Ripped from the Headlines: February 2025: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for February 2–February 8, 2025

At the 2025 Grammy Awards on February 2, Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter was named best country album and album of the year. She already held the record for most Grammy wins, but it was Beyoncé's first time winning the prestigious top prize. Although songs from the record ranked high on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, Cowboy Carter was snubbed by the Country Music Association Awards in November.

Scientists say an asteroid the size of a football field has a 1.3 percent chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. After astronomers detected the giant space rock, the International Asteroid Warning Network sent a memo to government officials. As they continue to observe the object and make calculations about its path, scientists expect the risk of impact to decrease. Asteroid is from the Greek asteroeides, "star-like," and aster, "star."

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu offered a $1 million prize to anyone who deciphers the script of an ancient Indus Valley civilization. For a century, scholars have tried and failed to read the script, which appears on Bronze Age artifacts found in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Decoding the words will help historians better understand the civilization, and settle a clash between Hindu nationalists, who think the script is based on Sanskrit, and others who believe it's rooted in Tamil.

At a Groundhog Day ceremony in Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, heralding six more weeks of winter. The unscientific tradition of having a large brown rodent predict the weather has been around since 1887, when the town of Punxsutawney held the first annual event. According to the lore, if the groundhog doesn't see a shadow, spring will arrive early. Groundhog is just one of many names (including woodchuck and whistle pig) for the American marmot.

The city of Westfield, Indiana, officially recognized a local man's heroism after he rescued a teenager who had fallen through the ice into a frigid pond. David Fisher and his son, Felix, received Lifesaving Citizen Awards for bravely coming to the aid of the teen, who had been trying to save his dog from the icy water. David, who works as a professional jump roper, used his jump rope to pull the young man to safety. The Greek root of heroism is hērōs, "demi-god."

After 138 years, a Black composer's magnum opus was finally performed on a public stage. Edmond Dédé composed Morgiane, his most major work, in 1887, but it had only existed since then as a 550-page handwritten score. Believed to be the oldest opera by a Black American, Dédé's crowning achievement was premiered by two opera companies on February 3 in Washington, D.C. Magnum opus means "great work" in Latin.

Some egg farmers are calling for poultry vaccinations as they battle avian flu. Millions of laying hens have been euthanized since the disease surged three years ago, part of an effort to prevent a wider outbreak. Farms that produce eggs have spent millions on testing and disinfection, but the virus continues to spread. Now bird flu has passed from chickens to humans, with 66 confirmed cases and one death. Poultry is rooted in the Old French poulet, "young fowl."

At a German stag calling championship, hunters competed to imitate the call of a dominant male deer. The tradition of bellowing like a red deer at the height of mating season goes back centuries. It was originally a hunting method, a way of luring the real stags out of the forest to fight apparent rivals. For the fifth year in a row, Bavarian Fabian Wenze won the national contest and will go on to compete in October's European Stag Calling Championships in Lithuania.

President Trump signed orders imposing tariffs on products from Mexico, Canada, and China. While the 25 percent import taxes on Mexican and Canadian goods have been paused for 30 days, the move is worrying some economists. The fees threaten to start a trade war between the U.S. and the taxed countries, and their immediate effect will likely be higher prices for Americans. The Arabic root of tariff is ta'rif, "inventory of fees to be paid."

Starting late last week, hundreds of tremors have shaken several Greek islands, raising fears of a major earthquake. After a magnitude 5.1 quake jolted Santorini on February 4, thousands of people evacuated the island by ferry and airplane. Greece has since declared a state of emergency. While tremors are common in the region, it's rare that there are so many of them occurring in such a short period of time. Tremor shares a Latin root with the word tremble.

Humans can't perk up their ears to hear better the way many animals can, but we do have the remnants of a muscle that let our distant ancestors do just that. A study found that this vestigial muscle actually shows electrical activity when we strain to listen. Using electrodes, scientists observed that the harder it is to hear or pay attention to sounds, the more those ancient muscles try to lift our ears in response. Vestigial comes from a Latin root meaning "footprint."