Ripped from the Headlines: April 2023: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocabulary for April 15–April 21, 2023

Scientists assembled 3,000 images from a United Arab Emirates’ orbiter to create an atlas of Mars. The global map, which includes every part of the red planet, was composed by piecing together pictures taken by the Hope spacecraft. Previous Mars missions have orbited the same locations repeatedly and focused on taking photographs very close to the surface rather than capturing wider angles that allow the entire planet to be mapped.

In the U.S., California is known for being the state with the most biodiversity, including more than 6,500 different plant species. Now scientists say it also faces the highest risk of losing these varied forms of life due to climate change — as many as 30 percent of its plants currently risk extinction. Biodiversity is from the Greek bios, "way of living," and the Latin diversus, literally "turned different ways."

The city of Khartoum has become a war zone in the past week as two military rivals ramp up a violent struggle for power. In Sudan's capital city, hundreds of civilians have been wounded in the conflict, and at least 100 have been killed. General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, commander of the country's armed forces, and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who heads the opposing RSF paramilitary group, are bitter adversaries who are now battling to control the country.

April 18 was the deadline for filing income tax returns, a stressful day for many Americans. The IRS predicted ahead of the cutoff date that tax refunds would be about ten percent less this year than in 2022. In the Civil War era, a deadline was a prison boundary; guards were instructed to shoot prisoners who ventured beyond the deadline. As the famous idiom popularized by Benjamin Franklin goes, "Nothing is certain except death and taxes."

A recent art contest on the Japanese island of Shodoshima celebrated the country's traditional folklore. Entrants created their own modern mythological beings to add to the legendary creatures collectively known as yokai, most of which have existed for generations. Many yokai are mischievous tricksters, while others embody cultural anxieties and issues. One contest winner, a fuzzy blue beast, represents the stress people in contemporary Japan feel about fitting in on social media.

Iranian authorities have reportedly stepped up enforcement of a law requiring women to wear a hijab in public. While the traditional Muslim headscarf has been mandatory since 1981, some women have expressed their opposition to the ruling by leaving their hair uncovered. Officials now say punishment for "encouraging corruption" or "immorality" will be strict and swift. In Arabic, hijab means "partition, screen, or veil."

A bald eagle named Murphy, who had been attempting to incubate a rock, is now an adoptive dad to an orphaned eaglet. Murphy had built a nest and dutifully warmed the rock beneath his body, apparently waiting for it to hatch. His keepers at a Missouri sanctuary decided to place him in an enclosure with a baby eagle that had fallen from a tree. Murphy quickly stepped into a parental role, protecting and feeding the eaglet. The Latin root of incubate means "to lie upon."

A Massachusetts Air National Guardsman was charged with two counts related to the leaking of hundreds of U.S. intelligence documents. The classified information included surveillance plans and battlefield details. Jack Teixeira is accused of sharing the top-secret documents with an online gaming group, putting the country's national security at risk. Since the 1400s, intelligence has meant "secret information from spies," from a Latin root meaning "to understand."

After SpaceX’s Starship rocket launch was scrubbed on April 17 when a frozen valve was discovered by technicians, a rescheduled blastoff ended in failure on April 20. The uncrewed moon and Mars rocket, reputed to be the most powerful ever made, exploded moments after it was launched into the air. Launch is from the Old French lancier, "to fling or hurl," and its Latin root, which means "lance or light spear."

Although an Oregon man littered when he tossed $100 bills from the window of his car, no charges were filed against him. Officers stopped Colin Davis McCarthy after responding to reports of money floating through the air — and drivers pulling over to grab it — on a highway near Eugene. McCarthy told police he had scattered about $200,000 along a stretch of Interstate 5; they advised him to stop strewing bills, as he was creating a traffic hazard, not to mention littering.

Kenyan runners swept the Boston Marathon on April 17. Evans Chebet was first in the men's category for the second year in a row, finishing in two hours, five minutes, and 54 seconds. He beat Eliud Kipchoge, who broke the world record for completing the 26-mile road race last year when he ran the Berlin Marathon in two hours, one minute, and nine seconds. Hellen Obiri, also from Kenya, was the winner in the women's category; her time was two hours, 21 minutes, and 38 seconds.