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10/24(月)の放送の英文記事と英単語：珍しい、家禽、生もの

Turkeys Will Be Scarcer and Pricier Than Ever This Thanksgiving

scarce　不足している、乏しい、珍しい
curtail　削減する、縮小する
poultry　家禽、鳥の肉
avian　鳥類の
perishable　腐敗しやすい、生もの

著者：Kim Severson
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Thanksgiving 2022 is shaping up to be a tough one for turkey. The star of the holiday meal will be both hard to find and more expensive than ever.

Turkey supplies have been tight for a long time. Producers began to cut back on raising the birds back in 2019 after turkey prices crashed. Then the pandemic hit, further curtailing production.

Inflation has also pushed up the price of whole turkeys. Farmers and processors are paying a lot more for feed, fuel and labor, which can be scarce. They face supply shortages and drought.

All of it means that home cooks this year could be paying more than twice as much for a turkey as they did last year, some in the poultry industry predict.

And then there’s the avian flu. A particularly persistent and contagious strain carried by migrating birds has killed at least 3.6% of the nation’s turkeys, or about 7.3 million birds, so far this year, according to figures from the Department of Agriculture and Watt Global Media, which monitors the poultry business.

Every corner of the turkey market is stretched thin. Restaurants can’t get orders filled. Deli owners are scrambling to find sliced turkey breast. Shoppers are paying as much as 112% more for fresh, skinless turkey breasts than they were last year.

Most producers, retailers and market analysts don’t think meat cases will be empty. But shoppers shouldn’t expect the options they’ve enjoyed in the past

“They’ll find a turkey of some kind. It just might not be that nice 10-pounder,” said Russ Whitman, senior vice president at Urner Barry, the price reporting agency that specializes in perishable proteins.

He and others predict that prices will continue to rise in the coming weeks. On Wednesday, the wholesale price for a hen, the bird most people eat for Thanksgiving, was $1.85 a pound, about 40 cents higher than a year ago. At the beginning of 2019, it was 90 cents, Whitman said.

Exactly what that means for shoppers is unclear. This week, the average retail price for a frozen turkey is $1.99 a pound, according to the agriculture department’s weekly turkey report. That is up 73% from 2021.

But turkey prices can vary wildly. Grocers are just beginning to announce their holiday promotions, which have often included inexpensive or free turkeys to lure shoppers.

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10/25(火)の放送の英文記事と英単語：通過儀礼、外向的な、軌道

Did the Pandemic Change Your Personality? Possibly.

rites of passage　通過儀礼
trait　(人・ものの)特性、特徴
extroverted　外向的な　*extrovert　外向的な人　⇔　introvert　内向的な人
ambivert　両方の要素がある人
conscientious　誠実な、良心的な
trajectory　軌道
compound　(よくないことの)度を増す、いっそうひどくする

著者：Christine Chung
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Whether it was attending school lectures, making memorable first impressions at that first office job or packing the floor at a concert, many of the social rituals that had been rites of passage for young people were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, a recent study of people’s personalities suggests that the isolation of pandemic restrictions has not only reshaped the way we work and connect with others, but has also redrawn the way we are. The study found some of the most pronounced effects among young adults.

Our key personality traits may have dimmed so that we have become less extroverted and creative, not as agreeable and less conscientious, according to the study, published last month in the journal PLOS ONE.

These declines amounted to “about one decade of normative personality change,” the study said. People under 30 years old exhibited “disrupted maturity.” That change is the opposite of how a young adult’s personality normally develops over time, the study’s authors wrote.

“If these changes are enduring, this evidence suggests population-wide stressful events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality, especially in younger adults,” the study said.

The authors of the personality study relied on data from the Understanding America Study, an ongoing internet panel at the University of Southern California that first began collecting survey answers in 2014, drawing upon publicly available data from about 7,000 participants who responded to a personality assessment administered before and during the pandemic.

Angelina Sutin, the paper’s lead author and a professor at Florida State University, said the study results showed that on average, personality was altered during the pandemic, though she emphasized that the findings could be temporary.

The researchers analyzed five dimensions of personality: neuroticism, one’s tolerance of stress and negative emotions; openness, defined as unconventionality and creativity; extroversion, or how outgoing a person is; agreeableness, or being “trusting and straightforward”; and conscientiousness, how responsible and organized a person is.

Gerald Clore, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Virginia, said the authors were “appropriately cautious” in their conclusions and on emphasizing the need for further study to reexamine the findings.

The pandemic itself was a “hell of an experiment,” said Clore, theorizing that it may have been the restructuring of routines instead of overall stress that reshaped people’s personalities.

Delta Hunter, a therapist in New York City who facilitates a social-anxiety therapy group, said that the pandemic “compounded” existing anxiety.

“People want to connect and process together and we weren’t able to do any of that,” Hunter said. “People felt really lost because of that.”

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10/26(水)の放送の英文記事と英単語：ガス装置、白血病、小児科医

Researchers Find Benzene, Other Toxics in Gas Piped to California Homes

pipe (+ to/into)　(水・ガスなどを)パイプで(〜に)運ぶ
gas appliance　ガス装置
hookup　接続
ordinance　法令、(地方自治体の)条令
leukemia　白血病
linearly　直線的に　(linear economy 直線型経済)　(circular economy 循環型経済)
pediatrician　小児科医

著者：Elena Shao
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

The gas that is piped into millions of California homes contains hazardous air pollutants including benzene, a chemical linked to cancer, a new study found.

The researchers estimated that each year California gas appliances and infrastructure leak the same amount of benzene as is emitted by nearly 60,000 cars, but these leaks are unaccounted for in the state’s records.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, adds to a growing debate over proposals to limit the use of gas in homes because of its impact on climate change and public health. That issue has surfaced most notably in California, where in 2019 Berkeley became the first city to ban gas hookups in most new homes and buildings. Since then, dozens of cities in California and around the country have enacted similar ordinances.

Researchers have documented significant indoor air pollution and negative health impacts from using gas stoves. “Now we also know that even just having a gas appliance in your house can have health and climate impacts,” said Eric Lebel, the study’s lead author.

Several authors of the study, including Lebel, are senior scientists at PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit research institute focused on the public health and climate effects of energy production.

The study’s findings are not necessarily an immediate cause for concern for home cooks with gas ranges, but they can be an important consideration for homeowners who are preparing to replace appliances.

In the study, researchers collected 185 samples of unburned natural gas from 159 homes across California served by three gas companies. Each of the samples contained air pollutants categorized as hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning they are known to cause cancer and other serious health impacts.

The most prevalent of those pollutants was benzene, a highly flammable chemical that can be colorless and odorless, which makes it hard to detect when it leaks. Long-term exposure to significant amounts of the chemical can increase the risk of blood disorders and certain cancers like leukemia.

While the detected levels of the chemical in most of the samples were low, benzene accumulates in the body over a person’s lifetime, and health risks increase almost linearly with exposure, said Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a pediatrician and public health professor at Boston College who was not involved in the study. “There is really no safe threshold” for benzene exposure, he added.

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10/27(木)の放送の英文記事と英単語：著しい対照、華々しい、悲惨な

Rishi Sunak Wins Contest to Lead U.K. and Confront Economic Storm

stark contrast　あからさまな対比、著しい対照
flamboyant　華々しい、大胆な
fractured　ひびの入った、分断した
head-spinning　頭が混乱［クラクラ］する
calamitous　悲惨な、痛ましい

著者：Mark Landler
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

LONDON — Rishi Sunak prevailed in a chaotic three-day race for leader of Britain’s Conservative Party on Monday, a remarkable political comeback that doubled as a historical milestone, making him the first person of color to become prime minister in British history.

The 42-year-old son of Indian immigrants, whose political career has already had its ups and downs, Sunak won the contest to replace the short-lived prime minister, Liz Truss, when his only remaining opponent, Penny Mordaunt, withdrew after failing to reach the threshold of 100 nominating votes from Conservative lawmakers.

Sunak, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, is expected to pull Britain back to more mainstream policies after Truss’ failed experiment in trickle-down economics, which rattled financial markets and badly damaged Britain’s fiscal reputation. He is also likely to offer a stark contrast to the flamboyant style and erratic behavior of Boris Johnson, his former boss and Truss’ discredited predecessor.

But Sunak will confront the gravest economic crisis in Britain in a generation, and he will do so at the helm of a badly fractured Conservative Party.

Johnson’s decision to pull out of the race Sunday night cleared a path for Sunak, who had challenged Truss last summer but lost to her in a vote of the party’s rank-and-file members.

It was a head-spinning reversal of fortune for Sunak, whose abrupt resignation from Johnson’s Cabinet last July set in motion Johnson’s downfall and pitched Britain into upheaval, culminating in Truss’ brief, calamitous stint.

Now, he will become Britain’s third prime minister in seven weeks, the youngest in two centuries and the first person of the Hindu faith to achieve its highest elected office.

A former investment banker whose wife is the daughter of an Indian technology billionaire, Sunak will also be one of the wealthiest people ever to occupy No. 10 Downing St.

But if his victory swept away another barrier in British politics — putting Sunak in the same pathbreaking category as Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, and Benjamin Disraeli, its only prime minister of Jewish heritage — it also thrust him into power at a singularly difficult moment.

“There is no doubt we face profound economic challenges,” Sunak said in brief, somewhat stiff, remarks after his victory. “We now need stability and unity, and I will make it my utmost priority to bring my party and country together.”

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10/28(金)の放送の英文記事と英単語：夢中にさせる、破滅的、反抗的

Meta’s Profit Slides by More Than 50% as Challenges Mount

Immersive　夢中にさせる
Disastrous　破滅的
Net income　純利益
Defiant　反抗的

著者：Ryan Mac
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

A year ago, Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook’s name to Meta and said he was going all in on the immersive digital world of the so-called metaverse.

Since then, Meta has plowed billions of dollars into, and restructured itself around, the emerging technology — just as the global economy has slowed, inflation has soared and investors have begun paying more attention to costs.

The combination has been nothing short of disastrous. This year, Meta’s earnings have been hit hard by its spending on the metaverse and its slowing growth in social networking and digital advertising. In July, the Silicon Valley company posted its first sales decline as a public company. Its stock has plunged more than 60% this year.

On Wednesday, Meta continued that trajectory and indicated that the decline would not end anytime soon. It said it would be “making significant changes across the board to operate more efficiently,” including by shrinking some teams and by hiring only in its areas of highest priority.

The company reported a 4% drop in revenue for its third quarter — to $27.7 billion, from $29 billion a year earlier. Net income was $4.4 billion, down 52% from a year earlier. Spending soared by 19%.

The company’s metaverse investments remained troubled. Meta said its Reality Labs division, which is responsible for the virtual reality and augmented reality efforts that are central to the metaverse, had lost $3.7 billion compared with $2.6 billion a year earlier. It said operating losses for the division would grow “significantly” next year.

For the current quarter, Meta forecast revenue of $30 billion to $32.5 billion, which would be down from a year ago. The company’s shares fell nearly 20% in after-hours trading.

Zuckerberg was defiant on a call with analysts Wednesday. He said people would “look back decades from now” and “talk about the importance of the work that was done here” regarding the metaverse, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Despite the challenges, Meta increased its numbers of users. The number of people who use its apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger daily increased to 2.93 billion users in the quarter, up 4% from a year earlier.

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10/29(土)の放送の英文記事と英単語：泥試合、本格的な、覗き目

Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Deal to Own Twitter. Finally.

waffling　あやふやなやりとり
mudslinging　泥試合
full-blown　本格的な
permanent　永続的な
exacerbate　悪化させる
prying eyes　覗き目

著者：Kate Conger and Lauren Hirsch
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

SAN FRANCISCO — After months of waffling, lawsuits, verbal mudslinging and the near miss of a full-blown trial, Elon Musk now owns Twitter.

On Thursday night, Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media service, said three people with knowledge of the situation. He had arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday and met with engineers and ad executives. He also began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the CEO and chief financial officer — getting fired Thursday.

The closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Musk, has said that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald Trump from the service.

Musk’s open approach to speech on Twitter could exacerbate issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world. Early tests will come within days, when Brazil elects its president and American voters go to the polls Nov. 8 for the midterm elections.

“There could be real-world consequences to his leadership,” David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, who worked with the United Nations on issues of free speech, said of Musk’s ownership of Twitter. “To the extent that world leaders see they have this space and it’s unmoderated, they could push to see how far they can go.”

Musk, 51, will be remaking Twitter without having to disclose how it is performing every few months. By taking the company private, he does not need to regularly answer to shareholders and can make changes to the service away from the public’s prying eyes.

Musk, who also runs electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Twitter executives who were fired Thursday include Parag Agrawal, the CEO; Ned Segal, the chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, the top legal and policy executive; and Sean Edgett, the general counsel, said two people with knowledge of the matter. At least one of the executives who was fired was escorted out of Twitter’s office, they said.

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10/30(日)の放送の英文記事と英単語：不気味に迫る、急な、岩盤

U.S. Economy Returned to Growth in Third Quarter

Looming　不気味に迫る、ぬっと出てくる
Contraction　収縮・縮小
Steep　急な、険しい
Rein　抑制する、制御する
Quarter　四半期
Bedrock　岩盤、基盤

著者：Ben Casselman
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

The U.S. economy grew slowly over the summer, adding to fears of a looming recession — but also keeping alive the hope that one might be avoided.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, returned to growth in the third quarter after two consecutive quarterly contractions, according to government data released Thursday. But consumer spending slowed as inflation ate away at households’ buying power, and the sharp rise in interest rates led to the steepest contraction in the housing sector since the first months of the pandemic.

The report underscored the delicate balance facing the Federal Reserve as it tries to rein in the fastest inflation in four decades. Policymakers have aggressively raised interest rates in recent months — and are expected to do so again at their meeting next week — in an effort to cool off red-hot demand, which they believe has contributed to the rapid increase in prices.

The third-quarter data — GDP rose 0.6%, the Commerce Department said, a 2.6% annual rate of growth — suggested that the path to such a “soft landing” remained open, but narrow.

By one common definition, the U.S. economy entered a recession when it experienced two straight quarters of shrinking GDP at the start of the year. Officially, however, recessions are determined by a group of researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research, who look at a broader array of indicators, including employment, income and spending.

Most analysts don’t believe the economy meets that more formal definition, and the third-quarter numbers — which slightly exceeded forecasters’ expectations — provided further evidence that a recession had not yet begun.

Consumer spending, the bedrock of the U.S. economy, rose 0.4% in the third quarter, down from a 0.5% increase in the quarter before. Spending on goods fell for the third consecutive quarter, while spending on services slowed but remained positive.

Consumer spending has continued to increase despite higher interest rates and rising prices, as consumers have drawn down savings to keep spending on vacations, restaurant meals and other in-person activities that many missed out on earlier in the pandemic. But it is unclear how long that can last. Americans saved 3.3% of their after-tax income in the third quarter, the smallest share since 2007.

“‘Borrowed time’ is how I would describe the consumer right now,” said Tim Quinlan, senior economist at Wells Fargo. “Credit card borrowing is up, saving is down, our costs are rising faster than our paychecks are.”

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