Ripped from the Headlines: April 2023: This Week in Words: Current Events Vocabulary for April 8–April 14, 2023

On April 10, two prominent Chinese human rights activists were sentenced to 12 and 14 years in prison. Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, who advocated for free speech, were tried in a secret court and found guilty of subversion. Human Rights Watch called for their immediate release, describing the sentences as "cruelly farcical." Activist comes from action, and the sense of pushing for action on important issues, or actively advocating for them.

New regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would be the most ambitious climate rules ever enacted in the United States. The proposal seeks to guarantee that by 2032, the majority of new cars sold will be electric vehicles. It specifies that at least 67 percent of auto sales would be all-electric — a dramatic increase from today's 5.8 percent and an aggressive step toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

New research shows that some freshwater turtles deliberately bask in moonlight. Scientists documented 13 turtle species behaving the way many other animals do in sunshine, lounging on rocks and logs — but in this case, bathing in the light of the moon. Before Shakespeare used bask in As You Like It to mean "soak up the sun's warmth," its definition was "wallow in warm water," from a root meaning "bathe."

In New Mexico, a 400-year-old dialect called New Mexican Spanish is in danger of disappearing. The regional language was developed by the state's first Spanish-speaking settlers, and it's only spoken in remote mountain villages there. Though the dialect endured from generation to generation, the rural communities where it thrived are now in decline. Language experts fear New Mexican Spanish will vanish within the next two decades.

President Biden commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland on April 12. In his Belfast speech, Biden praised the diplomatic victory of the agreement, which ended decades of violence in the region between Irish nationalists and unionists. He acknowledged the delicate balance of diplomacy and negotiation that continues, especially in the wake of Brexit, and the importance of maintaining peace and democracy in Ireland and around the globe.

A study of how various hoofed animals solve problems found that goats and camels that were lowest in the pecking order were the best at tackling unfamiliar situations. The surprising result showed that the lower the animals fell in a group hierarchy, the better skilled they were at finding a way to open a lidded cup with food inside. Some scientists speculate that being an outsider, without the group's support, can push an animal to take more risks and use more innovation to find food.

Malaria has been eradicated in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, according to an announcement by the World Health Organization. The mosquito-borne disease can be prevented with vaccines, bed nets, and insecticides, but it still causes more than 600,000 deaths annually. Worldwide, 42 nations and territories have so far been declared malaria-free, with no new cases reported in at least three years. The root of malaria means "bad air," once thought to cause the disease.

Wild parrots are now the unofficial mascot of San Francisco. In four rounds of voting, the San Francisco Chronicle winnowed 16 animal finalists down to a contest between the parrots and sea lions to represent the city. Over 27,000 people cast their votes, ultimately choosing the bright green non-native birds, which have inhabited San Francisco since the 1980s, after a pet store escape. Mascot, originally "good luck charm," is from a French root meaning "fairy friend."

As a teenager, Waheed Arian was treated for tuberculosis he contracted in a Pakistani refugee camp after his family fled Afghanistan. His doctor gave him a medical textbook and a stethoscope, inspiring him to pursue the field of medicine himself. Now he credits his career as an ER doctor in Britain to the gift of that medical instrument, in addition to the immigration policies that allowed him to eventually become a British citizen.

Growing tensions between Israel and Iran have the region on edge. After Israeli strikes on Syria last week killed two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran was reportedly preparing for drone attacks on vessels in the Persian Gulf owned by Israel. The U.S. Navy responded to the escalation by sending a guided missile submarine to the Middle East on April 8. Tension derives from the Latin tensionem, "a stretching," or in Medieval Latin, "a struggle."

Climate change is causing a specific type of airplane turbulence to become much more common, according to scientists. They say that "clear-air turbulence," which is caused by abrupt changes in wind speed and direction, is increasing along with warming temperatures. This kind of unstable air is dangerous because it isn't predicted by stormy weather or cloudy skies, so flight crews can't be prepared for it. The Latin root of turbulence means "disturbed."

A small town in Manitoba, Canada has the country's only holding facility for wayward polar bears. When the bears veer off their regular path to and from the Hudson Bay, wandering into the village of Churchill, they risk being jailed for up to a month. The most obstinate bears, which aren't scared off by blanks fired from shotguns, are locked up temporarily, tranquilized, and flown by helicopter 90 miles outside of town. Wayward was originally aweiward, "turned away."