This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for August 3–August 9, 2025

Brazil's Supreme Court ordered the house arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for an alleged coup attempt. The justice overseeing the case said the ruling was needed because Bolsonaro failed to follow directions to stay off social media and is highly likely to abscond. Fearing his escape, the court confined him to his mansion, seized his cell phone, and stationed guards. The former president is accused of plotting to stay in power despite a 2022 election loss.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will shut down, following cuts to its government funding. The nonprofit CPB has been a conduit for federal funds to NPR and PBS since 1967. This pipeline provided a source of money for public broadcasting, including emergency alert systems, educational programming, classical music, and news. Many radio stations serving rural areas have said they can't survive without CPB. The Latin conductus, "a pipe," is the source of conduit.

In an effort to deter poachers, conservationists in South Africa have begun injecting rhinoceros horns with radioactive isotopes. The material doesn't harm the animals, but it remains inside their horns and can be detected by nuclear security systems at airports and border crossings. Wildlife experts hope that poachers will be discouraged by the difficulty of smuggling valuable rhino horns out of the country. Deter is from the Latin deterrere, "to frighten from."

A new kind of siding for homes is made of rice hulls — a byproduct of food production — instead of wood. By using what would otherwise be thrown away, this innovative building material can help save trees and divert the hulls from landfills. Previously considered crop waste, hulls are the inedible part of rice plants. Rather than tossing them in the trash, these hard husks can now be sent to mills that grind them, add adhesive material, and form the mixture into sheets of siding.

The White House will reinstate the Presidential Fitness Test. The program existed in public schools for more than 50 years before it was phased out starting in 2013. Intended to improve the physical condition of school kids from the ages of 10 to 17, the test was given once or twice a year by physical education teachers. It involved timed drills for sit-ups and pushups, running a mile, and doing flexibility exercises.

A new service in Japan is giving older women an opportunity to stand in as surrogate grandmothers — and to earn some money. These proxy grandmas are often hired by single people who live far away from their families or don't have maternal figures in their lives. Standing in for absent grandparents, the women provide grandmotherly companionship, advice, and warmth; they may also help with cooking and cleaning, much as a real grandma might.

Texas House Democrats broke quorum by leaving the state before a vote on a controversial redistricting plan favored by Republicans. By law, two-thirds of the House members must be present in order to conduct business; Democrats are stalling that process by ensuring that at least 51 of their party members are absent, leaving too few lawmakers to hold a vote. The move is a protest against the governor's efforts to redraw the Texas congressional map so that it strongly favors Republicans.

A Pennsylvania interstate was rife with frankfurters after a tractor trailer crashed and sent its truckload of hot dogs spilling across the highway. The accident stopped vehicles on busy Interstate 83 in both directions during morning rush hour. Four people were slightly injured in the crash. As thousands of pounds of hot dogs blocked the road, a front-end loader had to scoop them into a dump truck before the highway could reopen. In Old English, rife meant "prevalent."

A NASA satellite that monitors climate change may be destroyed as a federal program ends. The spacecraft, built to orbit Earth and observe greenhouse gas emissions, is likely to burn up in our planet's atmosphere once it's no longer in use. Currently, the satellite, one of two Orbiting Carbon Observatories, transmits information used by scientists and farmers. Originally, a satellite was a distinguished person's attendant, one who orbited around them like a moon.

President Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner after the bureau released revised employment numbers that were much lower than an earlier estimate. The new data showed that the U.S. added fewer than 35,000 jobs in May and June, rather than 291,000. The administration said that the numbers were an attempt to harm the president politically, and that the commissioner was fired for providing inaccurate data. Most economists disagreed, saying that such revisions are common.