the company for discrimination this week. Newman, who is Black, says she experienced gender and racial discrimination, including being paid less than white colleagues and being denied promotions.

Scientists discovered the skeletal remains of one of the oldest and largest dinosaurs that ever lived. The fossils unearthed in Argentina are estimated to be 140 million years old, and they belonged to the enormous plant-eating dinosaur known as Ninjatitan zapatai. The fossils are proof that these animals lived longer ago than scientists previously realized. Fossil comes from a Latin root meaning "dug up."

PGA Tour golfers honored Tiger Woods by wearing his signature red shirt and black pants at the WGC-Workday Championship, which concluded on Sunday. Several of the athletes also played using balls imprinted with "Tiger." Woods, who remained hospitalized several days after a car crash left him with serious injuries, said he was deeply touched by the gestures.

An iceberg larger than New York City broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The iceberg's calving — or splitting from a larger mass of ice — wasn't a surprise to scientists, who had observed cracks forming in the ice shelf for several years. While the new iceberg is massive at 490 square miles, it's nowhere near the size of the largest ever recorded, which measured 2,240 square miles.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill that included a provision to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. As the bill moved to the Senate this week, the minimum wage language was removed at the request of the Senate Parliamentarian, who said it didn't comply with rules relating to the reconciliation process. This unusual process makes it possible to pass a bill in the Senate with 51 votes but comes with complex guidelines.

A work of art appeared on the outer wall of Reading Prison, a former British jail, and some experts believe it was painted by the elusive street artist known as Banksy. The mural depicts a prisoner in a striped uniform descending the wall using a knotted bedsheet weighed down by an old-fashioned typewriter. The prison is notorious for jailing the Irish poet Oscar Wilde, and some observers speculate that he is the subject of the new mural.

Chadwick Boseman, who died last year at the age of 43, won a posthumous Golden Globe on Sunday night for his performance in the film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It was Boseman's first Golden Globe award. His widow, Taylor Simone Ledward, accepted on his behalf, giving an emotional speech that left her and the audience in tears. Posthumous comes from the Latin postumus, "last."

Riverside County, California began an effort to vaccinate thousands of farmworkers against Covid-19. The push to prioritize the mainly undocumented immigrants who work on farms in the Coachella Valley is a reaction to the extremely high rates of infection among the group. Health officials hope that bringing pop-up clinics to the fields will ease workers' wariness of government programs and simplify the vaccination process.

The military violently quashed peaceful protests in Myanmar, firing on demonstrators and killing at least 18 people. The violence occurred in several different cities. It's an escalation of the ruling junta's efforts to suppress unrest after seizing power of the country last month. Thousands of citizens have protested regularly since the coup, despite attempts to quash the country's latest pro-democracy movement.

As some states, including Texas and Mississippi, ended Covid-19 restrictions, President Biden criticized their governors' actions, which defy CDC recommendations. Biden emphasized the effectiveness of social distancing and mask-wearing, encouraging the public to continue following these guidelines. Public health officials warn that relaxing restrictions may result in another surge in cases, particularly as new, more contagious variants of Covid-19 spread.

The White House announced sanctions against the Russian government in response to the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. A U.S. intelligence investigation found that the Russian security agency known as the FSB was responsible for attacking Navalny with a deadly nerve agent. Sanction, which comes from the Latin sancire, "decree," has conflicting definitions: it means both "act of punishing" and also "official permission."

On February 27, hundreds of people joined a New York City rally against a recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Incidents of racist speech and violence have surged because some people are treating Asian-Americans as scapegoats during the Covid-19 pandemic. Scapegoat comes from an ancient Biblical ritual in which one goat would be sacrificed and another, the scapegoat, would be released into the wild, symbolically taking the people's sins with it.

Six books by the children's author Dr. Seuss will no longer be published because they contain insensitive and harmful racist stereotypes. Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the business that preserves the author's legacy and publishes his catalog, made the announcement on the author's 117th birthday.

Legendary country music star Dolly Parton got her first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. She posted an Instagram video of the experience, encouraging others to get vaccinated when they're eligible. Parton also posted a photo with the caption "Dolly gets a dose of her own medicine" — a reference to the fact that she helped fund Moderna's vaccine research.

Paris Fashion Week opened to a virtual audience, a contrast to its usual crowded in-person runway shows. Some designers are taking the year off, but more than 90 brands will show their collections virtually, using livestreams and video. Many in the fashion world are praising the increased accessibility of a Fashion Week in which anyone can get "a front-row seat." Virtual has been used to refer to tasks or events carried out over computer networks since 1959.