Voicy初の公式英語ニュースチャンネル「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」。チャンネルでは、バイリンガルパーソナリティがThe New York Timesの記事を英語で読み、記事の中に出てくる単語を日本語で解説しています。
Voicy Journalでは、毎週金曜日にその週に読んだ記事を、まとめて紹介します！１週間の終わりに、その週の放送をもう１度聞いて復習するのも良いかもしれません。VoicyのPCページやアプリでは、再生速度も変えられるので、自分の理解度に応じて、調整してみましょう。
3/13(土)の放送
Biden Tells Nation There Is Hope After a Devastating Year
著者：Katie Rogers
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
WASHINGTON — Seeking to comfort Americans bound together by a year of suffering but also by “hope and the possibilities,” President Joe Biden made a case to the nation Thursday night that it could soon put the worst of the pandemic behind it and promised that all adults would be eligible for the vaccine by May 1.
During a 24-minute speech from the East Room, Biden laced his somber script with references to Hemingway and personal ruminations on loss as he reflected on a “collective suffering, a collective sacrifice, a year filled with the loss of life, and the loss of living, for all of us.”
Speaking on the anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring a pandemic and the moment at which the virus began tightening its grip on the United States, the president offered a turning point of sorts after one of the darkest years in recent history, one that would lead to more than half a million deaths in the country, the loss of millions of jobs and disruptions to nearly every aspect of society and politics.
With the stimulus bill about to give the economy a kick, the pace of vaccinations increasing and death rates down, Biden said Americans were on track to return to a semblance of normal life by July 4 as long as they took the chance to get vaccinated and did not prematurely abandon mask wearing, social distancing and other measures to contain the virus.
In putting a date, however cautiously, on the calendar, Biden also offered something intangible: hope for a summer with barbecues, family gatherings and hugs for grandparents.
“July 4th with your loved ones is the goal,” he said.
Biden did not mention his predecessor, Donald Trump, but his address drew sharp contrasts to him, repeatedly citing the need to tell the American people the truth, appealing for unity, celebrating the accomplishments of science and calling for continued vigilance against a virus that he said could still come roaring back.
“Just as we were emerging from a dark winter into a hopeful spring and summer is not the time to not stick with the rules,” Biden said. “This is not the time to let up.”
Biden set out concrete steps to build on the progress so far, starting with a requirement that states act by May 1 to make all adults eligible to be vaccinated.
bind together 結びつける、気持ちを一つにさせる
make a case 自説などを述べる、主張する
eligible for ～に対して資格がある、～の対象となる
somber 厳粛な
rumination 熟考
stimulus bill 景気刺激法案
semblance うわべ、見せ掛け、表面上
prematurely 通常より早く、時期を早めて、時期尚早に
intangible 漠然とした、無形の (反) tangible
vigilance 警戒、用心
3/14(日)の放送
A Green Wave? Mexico’s Marijuana Market May Be Middling
著者：Oscar Lopez
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
MEXICO CITY — Mexico, a country carved up by cartels for decades, is poised to take a major step in drug policy. This week, the lower house of Congress approved a landmark bill to legalize recreational marijuana, which would make it the world’s largest legal market for the drug.
With legalization considered all but certain to win Senate and presidential approval, many in the business world are predicting a Mexican green boom: a newly legal industry providing tens of thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in profit for savvy entrepreneurs and welcome tax revenue for the government.
But many business analysts and economists are wary, and caution that the cannabis industry here is more likely to be a green blip than a boom. Opening a licit market would matter more legally and symbolically than economically, they argue, citing relatively low domestic demand and little chance of exporting the product, as well as seemingly restrictive regulatory measures.
Still, industry promoters are enthusiastic.
The cannabis industry “is going to finally generate income in terms of employment, in terms of the local economy, in terms of taxation,” said Erick Ponce, a Mexican entrepreneur and president of the Cannabis Industry Promotion Group, a local research and advocacy group.
According to a January report from a cannabis data analysis company, New Frontier Data, the Mexican marijuana industry could be worth as much as $3.2 billion annually, and major cannabis companies like Canada’s Canopy Growth are eyeing the market.
But Canada may be a cautionary tale. In the lead-up to its own legalization in 2018, investors and analysts predicted a surge in cannabis cash, but the business has not been a rousing success.
California, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, has had similar teething troubles: In the first year of legalization, legal vendors in the state sold $500 million less worth of marijuana than in the year prior, when it was only permitted for medical use. Of late, sales have picked up considerably.
Some industry leaders say that the real money in Mexico may be in medicinal cannabis, which has been legal in Mexico since 2017, as well as industrial hemp, which could be used to produce everything from plastics to paper.
Middling 中くらいの
Carved up 切り裂かれた
Cartels カルテル、Drug Cartel：麻薬の製造販売組織
Legalize 公認、法律化
Savvy 知る、良く解っている
Green boom 緑のブーム、マリファナブーム
Wary 用心深い
Blip ピッと言う音
Licit 合法の、正当な
Cautionary 警戒的な
Teething 歯が生える、始める痛み
3/15(月)の放送
From Crypto Art to Trading Cards, Investment Manias Abound
著者：Erin Griffith
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
SAN FRANCISCO — This past week, a trading card featuring quarterback Tom Brady sold for a record $1.3 million. The total value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin hit $1 trillion. And Christie’s sold a digital artwork by an artist known as Beeple for $69.3 million.
These seemingly singular events were all connected, part of a series of manias that have gripped the financial world. For months, professional and everyday investors have pushed up the prices of stocks and real estate. Now the frenzy has spilled over into the riskiest — and in some cases, wackiest — assets, including digital ephemera and media, cryptocurrencies, collectibles like trading cards and even sneakers.
The surges have been driven by a unique set of conditions. Even as millions were laid off in the pandemic, many people’s bank accounts flourished, flush from relief checks and government cash infusions into the economy. But while people accumulated more money, traditional investments like stocks and bonds became less attractive.
So many got creative. Often, they were egged on by online communities on Reddit and Discord, where the next big investments were debated. They also turned to tech tools like the trading app Robinhood and the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, which allowed them to buy and trade different items with the click of a button.
That has now led to minibubbles across a wide variety of esoteric categories, making once-obscure acronyms like SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) and NFTs (nonfungible tokens) as ubiquitous as the S&P. It has also fed demand for this past week’s public listings of companies like gaming site Roblox and South Korean e-commerce company Coupang, as well as for shares of video game retailer GameStop and other so-called “meme” stocks.
The manias, which have erupted at a time of deep economic pain, have introduced a large amount of risk to many investors. Some people have already racked up staggering losses on Robinhood. Other assets, like Bitcoin, are volatile, while sneakers and NFTs are so new that it is difficult to know what they will be worth over time.
For now, the bubble-upon-bubble behavior does not appear to pose a systemic risk to the broader financial system. But some investors said they were uneasy.
“Most people are cheering but at the same time shaking their heads and going, when is the bust coming?” said Jane Leung, chief investment officer at SVB Private Bank.
cryptocurrency (復習)暗号通貨
frenzy (2/12 復習) 狂乱、熱狂
wacky 風変わりな
ephemera 一時的な筆記物および印刷物
infusion 注入
egg on (人を)扇動して～させる、けしかける
esoteric (選ばれた少数者にだけ伝えられる)秘密の
acronym 頭字語、略語
staggering よろめく、唖然とさせる
volatile (復習）不安定な
bust 失敗、破綻
*SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) 特別買収目的会社
*NFTs (nonfungible tokens) 代替不可能なトークン
3/16(火)の放送
‘Mank’ Leads a Diverse Field of Oscar Nominees
著者：Nicole Sperling
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
David Fincher’s meditation on old Hollywood, “Mank,” led the Oscar nominations Monday with 10 total nods, including for best picture, director, actor and supporting actress. Voters recognized a diverse set of films, with six nominations each going to “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “Sound of Metal,” “Nomadland,” “Minari,” “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Father.”
All of those films were nominated for best picture, along with “Promising Young Woman.”
For the first time, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated two women for best director, recognizing Chloé Zhao for her work on “Nomadland” and Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman.” That category also featured nods to Fincher, “Minari” director Lee Isaac Chung and, in a surprise, Thomas Vinterberg for his work on the International Film nominee “Another Round.”
The Academy also chose to showcase a diverse group of actors, awarding nominations in the lead actor category to Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) and Steven Yeun (“Minari”). Gary Oldman (“Mank”) and Anthony Hopkins (“The Father”) rounded out the category.
For best actress, the Academy recognized Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), Andra Day (“The United States vs. Billie Holiday”), and Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”). Also nominated was Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”) and Frances McDormand (“Nomadland”).
This has been a year in which streaming took firm hold in Hollywood, thanks to the theater shutdowns caused by the coronavirus. Contenders like “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Mank,” “One Night in Miami” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” were released by the likes of Netflix and Amazon.
Netflix once again leads the pack with 35 nominations; last year, it received 24 but walked away with just two wins. This year, the streaming service has three films in the running for best picture: the homegrown “Mank,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which it acquired from Paramount Pictures. Amazon Studios has “One Night in Miami” in the mix in several categories, along with “Sound of Metal,” and received some love for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” in the adapted screenplay and supporting actress (Maria Bakalova) categories.
The Oscars ceremony, which was pushed back two months because of the pandemic, will be held April 25.
meditation 瞑想録
👆meditate (瞑想する)
nods 同意
recognize 評価する
☝️気づく＋この使い方も押さえましょう！
showcase 並べて紹介する
☝️ガラスの陳列棚→動詞は1945年〜
round out 仕上げる
contender 競争者
Subsequent その後の [語源: sub(後に)+sequent(続く)]
the likes of ~ 〜のようなものたち
lead the pack 群れを率いる、先頭に立つ
☝️pack(猟犬・狼などの群れ)
walked away with ~ (賞を)さらう
homegrown 自宅で作った
3/17(水)の放送
Moderna Begins Testing COVID Vaccine in Babies and Young Children
著者：Denise Grady
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
The drug company Moderna has begun a study that will test its COVID vaccine in children younger than 12, including babies as young as 6 months, the company said Tuesday.
The study is expected to enroll 6,750 healthy children in the United States and Canada. Moderna declined to say how many had already signed up or received the first shots, according to a spokeswoman, Colleen Hussey.
“There’s a huge demand to find out about vaccinating kids and what it does,” said Dr. David Wohl, medical director of the vaccine clinic at the University of North Carolina, who is not involved the study.
In a separate study, Moderna is testing its vaccine in 3,000 children ages 12-17 and may have results for that age group by summer. The vaccine would then have to be authorized for use in children, so it would not be immediately available.
Many parents want protection for their children, and vaccinating children should help to produce the herd immunity considered crucial to stopping the pandemic. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for expansion of vaccine trials to include children.
Vaccine side effects like fever, sore arms, fatigue and achy joints and muscles can be more intense in children than in adults, and doctors say it is important for parents to know what to expect after their children are inoculated.
Moderna developed its vaccine in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The company and the institute are also working together on the study, along with the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
The children will be followed for a year, to look for side effects and measure antibody levels that will help researchers determine whether the vaccine appears to provide protection. The antibody levels will be the main indicator, but the researchers will also look for coronavirus infections, with or without symptoms.
Johnson & Johnson has also said it would test its coronavirus vaccine in babies and young children after testing it first in older children.
Pfizer and BioNTech are testing their vaccine in children ages 12-15 and have said the plan is to move to younger groups; the product is already authorized for use in those 16 and older in the United States.
Last month, AstraZeneca began testing its vaccine in Britain in children 6 years and older.
expected 予想される、期待される
decline 断る、拒否する
demand 要求、需要
herd immunity 集団免疫
crucial 極めて重大な、不可欠な
expansion 拡大、展開
side effects 副作用
fatigue 倦怠感、疲労
achy joints 関節の痛み
inoculate 摂取する
3/18(木)の放送
In Between Stimulus Payments, Retail Sales Decline
著者：Sapna Maheshwari
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
Retail sales slid in February after a jump the month before, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, putting a spotlight on the effect of stimulus money on consumer spending, which is likely to move in fits and starts as the economy recovers.
Sales for February dropped 3%, government data showed, as consumers grappled with waning stimulus effects and severe winter storms in parts of the country. The decline was sharper than some economists had expected, but sales for the month were still higher than a year before, when the pandemic began to squeeze the economy. Retail sales sharply declined in March 2020 amid widespread shutdowns.
Sales in January had surged 7.6% — a gain that was most likely fueled by stimulus checks deposited at the end of last year. The increase in January, revised upward on Tuesday, benefited a broad array of retailers. Consumers spent more on goods, including at furniture sellers and department stores, as well as in restaurants, offering a positive sign for an economy that has been battered by the coronavirus outbreak.
The data suggests that the recovery in consumer spending is likely to be bumpy as the retail sector recovers from shifts in consumer spending and a new round of stimulus payments arrives in Americans’ bank accounts. Retailers saw largely uneven sales for the better part of last year, as consumers flocked to big-box chains and grocery stores and spent less at many apparel retailers and restaurants. Balancing out those categories is likely to take a combination of stimulus money, vaccinations, improvements in unemployment numbers and warm weather.
“It was obviously going to slow down a bit,” Mickey Chadha, a retail analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, said of the February sales.
“Going forward, the new stimulus checks that are going out as we speak are definitely going to be a positive for retail sales in March and through April,” he added.
Economists at Morgan Stanley had forecast a 0.7% gain in February sales based on the outsize gains in January, and predicted that new stimulus money arriving in late March and early April would drive a spending surge in coming months.
stimulus payments 景気刺激用の資金、給付金
slid 滑り落ちた、下落した
dropped 減少した、落ちた
decline 下落、落ち込み
surged 急上昇した、増加した、急騰した
gain 増加
increase 増加、増大
battered ぼろぼろの、打撃を受けた
bumpy でこぼこの、不安定な
flocked 群がった
spending surge in coming months 今後数カ月間の消費の急増
3/19(金)の放送
Landmark Ruling Cracks Door Open for Same-Sex Marriage in Japan
著者：Ben Dooley and Hisako Ueno
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company
TOKYO — A Japanese court Wednesday ruled that the country’s failure to recognize same-sex marriages was unconstitutional, a landmark decision that could be an important step toward legalizing the unions across the nation.
The ruling, handed down by a district court in the northern city of Sapporo, came in a civil suit against the Japanese government by three same-sex couples. The lack of recognition of their unions, they said, had unfairly cut them off from services and benefits accorded to married couples, and they sought damages of around $9,000 per person.
The couples argued that the government’s failure to recognize same-sex unions violated the constitutional guarantee of equality under the law and the prohibition against discrimination regardless of sex.
The court agreed, writing in its decision that laws or regulations that deprived gay couples of the legal benefits of marriage constituted “discriminatory treatment without a rational basis.”
The ruling will not, however, change the law. Same-sex marriages will be recognized in Japan only if Parliament enacts legislation, Dmitrenko said. Lawmakers have repeatedly declined to take up such a bill.
Still, activists saw the court’s decision as an important step in tearing down barriers to normalizing gay marriage in Japan, the only country in the Group of 7 nations that has not legalized same-sex unions.
The unions are not explicitly banned in Japan, but they are not recognized by the national government or most localities. In recent years, some local governments have moved to provide gay couples with certificates acknowledging their marriage, but the documents have little legal or practical value.
The Japanese public remains divided in its attitudes on the subject. On one hand, the idea of same-sex marriage enjoys broad popular support. In a 2019 poll by the advertising giant Dentsu, almost 80% of respondents 60 and younger said they supported the unions.
Even the country’s notoriously rigid business community has begun to embrace the notion of marriage equality, marketing products to gay couples and improving protections for employees.
On the individual level, however, many gay people are still hesitant to come out because of fears of discrimination from a society that is infamous for its often intense pressure to conform.
landmark 画期的な／革命的な
ruling 判決／裁定
unconstitutional 違憲／憲法違反
legalize 公認する／法律化する
district court 地方裁判所
civil suit 民事訴訟
☝️日本語の報道で使われている「集団訴訟」は「民事訴訟」の一種だそうです！
benefits 給付／福利厚生
seek damages 損害賠償を請求する
☝️文章に出てくるsoughtはseekの過去形
same-sex union 同性婚／同性結婚
☝️civil union（パートナーシップ制度）とまた違う
explicitly 明確に／わざわざ
locality 地域／場所
come out カミングアウトする／LGBTQ＋であることを明かす
infamous 名うて／悪名高い
conform 順応する／一致する
