This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for October 17–October 23, 2026

Researchers hoping to find wreckage from Amelia Earhart's airplane traveled to a remote, ring-shaped island in the South Pacific. Ever since Earhart disappeared over the ocean in 1937, many have tried to solve the mystery of where her Lockheed 10-E Electra went down. The latest clue, a satellite image resembling a large piece of metal on Nikumaroro atoll, turned out to be fallen trees made shiny by a coating of coral sand. Atoll is from the Malayalam atolu, "reef."

Artist and retired Navajo Nation doctor Chip Thomas won a MacArthur "genius" grant for his installations centered on the everyday lives and histories of the Diné People. Thomas's larger-than-life public portraits are made with paper, adhesive, and black and white ink. The MacArthur Foundation itself shies away from using genius to describe the $800,000 award, but cited Thomas's brilliant body of "socially engaged art" and his "unwavering commitment to place and community."

Tesla's newest vehicle is a car that can propel itself into the air, hover, and spin before returning to the ground. The Roadster is equipped with suction fans and cold-gas thrusters, technology borrowed from the rocket company SpaceX, that allow it to levitate. Experts say that while the appearance of defying gravity is cool, transportation regulations don't currently allow for flying, floating, or hovering cars. Levitate is from the Latin levitas, "lightness."

Residents of an English village say newly installed mannequins, which were knitted by locals and designed to look like traffic cops, are helping to slow traffic. Members of the Knit and Natter group in Fillongley, Warwickshire, designed and created the life-sized dummies using skeins of yarn and fluorescent yellow vests. The handmade police officers and their knitted speed guns are positioned on the village's busiest street, where frequent crashes occur due to excessive speed.

Curfews in Paris, Marseille, and other French cities restored calm after the pandemonium of the previous week. Widespread protests were held in over 120 cities, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators demanding more school funding and relief from the high cost of living. Some marches devolved into looting and riots, property destruction, injuries to 1,000 police officers, and thousands of arrests. The chaos reflected growing anger over wealth inequality and government policies.

A day after Pope Leo XIV was released from the hospital, where he had surgery to remove a malignant lung tumor, he addressed a crowd from his residence in Vatican City. The Pope was diagnosed with the most common kind of non-small cell pulmonary cancer, which was caught early. Unless cells are found to have spread to his lymph nodes, Pope Leo won't need further treatment. The Latin root of pulmonary is pulmo, "lung."

Ukraine briefly paused its attacks on Russian oil refineries after agreeing to an energy infrastructure cease-fire. When Russia declined to join the truce, Ukrainian drones hit Russian facilities in Ryazan and St. Petersburg, where crude oil is refined into gas, diesel, and other fuels. The proposed cease-fire would have stopped attacks on refineries, utility grids, and power stations in both countries. Refinery is rooted in the obsolete verb fine, "make fine."

Turkish archaeologists said telltale signs suggest that ancient two-handled jars called amphoras recently discovered in the Mediterranean Sea were once cargo on a ship that wrecked over 4,000 years ago. Turkey's cultural minister described the Early Bronze Age jars as belonging to "the world's oldest shipwreck." Despite finding no remaining pieces of wood from a ship, which would have decomposed long ago, clues including calcium carbonate tubes revealed the long-ago presence of shipworms.

An 18-pound dog named Luna was lost in Yellowstone for five weeks before being safely returned to her family. One rescuer said the 10-year-old Jack Russell Terrier-Chihuahua's tenacious nature saved her. Despite losing 10 pounds, Luna persevered in the wild, eluding predators and finding food and water. One animal expert said being "a typical Jack Russell terrier" — determined, strong, and spunky — saved her from harm. Tenacity is from the Latin tenax, "holding fast."

Conservationists and state agencies are building "starter homes" to tempt more beavers to stay in watershed areas. Experts say these simple structures, erected in muddy creekbeds using wooden posts woven with branches, encourage beavers to build dams. The animals help to create more resilient ecosystems in drought-prone areas whose streams are fed by snow melt and springs. When beavers dam creeks, they slow the speed of water as it moves downstream, reducing erosion and water pollution.