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1/23(月)　コロラド州の図書館が覚醒剤汚染により閉鎖

A Second Colorado Library Closes Because of Meth Contamination

contaminate　汚染する 　
methamphetamine　メタンフェタミン 　
remediate　修復する、修正する 　
utmost　最大限の 　
vent　穴、通気口

著者：Livia Albeck-Ripka
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

A second library in Colorado has closed after city officials said it was contaminated with methamphetamine.

The public library in Englewood, about 7 miles south of downtown Denver, was closed last week, shortly after test results showed that its bathrooms, as well as some other surfaces, were contaminated with the drug, city officials said.

Out of an “abundance of caution,” the city, which has a population of about 33,500, said it had decided to temporarily shutter the Englewood Public Library as well as a lobby and some restrooms in the nearby Englewood Civic Center, citing contamination.

Shawn Lewis, the city manager, said in a statement the test results were “troubling.” He said the city would immediately begin work to remediate the affected areas of the library, with the goal of reopening as soon as possible.

“The health and safety of our staff, residents and patrons is of the utmost importance to all of us at the city of Englewood,” he said.

The city said that it tested the library Jan. 6, shortly after methamphetamine contamination led to the closure of a library in downtown Boulder, about 30 miles northwest of Englewood.

In Boulder, officials said they had decided to test after receiving reports of people smoking meth in the library’s restrooms. Members of the library’s staff had also been “evaluated and cleared for potential meth exposure after feeling ill” on two separate occasions, the city said. Restroom exhaust vents were found to be contaminated with the drug, the city said.

The closure of a second library in the state has highlighted a difficult balancing act for public libraries as they try to keep their doors open during a pandemic and a drug epidemic. As free indoor spaces, libraries face a particular challenge.

“Since COVID, the face of libraries have changed,” said Marie Hotta, chair of the Englewood Public Library board. “Libraries are not just a place to check out books and do research anymore.” The library, which is next to a light-rail stop, has confronted numerous safety issues over the years, she said, placing staff in the difficult position of balancing the needs of everyone in the community.

The American Library Association said in a statement Monday that incidents involving methamphetamine contamination in library buildings appeared to be limited to Colorado.

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1/24(火)　米インフレ抑制法をめぐる欧州の苦悩

At Davos, European Distress Over a ‘Made in America’ Law

distress　苦悩、苦痛
fret　いらいらする、悩む
punctuate 　(何度も) 中断する
tax credit　税額控除
It is no secret that… 　…は皆が知っている、よく知られている
tweak 　微調整、手直し

著者：Eshe Nelson
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

A cautious optimism ran among the Europeans gathered high up in the Swiss Alps for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum this past week. There were hopes that the region might cast off the gloomiest economic forecasts and avoid a recession this winter, helped by lower natural gas prices.

But when pondering Europe’s longer-term future, there was plenty of fretting over U.S. President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. The concern was voiced loudly in the ski town of Davos, Switzerland, that the law’s provision for $369 billion toward low-emissions energy and green technology would draw vast sums of investment and jobs away from Europe, cementing fears of de-industrialization on the continent.

Simmering for months, the complaint punctuated speeches and informal discussions from the main conference center to the back meeting rooms. The Europeans fear that companies will choose to build battery factories and electric vehicle assembly plants and other major projects in the United States to benefit from the tax credits and other incentives in the law that encourage local manufacturing. That could mean that production in Europe would be diverted to the United States, or businesses could simply pick the United States over Europe for future projects.

The new law, for example, provides buyers of electric vehicles a federal tax credit of up $7,500 — but only if those vehicles are made in North America.

“It is no secret that certain elements of the design of the Inflation Reduction Act raised a number of concerns in terms of some of the targeted incentives for companies,” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union, told delegates Tuesday.

The next day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the local content requirements in the law “must not result in discrimination against European businesses.”

Outside the conference center, the tone was less diplomatic: The phrase “trade war” came up more than once.

The European complaints have prompted Biden to promise to make “tweaks” to the law.

But many delegates, including Hieronimus, said the focus should be on the European Commission coming up with a united and strong response to the U.S. law to supercharge investments in clean tech and energy, with specific industrial targets.

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1/25(水)　Apple、投資家と合意し、労働慣行の監査を行う

Apple Reaches Deal With Investors to Audit Its Labor Practices

audit　(会社などの)　監査 　
human rights　人権 　
bargaining rights　交渉権、団体交渉権　
labor rights　労働者の権利、労働基本権 　
comptroller (会計・銀行の)検査官、監査官 　
public worker　公務員 　
third-party　(当事者以外の)第３者 　
petitions　請願書

著者：Noam Scheiber
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

Apple will conduct an assessment of its U.S. labor practices under an agreement with a coalition of investors that includes five New York City pension funds.

The assessment will focus on whether Apple is complying with its official human rights policy as it relates to “workers’ freedom of association and collective bargaining rights in the United States,” the company said in a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The audit comes amid complaints by federal regulators and employees that the company has repeatedly violated workers’ labor rights as they have sought to unionize over the past year. Apple has denied the accusations.

“There’s a big apparent gap between Apple’s stated human rights policies regarding worker organizing, and its practices,” said Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, who helped initiate the discussion with Apple on behalf of the city’s public worker pension funds.

As part of its agreement with the coalition of investors, which also includes other pension funds for unionized workers, Apple agreed to hire a third-party firm to conduct the assessment, the coalition said in a letter to the company’s chair Tuesday. Apple’s federal filing did not refer explicitly to a third party, and the company declined to comment further. In its financial filing announcing the assessment, Apple offered few details, saying it would conduct the assessment by the end of the year and would publish a report related to the assessment.

Last year, workers voted to unionize at two Apple stores — in Towson, Maryland, and Oklahoma City — and workers at two other stores filed petitions to hold union election before withdrawing them.

Workers have filed charges accusing Apple of labor law violations in at least six stores, including charges that the company illegally monitored them, prohibited union flyers in a break room, interrogated them about their organizing, threatened them for organizing and that it stated unionizing would be futile.

Apple has said that “we strongly disagree” with the claims brought before the labor board and that it looks forward to defending itself.

The investor coalition that pushed for the labor assessment argues that Apple’s response to the union campaigns is at odds with its human rights policy because that policy commits it to respect the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which includes “freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining.”

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1/26(木)　マイクロソフト、ChatGPTに大型投資

Microsoft to Invest $10 Billion in OpenAI, the Creator of ChatGPT

artificial intelligence　人工知能、AI　　　　　
deep pockets　豊富な資金 　
cutting-edge　最前線、最先端 　
forefront　最前線 　
severance　退職金、断絶

著者：Cade Metz and Karen Weise
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

Microsoft said Monday that it is making a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar” investment in OpenAI, the San Francisco artificial intelligence lab behind experimental online chatbot ChatGPT.

The companies did not disclose the specific financial terms of the deal, but a person familiar with the matter said Microsoft will invest $10 billion in OpenAI.

Microsoft had already invested more than $3 billion in OpenAI, and the new deal is a clear indication of the importance of OpenAI’s technology to the future of Microsoft and its competition with other big tech companies like Google, Meta and Apple.

With Microsoft’s deep pockets and OpenAI’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the companies hope to remain at the forefront of generative artificial intelligence — technologies that can generate text, images and other media in response to short prompts. After its surprise release at the end of November, ChatGPT — a chatbot that answers questions in clear, well-punctuated prose — became the symbol of a new and more powerful wave of AI.

The fruit of more than a decade of research inside companies like OpenAI, Google and Meta, these technologies are poised to remake everything from online search engines like Google Search and Microsoft Bing to photo and graphics editors like Photoshop.

The deal follows Microsoft’s announcement last week that it had begun laying off employees in part of an effort to cull 10,000 positions. The changes, including severance, ending leases and what it called “changes to our hardware portfolio,” would cost $1.2 billion, it said.

Satya Nadella, the company’s CEO, said last week that the cuts would let the company refocus on priorities such as artificial intelligence, which he called “the next major wave of computing.”

Nadella made clear in his company’s announcement Monday that the next phase of the partnership with OpenAI would focus on bringing tools to the market, saying “developers and organizations across industries will have access to the best AI infrastructure, models and tool chain.”

Last week, Microsoft expanded the availability of several OpenAI services to customers of Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing offering and said ChatGPT would be “coming soon.”

The company said it planned to report its latest quarterly results Tuesday, and investors expect the difficult economy, including declining personal computer sales and more cautious business spending, to further hit revenues.

Wall Street analysts expect the new financial results to show Microsoft’s slowest growth since 2016. But the business still produces substantial profits and cash.

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1/27(金)　テスラ、第4四半期に利益が12％急増

Tesla’s Profit Jumped 12% in Fourth Quarter

tumultuous 　騒々しい 　
villain　悪役 　
fiasco 大失敗 　
flood 　流し込む 　
recoup　取り戻す

著者：Jack Ewing
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

Tesla said Wednesday that profit in the fourth quarter of 2022 rose 12% from the previous quarter, above Wall Street expectations, capping a tumultuous year that included intensifying competition, supply chain disruptions and concerns about the behavior of CEO Elon Musk.

Net profit for the quarter was $3.7 billion, up from $3.3 billion in the third quarter, Tesla said. For the full year, Tesla’s profit more than doubled to $12.6 billion from $5.5 billion in 2021. Sales for the year, including revenue from solar panels and other businesses, rose to $81.5 billion from $53.8 billion the previous year.

Tesla said it expected to produce 1.8 million cars in 2023, up from 1.4 million in 2022. That would be a more modest rate of growth than in 2022, when production increased by nearly 50%.

It was an eventful year for Tesla dominated by Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which led to complaints by Tesla investors that he was neglecting his duties at the carmaker at a critical time.

Musk “has essentially gone from a superhero with a red cape to a villain in the eyes of many investors after the ongoing Twitter fiasco has cast a dark shadow over Tesla’s stock,” Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said in a note to investors before the earnings report.

Tesla shares fell 65% during 2022 as investors doubted whether the company was reacting energetically enough to a long list of challenges and risks.

Among other things, investors worried that Musk would sell more of his stake in Tesla to finance his Twitter acquisition, flooding the market. They worried about Tesla’s prospects in China, the world’s largest car market, because of problems maintaining the supply of critical parts and growing competition from rivals including Chinese manufacturer BYD.

But Tesla shares recouped some of their losses in January after the company slashed prices on most of its electric cars in the United States and Europe to revive sales.

Tesla’s shares have risen by one-third since the beginning of January, though the stock price is still more than 60% below the high it set in November 2021.

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1/28(土)　トヨタ　豊田章男氏退任と共に上層部を改革

Toyota Makes a Change at the Top as a Toyoda Steps Aside

scion　御曹司
successor　 後継者
vocal skeptic　オープンな懐疑論者
chairman　 会長
passing the baton　バトンを渡す
president　 社長
in the red　 赤字になる

著者：Ben Dooley
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

TOKYO — Akio Toyoda, the scion chief of the Japanese automotive giant Toyota, will make way for a younger successor as the company struggles to adapt to the world’s growing demand for electric vehicles.

Toyoda, who has been a vocal skeptic of the global efforts to shift to battery-powered electric cars, will step down as chief executive and become the company’s chairman on April 1, Toyota said Thursday. He will be succeeded by Koji Sato, a top executive at Toyota’s luxury subsidiary Lexus.

Over more than 13 years, Toyoda, the grandson of the company’s founder, turned around Toyota’s finances and helped it maintain its position as one of the world’s largest and most important automakers through crises both external and internal. But his reluctance to embrace the auto industry’s turn toward electrification has made him the subject of fierce criticism and raised concerns among some shareholders that the company, which once led the world in the development of eco-friendly cars, could be left behind.

“A carmaker is all that I am, and I see that as my own limit,” said Toyoda, 66, explaining why he was passing the baton. Sato “has a mission to transform Toyota into a mobility company,” he added. “I expect this new team to go beyond the limits that I cannot break through.”

A video introducing Sato showed him and Toyoda putting an all-electric Lexus through its paces. In 2021, Lexus pledged that by 2030 battery-powered cars would account for all of the luxury brand’s sales in the United States, Europe and China.

During his time as president, Toyoda successfully navigated the company through a series of challenges that threatened its position as one of the world’s top automakers. When he took over in 2009, the global financial crisis had put the company in the red for the first time since 1950. And he was immediately confronted with an international recall over stuck accelerator pedals.

The company’s response to those challenges made it stronger. The lessons learned from disruptions to Toyota’s famously tight supply chains following Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami helped prepare the company for the coronavirus pandemic, leaving it better situated than its rivals to meet the surging demand for cars during the last several years and winning it the title of the world’s best-selling automaker.

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1/29(日)　中国の石油・ガス使用量は2022年、数十年ぶりに減少

China’s Oil and Gas Use Fell in 2022 for First Time in Decades

hamper　動詞 妨害する、邪魔をする
　　　　 名詞 (かご等に入っている) ギフト
stringent　厳重な、切迫した
curb　抑制する 制御する
off the hook　窮地を脱した
fall by A% 　A%減る
increase by B% 　B%増える
liquefy　液化する

著者：Clifford Krauss
(c) 2022 The New York Times Company

With its economy severely hampered by stringent measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, China’s oil and gas consumption declined in 2022 for the first time in decades, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

But after China’s recent reversal of its lockdown policies, the agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said he expected a sharp rebound in demand, which could mean higher energy prices in other markets.

The reduction in Chinese energy use last year kept world prices from soaring even higher after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, giving relief to Europe and the United States as they struggled to manage cuts in energy imports from Russia.

China’s reduced energy needs, combined with the unseasonably warm winter, mean that Europe “seems to be off the hook this winter,” Birol said in an interview. Many experts had expected energy costs to rise so high that European businesses would fail and a deep recession would follow.

China’s oil demand for the year fell by 3%, or 390,000 barrels a day, the first decline since 1990, while total world demand increased by 2.2 million barrels a day, or roughly 2%, the energy agency said. The difference can be explained by much of the world’s recovery from the pandemic while the Chinese government kept many of its cities under lockdown.

The energy agency forecast an overall increase of 2 million barrels a day in global oil demand this year, with China accounting for half of the increase.

China’s demand for natural gas declined by 0.7% in 2022, the first drop since 1982, the agency reported. Imports of liquefied natural gas fell by 21%, dropping China to second place among importers, behind Japan. The United States is a major exporter of gas to China, but over the past year it shifted much of its Asian business to Europe.

Birol said the strength of China’s rebound from its COVID lockdowns this year would be a key determinant of global demand and prices.

But there are also questions on the energy supply side, Birol noted, with Russian energy production in doubt and only a modest increase in new liquefied natural gas export terminals to be built this year by producers such as the United States, Australia and Qatar.

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