Ripped from the Headlines: September 2020: This Week In Words: August 30–September 4, 2020

Fast, cheap, and accurate saliva tests might be the quickest path back to normal life for many people, allowing an easy way to check one's status before working, traveling, or socializing with others. The tests exist, returning results in 15 minutes and costing as little as $1 a piece, but the FDA requires the manufacturers to meet the strict accuracy guidelines required for clinical diagnostics. Without an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), these tests cannot be sold.

President Trump responded to a tweet from a CNN analyst asking whether he had a stroke, saying that he had not suffered a "series of mini strokes." A recent book alleges that in November of 2019, the President's unscheduled stop at Walter Reed Hospital was due to a serious health issue and that Vice President Pence was told to be ready in case the President needed to go under anesthesia. The Vice President said he didn't recall this happening.

The first presidential debate will take place on September 29 in Cleveland. It will be moderated by Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, who moderated the last Trump-Clinton debate in 2016. Two more presidential debates will take place in October, as well as a vice-presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence that's scheduled for October 7.

The Brazilian Amazon is burning again, as miners, loggers, and ranchers clear land for various uses. President Jair Bolsonaro denies that the fires — which the Brazilian space agency has numbered at nearly 30,000 — exist, and points to his ban on burning and the thousands of troops he deployed to fight environmental crimes. Greenpeace says that this year's fires are nearly as bad as last year's, which brought international attention to the situation.

German officials have declared that the Russian dissident and anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a nerve agent manufactured by the Russian military. The Russian government has denied that he was poisoned. Russian President Putin has long seen Navalny as one of his arch enemies, refusing to say his name in public for over 20 years.

The Biden-Harris campaign raised a record $364.5 million during the month of August, over $205 million of which was from online donations. This breaks the previous monthly record of $202.5 million, set by the Obama campaign in September of 2008. The contributions came from over 4 million individuals, 1.5 million of whom were new donors to the campaign.

Cybersecurity experts at the Department of Homeland Security say that paper ballots, including those sent through them mail, are secure. Where electronic voting machines can be hacked, having a physical paper record that can be recounted provides the best level of security. Resilient is Latin, originally meaning "withdrawing" or "avoiding" but later including "rebounding," which is the sense it has in English: something or someone flexible that recovers easily after a setback.

After over a week, officials in Kenosha, Wisconsin lifted the curfew imposed after the shooting of Jacob Blake sparked widespread unrest. The curfew was the subject of a lawsuit brought by some protestors, who claimed that police only arrested them, and not any of the pro-police militias who were also out on the streets at night. Skirmish comes from the same Italian word, scaramuccia, as scrimmage.

As President Trump looks for support in suburban communities with a "return to law and order" message, pollsters are trying to find out if his strategy working. Twee was coined in the early 20th century as a baby-talk version of "sweet."

Silvio Berlusconi, the former Prime Minister of Italy, has tested positive for Covid-19. He recently vacationed in Sardinia, which has seen a spike in cases following feragosto, the period in August when many Italians go to the beach. Tycoon comes from the Japanese taikun, which in turn originated in the Chinese ta kun, meaning "great prince."