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！

8/8(月)の放送の英文記事と英単語：魔術、免責、輪郭

Last Conviction in Salem Witch Trials Is Cleared 329 Years Later

witchcraft　魔法、魔術
convict　有罪判決を下す
reprieve　刑執行の延期、一時的な救済
exoneration　免責、免除
civics　公民、公民科
contour　輪郭、外形、等高線

著者：Vimal Patel
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Elizabeth Johnson Jr. is — officially — not a witch.

Until last week, the Andover, Massachusetts, woman, who confessed to practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, was the only remaining person convicted during the trials whose name had not been cleared.

Although she was sentenced to death in 1693, after she and over 20 members of her extended family faced similar allegations, she was granted a reprieve and avoided the death sentence.

The exoneration came Thursday, 329 years after her conviction, tucked inside a $53 billion state budget signed by Gov. Charlie Baker. It was the product of a three-year lobbying effort by a civics teacher and her eighth grade class, along with a state senator who helped champion the cause.

“I’m excited and relieved,” Carrie LaPierre, the teacher at North Andover Middle School, said Saturday, “but also disappointed I didn’t get to talk to the kids about it,” for they are on summer vacation. “It’s been such a huge project,” LaPierre added. “We called her E.J.J., all the kids and I. She just became one of our world, in a sense.”

Only the broad contours of Johnson’s life are known. She was 22 years old when accused, may have had a mental disability, and never married or had children, which were factors that could make a woman a target, LaPierre said.

The governor of Massachusetts at the time granted Johnson a reprieve from death, and she died in 1747 at the age of 77. But unlike others convicted at the trials, Johnson did not have any known descendants who could fight to clear her name. Previous efforts to exonerate people convicted of witchcraft overlooked Johnson, perhaps because of administrative confusion, historians said: Her mother, who had the same name, was also convicted but was exonerated earlier.

The effort to clear Johnson’s name was a dream project for the eighth grade civics class, LaPierre said. It allowed her to teach students about research methods, including the use of primary sources; the process by which a bill becomes a law; and ways to contact state lawmakers. The project also taught students the value of persistence: After an intensive letter-writing campaign, the bill to exonerate Johnson was essentially dead. As the students turned their efforts to lobbying the governor for a pardon, their state senator, Diana DiZoglio, added an amendment to the budget bill, reviving the exoneration effort.

音声はこちら

8/9(火)の放送の英文記事と英単語：処方箋薬、自腹で、自社株買い

Senate Passes Climate, Health and Tax Bill, With All Republicans Opposed

prescription drug　処方箋薬
out of pocket　自腹で
stock buyback　自社株買戻し
caucus　(政党の)幹部会、党員集会
tally　得点、勘定、計算
exorbitant　(要求・値段などが）法外な、途方もない

著者：Emily Cochrane
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed legislation Sunday that would make the most significant federal investment in history to counter climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs, as Democrats banded together to push through major pieces of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda over unified Republican opposition.

The measure, large elements of which appeared dead just weeks ago amid Democratic divisions, would inject more than $370 billion into climate and energy programs. Altogether, the bill could allow the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions about 40% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

It would achieve Democrats’ long-standing goal of slashing prescription drug costs by allowing Medicare for the first time to negotiate the prices of medicines directly and capping the amount that recipients pay out of pocket for drugs each year at $2,000. The measure also would extend larger premium subsidies for health coverage for low- and middle-income people under the Affordable Care Act for three years.

And it would be paid for by substantial tax increases, mostly on large corporations, including establishing a 15% corporate minimum tax and imposing a new tax on company stock buybacks.

Initially pitched as “Build Back Better,” a multitrillion-dollar, cradle-to-grave social safety net plan on the order of the Great Society, Democrats scaled back the legislation in recent months and rebranded it as the Inflation Reduction Act. It was projected to lower the federal deficit by as much as $300 billion over a decade, though it remained to be seen whether it would counter inflation or lower costs for Americans in the long term.

Passage of the measure was a major victory for Biden and Democrats, who are battling to maintain their slim House and Senate majorities in November’s midterm congressional elections. Democrats took full advantage of the Senate’s special budget rules to force through as much of it as they could with the support of all 50 members of their caucus.

The final tally was 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. The House planned to interrupt its summer break to reconvene briefly Friday to clear the measure, sending it to Biden for his signature.

Congressional Republicans hammered the bill as an exorbitant spending package with damaging tax hikes that would inflict more damage to the nation’s economy at a perilous moment.

音声はこちら

8/10(水)の放送の英文記事と英単語：略奪された、文化遺物、汚点

U.S. Returns 30 Looted Antiquities to Cambodia

looted　略奪された
antiquities　古代の遺物 　
relics　歴史的な遺物 　
artifacts　文化遺物
repatriated　本国へ送還する
trafficked　取引をする
smuggling　密輸
taint　汚点
falsify　偽造 (forge、counterfeit)

著者：Julia Jacobs and Tom Mashberg
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

American and Cambodian officials urged museums and private collectors Monday to investigate the origins of their Khmer art to determine whether it had been looted, and the officials demonstrated the pervasiveness of such thefts at an event that celebrated the return of 30 antiquities to Cambodia.

Lined up behind the officials were seven masterpieces of the country’s ancient heritage, including a 10th-century sandstone statue known as “Skanda on a Peacock” that investigators say was stolen from a temple by a Khmer Rouge conscript and self-described looter in 1997.

The Cambodian government will also welcome back a 5-foot-tall sculpture of a Hindu god, Ganesha, but the 4-ton sculpture was represented only in a poster Monday for fear that it would break elevators at the Manhattan offices of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The antiquities that are being repatriated, the officials said, were all trafficked by an organized looting network and sold in the Western art market through Douglas A.J. Latchford, a British art dealer and collector of Cambodian antiquities. He died in 2020, less than a year after he had been charged with smuggling looted relics and concealing their tainted histories by falsifying documentation to help sell them.

“It’s like a returning of the souls of our culture back to our peoples,” Keo Chhea, Cambodia’s ambassador to the United States, said at Monday’s news conference.

The relics were returned as part of an investigation into Latchford by federal prosecutors in New York and the Department of Homeland Security. They were seized from two individuals and a U.S. museum that had owned the artifacts. All three cooperated with investigators.

Twenty-five of the antiquities that are being returned to Cambodia were surrendered by James H. Clark, the internet pioneer and Netscape founder who said he had spent roughly $35 million in purchasing dozens of Cambodian and Southeast Asian antiquities.

The 30 artifacts cited Monday are expected to arrive in Cambodia by October, after which the government hopes to have a national celebration around their return, said Bradley J. Gordon, a lawyer representing the country. Government officials intend for the items to ultimately be put on public display, he said.

Four of the antiquities were surrendered by the Denver Art Museum.

音声はこちら

8/11(木)の放送の英文記事と英単語：皮内注射、緩和する、容積

U.S. Moves to Stretch Out Monkeypox Vaccine Supply

stretch out　食い延ばす、持たせる
intradermal injection　皮内注射
alleviate　緩和する
bulk　容積，嵩
on hand　手元に

著者：Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has decided to stretch out its limited supply of monkeypox vaccine by allowing a different method of injection that uses one-fifth as much per shot, according to people familiar with the discussions.

In order for the Food and Drug Administration to authorize so-called intradermal injection, which would involve injecting one-fifth of the current dose into the skin instead of a full dose into underlying fat, the Department of Health and Human Services will need to issue a new emergency declaration allowing regulators to invoke the FDA’s emergency-use powers. That declaration is expected as early as Tuesday afternoon.

The move would help alleviate a shortage of vaccine that has turned into a growing political and public health problem for the administration.

The administration has faced a barrage of criticism that it was too slow to ship vaccine that was ready for use to the United States from Denmark, where it was manufactured, and too slow to order that bulk vaccine stocks be processed into vials after the disease first surfaced in the U.S. in mid-May.

In less than three months, more than 8,900 monkeypox cases have been reported. The virus spreads from person to person primarily through close physical contact with infectious lesions.

Even though it invested more than $1 billion in developing the two-dose vaccine known as Jynneos that works against both monkeypox and smallpox, the government has only 1.1 million shots on hand. It needs about three times as many doses to cover the 1.6 million to 1.7 million Americans who, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are at high risk of contracting monkeypox.

The vaccine is currently delivered in two 0.5 milliliter doses 28 days apart, with immune protection reaching its “maximum” 14 days after the second dose, according to the CDC.

The shot is recommended by the CDC for people who have been exposed to monkeypox and those who might be likely to get it. Those in the latter category include people identified as a contact of someone with monkeypox, those who know a sexual partner from the past 14 days was diagnosed with the disease and those who have had “multiple” sexual partners in that time frame in an area with “known monkeypox.”

音声はこちら

8/12(金)の放送の英文記事と英単語：取り憑かれる、妨害、活気のない

Disney Profit Jumps 50%, and Streaming Subscribers Surpass Netflix

bedevil　取り憑かれる
hamper　妨害
blockbuster　大ヒット作
surge　波の様に押し寄せる
lackluster　活気のない

著者：Brooks Barnes
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

LOS ANGELES — Bucking a streaming slowdown that has recently bedeviled Hollywood, Disney+ added 14.4 million subscribers in the most recent quarter, about 45% more than Wall Street had expected and lifting Disney’s portfolio of streaming services to 221 million subscribers worldwide, edging ahead of Netflix for the first time.

As expected, however, Disney acknowledged Wednesday that its quest to attract 230 million to 260 million subscribers with Disney+ alone by 2024 would be hampered by the loss of streaming rights to popular cricket matches in India. The company’s new subscriber guidance is 215 million to 245 million by 2024, with India almost entirely accounting for the decrease. Disney reaffirmed its promise that Disney+ will be profitable by that year.

Disney released the figures Wednesday as part of a blockbuster quarterly earnings report. The company also announced price increases for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, as well as details of a new version of Disney+ that will include advertising.

Starting on Dec. 8, the current ad-free version of Disney+ will cost $11 a month, up from $8. The ad-supported option will cost $8. (Netflix charges $15.49 for a standard subscription.)

“We are taking a thoughtful approach by launching with a lower ad load and frequency to ensure a great experience for viewers,” Bob Chapek, Disney’s CEO, told analysts on an earnings-related conference call on Wednesday. Disney’s board recently renewed Chapek’s contract until 2025.

Strong demand for theme-park vacations — despite economists’ worries about an inflation-led downturn in consumer spending — powered Disney’s increase in profitability. Revenue totaled $21.5 billion, a 26% increase from a year earlier. Operating profit surged 50%, to $3.6 billion. Analysts had been expecting revenue of about $21 billion and profit of about $3.2 billion, according to FactSet.

Disney’s quarterly results stood in contrast to those of competing media companies, with Comcast disappointing investors with a stagnant Peacock streaming service, and shares of Warner Bros. Discovery plunging because of lower profit guidance. Netflix also had a lackluster quarter; last month, it reported 220.7 million subscribers, a loss of nearly 1 million.

“Disney still faces economic uncertainty and intense competition,” Paul Verna, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, a research firm, said in an email, “but its quarterly performance should at least temporarily put to rest some of Wall Street’s gloomier perceptions about the company and, more broadly, about the entertainment industry.”

音声はこちら

8/13(土)の放送の英文記事と英単語：鎮火、権利、急増

In Italy, Where Pizza Was Born, Domino’s Bows Out

afloat　破産せず
extinguished　鎮火
palates　味覚
tantalize　（見せびらかして）じらす
stake　権利
sundry　様々の・数個の
proliferation　急増

著者：Elisabetta Povoledo
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

ROME — It turns out that Italians don’t necessarily like pineapple on their pizza, after all. Or at least not enough to keep nearly three dozen Domino’s Pizza franchises afloat.

Last month, the Italian outlets of the American pizza conglomerate extinguished their pizza ovens, unable to win over picky palates in the place where pizza was invented.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday and court documents show that Domino’s Italian franchise had “sought protection from creditors” earlier this year “after running out of cash and falling behind on its debt obligations.”

Bloomberg said the company had 10.6 million euros ($10.8 million) of debt at the end of 2020.

The closure ended an ambitious business venture that had aimed to tantalize Italians looking to try something new, like cheeseburger pizza or BBQ chicken pizza.

Domino’s Pizza Italia opened its first outlet in Milan in 2015, via a franchising agreement with a local company, ePizza.

In a legal filing in Milan in April, lawyers for ePizza said that the company had been optimistic about entering the Italian market in 2015, “the second largest market in the world” of pizza eaters, after the United States. At the time, too, Italy didn’t have a structured, large-scale, home delivery model like the Domino’s Pizza model.

Two years ago, media reports relayed the Italian company’s plans to open 850 stores over the next decade, with the aim of claiming a 2% stake of the national pizza market.

By 2021, 34 restaurants bore the Domino’s brand. And a representative for Domino’s Pizza Italia had cheered the opening of the fifth restaurant in Rome, suggesting that Italians had been open to American-style pizza.

But the coronavirus pandemic changed everything.

With restaurants and bars closed for long stretches of time during sundry lockdowns, many began to adopt the takeout and home delivery model that Domino’s Pizza had sought to dominate Italy with. The proliferation of food delivery platforms like Deliveroo, Glovo or Just Eat “have notably increased the competition” for ePizza, according to the April legal filing in Milan.

Representatives for ePizza and Domino’s Pizza in the United States and in Italy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

音声はこちら

8/14(日)の放送の英文記事と英単語：最先端の、同時期の、はっきりしない

Issey Miyake, Who Opened a Door for Japanese Fashion, Dies at 84

cutting-edge　最先端の
black-tie dance　セミフォーマルな服装のダンス（パーティー）
contemporary　同時期の人
opaque　はっきりしない
walk with a “pronounced limp”　はっきりとわかるくらい足を引きずって歩く

著者：Elaine Louie and Elizabeth Paton
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

TOKYO — Issey Miyake, one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris, whose pleated style of clothing allowed for freedom of movement and whose name became a global byword for cutting-edge fashion in the 1980s, died Friday in Tokyo. He was 84.

His death, in a hospital, was announced Tuesday by the Miyake Design Studio, which said the cause was liver cancer.

Miyake’s designs appeared everywhere, from morning to night, from factory floors — he designed a uniform for workers at Japanese electronics giant Sony — to black-tie dances.

And as one of the first Japanese designers to show in Paris, he was part of a revolutionary wave of designers that brought Japanese fashion to the rest of the world, eventually opening the door for contemporaries like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo.

Miyake is perhaps best known for his micro pleating, which he first began experimenting with around 1988 but has lately enjoyed a surge in popularity among new and younger consumers.

Released in 1993, his Pleats Please line of clothing, made from a nearly weightless polyester, featured waterfalls of razor-sharp, accordionlike pleats offering the ease of loungewear. They became his most recognizable look.

Most Pleats Please clothes had no buttons, zippers or snaps. There were no tight armholes or delineated waistlines. They slipped onto the body and were opaque enough to require only minimal underpinnings — say, a bra and panties.

And under his proprietary heat-treating system, these clothes never lost their shape: Even when rolled up into balls or knots, they would never be wrinkled or crushed, and they could be machine-washed.

But Miyake was about more than pleats. His Bao Bao bag, made from mesh fabric layered with small colorful triangles of polyvinyl, has long been an accessory of choice for creative industries. He also produced the black turtleneck that became part of the signature look of Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder.

Kazunaru Miyake was born April 22, 1938. (The character for Kazunaru in Japanese writing also reads as Issey, which means one life.) He walked with a “pronounced limp,” Sheryl Garratt wrote in the British newspaper The Telegraph in 2010, a result of his surviving the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, his hometown, on Aug. 6, 1945.

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。