Ripped from the Headlines: April 2021: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for April 17–April 23, 2021

Archaeologist Julie Schablitsky has found what's widely believed to be the site where abolitionist Harriet Tubman once lived on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Artifacts including coins, buttons, bricks, and paper records provided clues to the location of a cabin built by Tubman's father. Abolitionist derives from a Latin root meaning "destroy."

President Biden opened the Leaders Summit on Climate with an announcement that the U.S. will accelerate its rate of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. pledge to cut emissions to half of 2005 levels by 2030 matches a goal called for by corporate leaders last week and outpaces an Obama administration target of a 32 percent reduction. Biden also urged world leaders to accelerate their own climate change plans. This verb has a root that means "speeding."

The rise in U.S. vaccination rates has led to an increase in scams involving counterfeit vaccination cards. Officials warn that the falsified documents, increasingly being sold on eBay, could be dangerous for public health. Used to misrepresent vaccination status on airplanes or in university housing, for example, counterfeit cards might expose others to risk and ultimately prolong the coronavirus pandemic.

Sales of skateboards and related equipment skyrocketed over the past year, thanks in part to social media's representation of "skater girl" culture. In June of 2020, skateboard sales were up 118 percent over the previous summer, and they continue to rise. Marketing experts tie the increase partly to the pandemic but also cite the rising visibility of female skaters. TikTok is the center of online skater girl culture, with some videos being viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Researchers say that the intersection of recreational drones and athletic wear will generate the next big exercise craze: fitness drones. One prototype, the "Joggobot," flies ten feet in front of a marker on a runner's T-shirt, acting as a pacer and jogging companion. Designers also envision drones acting as personal trainers, guiding visually impaired athletes, and modeling tai chi movements, among other uses.

Ahead of the April 22 and 23 Leaders Summit on Climate hosted by President Biden, the U.S. and China announced they had reached an agreement to cooperate on tackling climate change. Special climate envoys from the countries, which are the two biggest carbon emitters in the world, met in Shanghai for two days of talks.

On April 19, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made its inaugural flight over the surface of Mars. The test demonstrated the experimental vehicle's ability to examine the red planet's surface from above. Ingenuity's successful flight also made history, as it's the first aircraft to make a controlled, powered flight on another planet. Inaugural has a Latin root meaning "installment under good omens" or "take omens from the flight of birds."

The plan to form a new Super League composed of 12 elite European soccer clubs collapsed just two days after its April 18 announcement. Intense criticism from British fans spurred six of the teams to pull out of the agreement almost immediately. The league would have been a new rival to the existing Champions League and promised greater income for its participating clubs.

Exactly 400 days after its last indoor concert, the New York Philharmonic performed inside, in front of a live audience. About 20 string musicians played for a masked, socially-distanced group, performing pieces that included Entr’acte by Caroline Shaw and Rakastava by Jean Sibelius. Philharmonic comes from the Greek roots philos, "love of," and ta harmonika, "theory of harmony"; it literally means "love of music or harmony."

A study estimated the total population of Tyrannosaurus rex that ever lived on earth at 2.5 billion. A University of California, Berkeley research team used data including energy requirements and body size to calculate how many of the enormous dinosaurs lived over the span of 127,000 generations. More than two billion may sound like a lot, but spread over three million years, it means only a couple of tyrannosaurs living in an area the size of Washington, D.C. at once.

For the first time, countries around the world are acting simultaneously to regulate the technology industry in a way that could significantly limit its power. This month, the EU announced it will regulate artificial intelligence-powered technology, and China fined the internet company Alibaba $2.8 billion in a landmark antitrust case. In the U.S., the Biden administration nominated a vocal Big Tech critic to the Federal Trade Commission, signaling a pro-regulation stance.

Cuba's Raúl Castro retired on April 19, stepping down from his role as head of the Communist Party. It's the first time in 60 years that the country hasn't had a Castro in power. Raúl Castro and his brother, Fidel, led the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. Castro is succeeded by Cuba's current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. The original meaning of retire was "to retreat," from a root meaning "to draw back."

Scientists studying Indian jumping ants have found that the insects have the ability to shrink and regrow their brains. New research shows that after their queen dies, female Harpegnathos saltator worker ants fight to take her place, shrinking their brains to gain energy as they lay eggs. The unsuccessful would-be queens then go back to being workers and regrow their brains. Scientists say further research could help deepen understanding of changes in human brains.

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who has been on a hunger strike for three weeks, was transferred to the prison's hospital wing on April 19. Russian authorities deny Navalny's condition is serious, but his lawyers describe him as "near death." He began the hunger strike to protest the denial of medical care to treat his symptoms of an earlier poisoning, for which Navalny and his allies hold Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible.

A Biden administration memo has directed U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to stop using terminology that includes the words alien, illegal, and assimilation when referring to immigrants. Such terms, according to advocates, are dehumanizing. More neutral terminology, such as noncitizen and undocumented, will be required. Terminology has a Latin root, terminus, or "word," and a Greek one, -logia, "a speaking of."

Some hungry customers in Houston will have their Domino's orders delivered by the first unmanned pizza robot car this week. The autonomous electric vehicle, named R2, was designed by the robotics company Nuro. Customers who choose unmanned delivery will be able to track their pizza via GPS or text alerts. After entering a code on the robot's touchscreen, they can grab their order. Unmanned dates from the 1500s, when it referred to a sailing ship without a crew.

The trial of the police officer charged with murdering George Floyd last May ended on April 20 when the jury reached a guilty verdict. Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts after the jury deliberated for just ten hours. Verdict has been used since the 1530s to mean "a jury's decision," and it derives from roots meaning "a true saying or a true report."

An innovative vertical farm will condense 700 outdoor acres into a 95,000-square-foot warehouse in Compton, California. The startup behind the project, Plenty, opened a smaller vertical farm in San Francisco in 2018. The Compton farm, with its vertically stacked layers of crops, will have a low environmental impact, use little water, and is intended to help address food insecurity and unemployment in the city.

The U.S. reached a watershed on April 18: more than half of all adults in the country have been vaccinated against Covid-19. Following months of low availability, everyone aged 16 and older is now eligible to receive a vaccine. The country has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, giving an average of 3.2 million doses per day. The figurative sense of watershed comes from its literal meaning, "a dividing ridge separating the flow of water."

For the fourth consecutive year, Finland came out on top in a worldwide ranking of well-being. The World Happiness Report, published annually by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, uses polling data to compile its list. Rankings are based on responses to questions like "Did you smile a lot yesterday?" Experts attribute the high levels of well-being in Finland in part to very small differences in income and wealth among Finns.