音声プラットフォーム「Voicy」で毎朝6時30分に更新中の英語ニュースチャンネル「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」。このチャンネルでは、The New York Timesの記事をバイリンガルのパーソナリティが英語で読み上げ、記事と英単語を日本語で解説しています。英語のニュースを毎朝聴いて、リスニング力の向上と英語学習にお役立てください。

このVoicy Journalでは、毎週月曜日に前の1週間分のスクリプトをまとめて紹介しています。放送はアプリやWebページからいつでもご視聴いただけます。Voicy News Brief Season3の記事は2/7(月)以降をご覧ください！

7/25(月)の放送の英文記事と英単語：意識を持つ、執拗に、陰鬱な

Google Fires Engineer Who Claims Its AI Is Conscious

artificial intelligence　人工知能
chatbot　チャットボット
persistently　しつこく、執拗に
sentient　知覚できる、意識を持つ
dystopian　悲惨な、陰鬱な

著者：Nico Grant
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

SAN FRANCISCO — Google fired one of its engineers, Blake Lemoine, on Friday, more than a month after he raised ethical concerns about how the company was testing an artificial intelligence chatbot that he believes has achieved consciousness.

A Google spokesperson, Chris Pappas, said Lemoine, a senior software engineer in its Responsible AI organization, “chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information.”

The company, which denies that its chatbot language model is sentient, had placed Lemoine on paid leave in June. Lemoine confirmed his dismissal in a text message Friday, and said he was meeting with lawyers to review his options. The firing was first reported by the newsletter Big Technology.

Lemoine caused a stir last month when he told The Washington Post that he believed Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, was sentient — unleashing fears that AI was moving closer to a dystopian sci-fi film. His suspension also led to conspiracy theories about whether it was part of a cover-up by Google.

For Google, it was another in a line of homegrown controversies about the ethics and role of its AI, an area of technology on which the company has staked its future.

Lemoine’s contention that LaMDA is sentient has been criticized by the company and many other AI experts who have said these types of chatbots — software that simulates a text-based conversation with another human, often used for customer service — are not advanced enough to be conscious.

Besides taking his concerns to the media, Lemoine said in June that he handed over documents to a U.S. senator, whom he hasn’t identified, claiming that they provided evidence that Google and its technology engaged in religious discrimination.

音声はこちら

7/26(火)の放送の英文記事と英単語：同時の、最有力候補、大胆にする

Why Big Tech Is Making a Big Play for Live Sports

embolden　大胆にする、勇気づけて~させる
streaming-subscription service　サブスクリプション型動画配信サービス
miss out　…のチャンスや機会を逃す (*FOMO= Fear Of Missing Out)
front-runner　(競技などで)先頭に立つ人、最有力候補
concurrent　同時の

著者：Tripp Mickle, Kevin Draper and Benjamin Mullin
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

LOS ANGELES — More than a decade after Apple disrupted the music industry and Amazon upended retail, the tech heavyweights have set their sights on a new arena ripe for change: live sports.

Emboldened by their deep pockets and eager to boost viewership of their streaming-subscription services, Apple and Amazon have thrust themselves into negotiations for media rights held by the NFL, MLB, Formula One racing and college conferences.

They are competing to replace DirecTV for the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, a package the league wants to sell for more than $2.5 billion annually, about $1 billion more than it currently costs, according to five people familiar with the process. Eager not to miss out, Google has also offered a bid from YouTube for the rights beginning in 2023, two people familiar with the offer said.

The NFL Sunday Ticket package — which shows out-of-market Sunday NFL games that aren’t being shown on local television — is available because DirecTV chose not to bid. It has been losing as much as $500 million annually on the package, though it has also benefited from a reliable base of about 2 million subscribers.

Apple is considered the front-runner, according to a dozen people in the sports, media and tech industries. But a final deal has been delayed by negotiations over a concurrent sale of NFL media assets, including the NFL Network, RedZone channel and NFL+, a new subscription service that provides access to live games on mobile devices.

Apple has made winning the package a priority. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has met with league officials and influential team owners, according to three people familiar with the process. Apple declined to comment.

Still, Amazon, ESPN+ and YouTube, which explored a bid for the rights in 2014, remain in the hunt, some of these people said. Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer, said in a statement that the league expects to finalize a deal in the coming months.

Fans will still be able to access all the games on Sundays, regardless of who wins the rights, but they will probably pay a premium to add the service to their Apple, Amazon, ESPN+ or YouTube service, some of the dozen people said. It is not yet clear if that premium would be more or less than the $294 that DirecTV charges for a year, they added.

音声はこちら

7/27(水)の放送の英文記事と英単語：主に、焼却炉、不釣り合い

Justice Dept. Will Investigate Environmental Racism in Houston

environmental racism　環境レイシズム
rampant　(言動が)激しい、自由奔放な
predominantly　主に
incinerator　焼却炉
disparities　不等、不釣り合い、格差
relegated　左官する、追放する、追いやる

著者：Glenn Thrush
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department opened a wide-ranging investigation Friday into the city of Houston’s failure to address environmental racism, including the rampant dumping of garbage — and even bodies — in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods, officials said.

The investigation, prompted by hundreds of resident complaints logged by a local legal aid group, is likely to be one of the most ambitious environmental justice reviews undertaken by the department in recent years.

The inquiry will be led by the civil rights division in coordination with the department’s new environmental justice office. It will look into whether officials in Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, systematically discriminated against residents by allowing 11 of 13 incinerators and landfills to be placed in the city’s northeast section over the past several decades.

The announcement is part of the Biden administration’s wider effort to address racial disparities that have relegated people of color to areas where they face far greater risk of exposure to carcinogens and other harmful pollutants, flooding and an array of environmental blights that decrease life spans, quality of life and property values.

The Justice Department plans to pay particular attention to reports that residents who call Houston’s 311 system to complain about dumping and other environmental violations have been routinely ignored, Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general who leads the civil rights division, said during a call with reporters.

Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, criticized the investigation, saying that his administration had increased fines for illegal dumping and taken steps to improve conditions in the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods.

The investigation was prompted by a complaint from Lone Star Legal Aid, which has monitored resident complaints in Houston’s northeast section.

The environmental disparities described by the Justice Department on Friday are woven into the city’s urban fabric, a patchwork of commercial and residential buildings. Houston has some of the nation’s least restrictive zoning laws; as a result, many of the city’s petroleum processing facilities, petrochemical plants, dumps and transportation lots have been placed alongside low-income or working-class residential neighborhoods.

A 2016 study by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services found that people living in Houston’s Harrisburg/Manchester neighborhood, a predominantly Latino area bordered by industrial facilities, suffered significantly higher cancer and asthma rates than people in other, whiter parts of the city.

音声はこちら

7/28(木)の放送の英文記事と英単語：食料品、利幅、引き返す

Walmart Lowers Profit Forecast as Inflation Hits Customers’ Wallets

groceries　食料品
mark down　値下げする
margins　利ざや、利幅
hard-line　小売業）ハード商品
discretionary spending　自由に使える支出
pulling back　引き戻す、引き返す

著者：Michael Corkery
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Walmart lowered its profit outlook Monday, saying inflation is pressuring its customers to make fewer purchases of general merchandise and to focus on necessities like groceries.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, said it expected operating profits for the full year to fall by as much as 13%, as the company is forced to continue marking down inventory that isn’t selling.

Another factor narrowing profits: More of Walmart’s sales are coming from its less profitable grocery business instead of from departments with higher margins, such as electronics and clothing.

The announcement, which was made after the stock market closed and a few weeks before the company is set to report second-quarter earnings, is another sign of how inflation is squeezing consumers and upending businesses. The Federal Reserve is preparing this week to announce its latest interest rate increases to tame inflation, which has reached the highest levels in four decades.

“The increasing levels of food and fuel inflation are affecting how customers spend, and, while we’ve made good progress clearing hard-line categories, apparel in Walmart U.S. is requiring more markdown dollars,” Walmart’s chief executive, Doug McMillon, said in a statement.

Walmart’s stock price plunged more than 9% in after-hours trading, after ending the regular trading day only slightly in the red, down 0.1%. The shares of other major retailers, including Target, also fell after hours.

Retailers have been struggling with rising inventory levels since the spring, when customers began pulling back on discretionary spending. Last month, Target also warned that its profits would be lower because of inventory markdowns.

Initially, many companies attributed the glut of goods on their shelves to shipping delays that caused seasonal items to arrive late, after demand for them had faded. But as inflation — particularly food and gas prices — has continued to climb since the spring, it has become clear that consumers are pulling back on certain purchases.

Despite the inflationary pressures, Walmart said it expected its total sales in the second quarter to increase 6%. But, because the company was selling more food and other groceries, it would nonetheless post lower profits.

The company said it expected earnings per share to decline as much as 13% for the second quarter and as much as 8% for the full year.

音声はこちら

7/29(金)の放送の英文記事と英単語：禁止命令、優勢、夢中にさせる

FTC Sues to Block Meta Virtual Reality Deal as It Confronts Big Tech

Injunction　禁止命令
Immersive　夢中にさせる
Crimp　妨害
Dominance　優勢
Nascent　発生しようとしている

著者：David McCabe and Mike Isaac
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday filed for an injunction to block Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, from buying a virtual reality company called Within, potentially limiting the company’s push into the so-called metaverse and signaling a shift in how the agency is approaching tech deals.

The antitrust lawsuit is the first to be filed under Lina Khan, the commission’s chair and a leading progressive critic of corporate concentration, against one of the tech giants. Khan has argued that regulators must stop violations of competition and consumer protection laws when it comes to the bleeding edge of technology, including virtual and augmented reality, and not just in areas where the companies have already become behemoths.

The FTC’s request for an injunction puts Khan on a collision course with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, who is also named as a defendant in the request. He has poured billions of dollars into building products for virtual and augmented reality, betting that the immersive world of the metaverse is the next technology frontier. The lawsuit could crimp those ambitions.

“Meta could have chosen to try to compete with Within on the merits,” the FTC said in its lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. “Instead, it chose to buy” a top company in what the government called a “vitally important” category.

In a statement, Meta said the FTC’s case was “based on ideology and speculation, not evidence.”

Meta said it would acquire Within, which produces the highly popular fitness app called Supernatural, last year for an undisclosed sum. The company has promoted its virtual reality headsets for fitness and health purposes.

The lawsuit is part of a wave of actions against Meta and other large tech companies like Google, Apple and Amazon, which have increasingly faced scrutiny for their power and dominance. Under Khan’s predecessor, the FTC filed a lawsuit against Facebook that argued the company shut down nascent competition through acquisitions. The Justice Department has also sued Google over whether the company abused a monopoly over online search.

Meta is scheduled to report quarterly earnings later on Wednesday. The company has recently trimmed employee perks and reined in spending amid uncertain economic conditions.

音声はこちら

7/30(土)の放送の英文記事と英単語：骨粗鬆症、不足している、相手する

Study Finds Another Condition That Vitamin D Pills Do Not Help

Unquestioningly　何の疑問もなく
Fracture　骨折
Osteoporosis　骨粗鬆症
Purported　称されている・言われている
Deprived　不足している
Taking on　相手する
Ailment　病気

著者：Gina Kolata
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

The idea made so much sense it was almost unquestioningly accepted: Vitamin D pills can protect bones from fractures. After all, the body needs the vitamin for the gut to absorb calcium, which bones need to grow and stay healthy.

But now, in the first large randomized controlled study in the United States, funded by the federal government, researchers report that vitamin D pills taken with or without calcium have no effect on bone fracture rates. The results, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, hold for people with osteoporosis and even those whose blood tests deemed them vitamin D deficient.

These results followed other conclusions from the same study that found no support for a long list of purported benefits of vitamin D supplements.

So, for the millions of Americans who take vitamin D supplements and the labs that do more than 10 million vitamin D tests each year, an editorial published along with the paper has some advice: Stop.

“Providers should stop screening for 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels or recommending vitamin D supplements and people should stop taking vitamin D supplements in order to prevent major diseases or extend life,” wrote Dr. Steven R. Cummings, a research scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and Dr. Clifford Rosen, a senior scientist at the Maine Medical Research Institute.

There are exceptions, they say: People with conditions such as celiac or Crohn’s disease need vitamin D supplements, as do those who live in conditions where they are deprived of sunshine and may not get any of the mineral from foods that are routinely supplemented with vitamin D, such as cereals and dairy products.

Getting into such a severe vitamin D-deprived state is “very hard to do in the general population,” Cummings said.

The two scientists know that in making such strong statements they are taking on vitamin sellers, testing labs and advocates who have claimed that taking vitamin D, often in huge amounts, can cure or prevent a wide variety of ailments.

The study involved 25,871 participants — men aged 50 and older and women 55 and older — who were assigned to take 2,000 international units of vitamin D each day or a placebo.

音声はこちら

7/31(日)の放送の英文記事と英単語：仕事、霊長類、襲撃する

A Marauding Monkey Was Killed in Japan. Others Will Take Its Place.

marauding　襲撃する
macaque　サル科マカク属のサル
tad　少し
primate　霊長類
gig　仕事

著者：Hisako Ueno and Mike Ives
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

TOKYO — The authorities in a western Japanese city said Wednesday that they had killed a monkey they believe was responsible for a spate of attacks against humans.

That was a relief to people in the city, Yamaguchi, where 56 victims were attacked by a monkey this month, including a baby girl injured in her home and a 4-year-old girl pounced on at a kindergarten.

The marauding macaque killed on Tuesday will almost certainly not be the last to be executed in Japan for terrifying humans. Yasuko Sanada, the vice principal of the Yamaguchi kindergarten where the 4-year-old was attacked, said Wednesday that monkeys were still running through the school’s playground.

“We received a warning from the police this morning,” she said, “so we have stopped letting children play outside.”

Japan’s macaque population is thriving, in large part because conservation efforts started after World War II have been a tad too successful.

The population recovery has paradoxically “provoked and intensified” human-macaque conflicts to the point where people living near the animals now face serious risks of having their own habitats invaded, Hiroto Enari, a primate expert, wrote in a recent study.

The Yamaguchi attacks are unusually dramatic, said Enari, who teaches wildlife management at Yamagata University.

Each attack, he said, essentially gives monkeys a chance to study the art of being a nuisance — by removing roof tiles, say, or terrorizing garbage dumps. He said the most serious concern is that the animals could spread hepatitis B or other diseases to humans.

The Japanese macaque, or snow monkey, is the world’s northernmost nonhuman primate species. Being one in the early 20th century was a tough gig: Humans would have hunted you for food and used your body parts to make traditional medicine.

After World War II, the population was in such critical condition that Japan’s government ordered people not to hunt them.

This enabled the Japanese macaque population to rebound, according to Enari’s recent study for the journal Mammal Study.

Now Japanese macaques generally have enough to eat and lots of nice wetland habitats to hang around in. And some of them pretty much terrorize humans whenever they please.

音声はこちら

「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」は毎朝6時30分にVoicyで更新中！いつでも無料で聴けるVoicyの英語チャンネルを活用して、英語力向上にお役立てください。