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目次
5/18(月)の放送の英文記事と英単語:代理人、異常値、利用する
100 Babies Stranded in Ukraine After Surrogate Births
stranded 〔人・乗り物などが〕動けなくなった、足留めを食らった
surrogate 代理母、代理人
crib ベビーベッド
maroon〔災害などが人を〕孤立させる
outlier 異常値、外れ値
tap 利用する、活用する
reproductive 生殖の
bear 産む
formula 母乳の成分を含むよう調合されたミルク
bar ~ from ~を…から締め出す[追い出す]、~が…するのを禁じる
著者:Andrew E. Kramer
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
MOSCOW — The babies lie in cribs, sleeping, crying or smiling at nurses, swaddled in clean linens and apparently well cared for, but separated from their parents as an unintended consequence of coronavirus travel bans.
Dozens of babies born into Ukraine’s booming surrogate motherhood business have become marooned in the country as their biological parents in the United States and other countries cannot travel to retrieve them after birth. For now, the agencies that arranged the surrogate births care for the babies.
Authorities say that at least 100 babies are stranded already and that as many as 1,000 may be born before Ukraine’s travel ban for foreigners is lifted.
“We will do all we can to unite the children with their parents,” Albert Tochilovsky, director of BioTexCom, the largest provider of surrogacy services in Ukraine, said in a telephone interview. He said he released a video showing dozens of stranded babies in cribs to call attention to the problem.
Ukraine does not tally statistics on surrogacy, but it may lead the world in the number of surrogate births for foreign biological parents, Tochilovsky said. His company alone is awaiting about 500 births. Fourteen companies offer the service in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an outlier among nations, although not alone, in allowing foreigners to tap a broad range of reproductive health services, including buying eggs and arranging for surrogate mothers to bear children for a fee. The business has thrived largely because of poverty.
Tochilovsky said doctors and caregivers now live at a company-owned hotel in Kyiv together with the babies, feeding them formula, taking them for walks and showing them to parents in video calls, all while in quarantine to protect against infection.
As of Saturday, 60 babies were at the hotel. The parents of 16 of them were also present, having arrived before the lockdowns or having found a way in afterward.
BioTexCom offers parents a 50% discount on the usual $54 daily fee per baby for care until travel becomes possible.
Lyudmila Denisova, a human rights ombudsman for Ukraine’s Parliament, said the stranded babies underscore a pressing need for the country to bar foreigners from hiring Ukrainian women as surrogate mothers.
Trump Vows Vaccine by End of Year, and Mobilizes Military to Help
vow ~を誓う、固く約束する、公約する
rally ~を呼び集める
pharmaceutical 調剤[薬剤](学)の
cast ~と位置付けられる、~のような存在である
inoculate 予防接種をする
著者:David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman and Noah Weiland
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
President Donald Trump doubled down Friday on his promise to have a coronavirus vaccine available by the end of this year, betting he can rally the pharmaceutical industry and the government to have one available to nearly all Americans at a speed never before accomplished.
He made his pledge after the government’s senior medical leadership warned repeatedly this week that there was no assurance a safe vaccine would be available as fast as promised by the president or even for years.
Trump cast the rapid development of a vaccine as an important, but not essential, component of returning to normalcy.
“Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back, and we’re starting the process,” he said during an appearance in the Rose Garden.
He introduced a longtime pharmaceutical executive and a four-star general to lead a national effort that he compared in size and speed to the Manhattan Project, the race 75 years ago to build the first atomic bomb.
The new chief of what Trump calls Operation Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui, a former chairman of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline, called Trump’s goal “very credible,” even though the fastest a new vaccine has been developed and distributed is four years and most have taken considerably longer.
Slaoui, now a venture capitalist, said he had “recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine, and these data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine” — enough to inoculate much of the United States — “by the end of 2020.”
He did not identify which vaccine he was referring to, but until Friday, when he resigned to take on the new job with the White House, Slaoui served on the board of Moderna, a biotechnology company that has an experimental coronavirus vaccine that just entered Phase 2 of clinical trials to determine if it is effective.
Slaoui will serve as the chief adviser on the effort, and Gen. Gustave F. Perna, a four-star general who is in charge of the Army Matériel Command, will be the chief operating officer.
Perna, who runs the Army’s complex supply chain, said he was asked by Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to help run the manufacturing logistics related to the vaccine development.
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5/19(火)の放送の英文記事と英単語:景気後退、利益を生む
Japan Falls Into Recession, and Worse Lies Ahead
recession 景気後退、(一時的)不景気
pay off〔努力や投資などが〕利益[効果]を生む[もたらす・挙げる]
receding 後退する
attributed to 原因は~にある、~のせいである
nadir 一番下、底
著者:Ben Dooley
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
Japan fell into a recession for the first time since 2015, as its already weakened economy was dragged down by the coronavirus’ effect on businesses at home and abroad.
The world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China shrank by an annualized rate of 3.4% in the first three months of the year, the country’s government said Monday.
That makes it the largest economy to officially enter a recession, often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Other major economies around the world are set to follow, joining Japan as well as Germany and France in recession, as efforts to contain the outbreak ripple around the globe. The experiences of China, where the outbreak first emerged in December and January, suggest recovery will be long and difficult.
Japan will find it no easier. Initial figures for the April-to-June period show its economy will be slammed by efforts to contain the outbreak.
“The economy entered the coronavirus shock in a very weak position,” said Izumi Devalier, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, but “the real big ugly stuff is going to happen in the April, June print. It’s going to be three quarters of very negative growth.”
Devalier added, “It’s not a very encouraging picture.”
The virus outbreak crushed Japan’s exports, forced it to postpone the Olympics and then put the country on a soft lockdown as it joined other nations scrambling to stop the coronavirus.
The efforts seem to have paid off. Cases rose briefly before receding. The country’s health system never became overwhelmed. The total number of deaths attributed to the outbreak was under 750 as of Sunday, far lower than in other major developed nations.
April may prove to be the economic nadir.
On Friday, Abe announced he was lifting the state of emergency on all but eight of the country’s prefectures earlier than initially expected — a move that could give the economy a boost. The government will decide on next steps for the remaining areas, which include the economic powerhouses Tokyo and Osaka, within the month.
Fed Chairman Says Recovery May ‘Stretch’ Through End of 2021
induce 誘発する
rebound 立ち直る
reiterate ~を繰り返し言う
insulate 〔悪影響・嫌な体験などを避けるために〕~を隔離する
standstill 停止、休止
著者:Jeanna Smialek
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, said that the United States would have a slow recovery from what he called the “biggest shock that the economy’s had in living memory,” suggesting that a full rebound from virus-induced lockdowns could take until the end of 2021.
In an interview on “60 Minutes,” the CBS program, Powell reiterated that both Congress and the central bank may need to do more to help workers and businesses make it through the sudden and sharp slump caused by efforts to contain the coronavirus.
“This economy will recover; it may take a while,” Powell said. “It may take a period of time, it could stretch through the end of next year, we really don’t know.”
The Fed has rushed to insulate the economy as coronavirus lockdowns caused business activity to come to near standstill, leaving more than 20 million people jobless. But it remains an open question whether the central bank’s actions will be sufficient if it takes a long time for the economy to fully reopen, leaving businesses short on income for an extended period and increasing the risk that many will close.
Powell has begun warning that lawmakers and the White House may need to do more to support households and businesses if the virus persists.
In his “60 Minutes” appearance, broadcast and streamed into millions of American homes, Powell reiterated that shepherding the economy through the darkest days of the coronavirus lockdown may require more policy action and suggested the recovery would not be seamless. Asked whether the economy could heal without an effective vaccine, Powell suggested that activity could restart before a treatment became available without making a complete rebound.
“Assuming that there’s not a second wave of the coronavirus, I think you’ll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year,” he said.
The Fed chairman suggested that the worst economic readings were yet to come, even as states begin to gradually reopen. He said that he expected “a couple more months” of job losses and acknowledged that the unemployment rate, which hit 14.7% in April, could peak at 20% or even 25%.
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5/20(水)の放送の英文記事と英単語:候補から外す、突然に
Disney’s Head of Streaming Is New TikTok CEO
conglomerate 複合企業
pass over 候補から外す、考慮に入れない
abruptly 突然に、急に、唐突に
titan 大物、巨匠、巨大企業
deal 取引
maven 専門家、達人、玄人
著者:Brooks Barnes
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co.’s top streaming executive, Kevin Mayer, resigned on Monday and will become the chief executive of TikTok, the app for making and sharing short videos that has exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.
Mayer, 58, will also serve as chief operating officer of ByteDance, the Chinese conglomerate that owns TikTok.
“I was happy with my job at Disney,” Mayer said by phone. “The magnitude of this opportunity was just something I couldn’t pass up.” He cited gaming and music as two expansion possibilities. (He sounded considerably less eager to post TikToks of himself.)
TikTok’s app has been downloaded about 1.9 billion times worldwide, including 172 million downloads in the United States, according to Sensor Tower, an app data firm. And its surging popularity has increased during the pandemic. In the first quarter of this year, it was downloaded 307 million times, more than any other app in the world, according to Sensor Tower data.
Mayer’s departure from Disney is not entirely a surprise. Disney’s board of directors passed over him earlier this year when it was looking for a successor for Robert A. Iger, who abruptly stepped down in February. (Iger remains executive chairman, with a focus on the creative process.)
Many people in Hollywood and on Wall Street had viewed Mayer, 58, as the logical internal candidate because the future of Disney rests on its ability to transform itself into a streaming titan. The top job, however, went to Bob Chapek, the lower-profile chairman of Disney’s theme parks and consumer products businesses.
“Kevin has had an extraordinary impact on our company over the years,” Chapek said in a statement. “Having worked alongside Kevin for many years on the senior management team, I am enormously grateful to him for his support and friendship.”
For the last two years, Mayer has served as chairman for a Disney division called Direct-to-Consumer & International. The international part of his job includes cable television, with more than 350 channels in 170 countries. His division has also housed ad sales — worldwide — for all of Disney’s media properties, including ABC and ESPN.
Mayer is best known as Disney’s longtime deals maven. Before he was promoted to run the direct-to-consumer and international division, he served as Disney’s chief strategy officer, helping to orchestrate the purchases of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, most of 21st Century Fox and BamTech.
President Says He Takes Drug Deemed a Risk
deem と考える
refrain 繰り返される話
hazard 危険
embrace〔主義・思想などを〕受け入れる、採用する
endorsement 承認、支援
scarce まれな、少ない
rheumatoid arthritis 関節リウマチ
著者:Annie Karni and Katie Thomas
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had been taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug the Food and Drug Administration warned can cause serious heart problems for coronavirus patients. He said he was taking the drug as a preventive measure and continued to test negative for the novel coronavirus.
“All I can tell you is so far I seem to be OK,” Trump said, adding that he had been taking the drug for about a week and a half, with the approval of the White House physician. “I get a lot of tremendously positive news on the hydroxy,” Trump continued, explaining that his decision to try the drug was based on one of his favorite refrains: “What do you have to lose?”
But Trump’s announcement surprised many of his aides and drew immediate criticism from a range of medical experts, who warned not just of the dangers it posed for the president’s health but of the example it set.
“My concern would be that the public not hear comments about the use of hydroxychloroquine and believe that taking this drug to prevent COVID-19 infection is without hazards. In fact, there are serious hazards,” said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, the chief academic officer of the Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Scott Solomon, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said that Trump’s decision to try the drug was up to him and his physician. “But what is irresponsible is the example he is setting,” Solomon said.
Trump publicly embraced hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer” in the fight against the virus in March, and his endorsement, amplified by Fox News hosts like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, caused a run on the drug, making it scarce for those who took it for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
But on Monday night, Dr. Manny Alvarez, the senior managing editor for Fox News’ health news, said on air that the president’s statement was “highly irresponsible” and asked what had changed since studies showed the drug had no benefits.
Trump’s announcement came less than a month after the FDA issued a safety warning about the drug.
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5/21(木)の放送の英文記事と英単語:健全な、いい加減な
Johnson & Johnson to End Talc-Based Baby Powder Sales in North America
wholesome 健全な、健康に良い、有益な
wind down 終わりに近づく、幕を閉じようとしている
shoddy いい加減な、不真面目な、手抜きの
ovarian 卵巣の
vigorously 元気に、精力的に
stemmed from 〜に由来する
carcinogen 発がん(性)物質
bout 発作
著者:Tiffany Hsu and Roni Caryn Rabin
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
Johnson & Johnson is discontinuing North American sales of its talc-based baby powder, a product that once defined the company’s wholesome image and that it has defended for decades even as it faced thousands of lawsuits filed by patients who say it caused cancer.
The decision to wind down sales of the product is a huge concession for Johnson & Johnson, which has for more than a century promoted the powder as pure and gentle enough for babies.
The company said Tuesday it would allow existing bottles to be sold by retailers until they ran out. Baby powder made with cornstarch will remain available, and the company will continue to sell talc-based baby powder in other parts of the world.
Johnson & Johnson has often said faulty testing, shoddy science and ill-equipped researchers are to blame for findings that its powder was contaminated with asbestos. But in recent years, thousands of people — mostly women with ovarian cancer — have said the company did not warn them of potential risks that the company was discussing internally.
Even as it announced the withdrawal of its baby powder, the company said it “will continue to vigorously defend the product” in court. But Johnson & Johnson acknowledged that demand for the talc-based version had slumped as consumer habits changed and concerns about the product spread. The company said the decision to discontinue the product stemmed from a pandemic-related evaluation of its product portfolio.
It was only in 1980, after consumer advocates raised concerns that talc contained traces of asbestos, a known carcinogen, that the company developed a cornstarch alternative.
Krystal Kim, a Philadelphia woman who has survived two bouts of ovarian cancer that she blames on her lifelong use of the powder, said the decision to remove the product was a victory. Kim was one of a group of women who won a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson in 2018.
“It means no more little girls are going to go through what we went through,” said Kim, who started using baby powder when she was 10 years old. “This stops now. That monster is off the shelves.”
NFL Team Owners Enhance Rooney Rule, but Stop Short of Incentives
anti-tampering 改ざん[不正加工]対策の
deny〔必要なものなどを〕与えない、自由にさせない
contentious 争い[論争・けんか]好きな
distort ゆがめる、誤り伝える
set aside ~を脇[傍ら]に置く
著者:Ken Belson
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
After years of criticism about the lack of minorities in top coaching and player personnel positions, the NFL’s 32 owners on Tuesday took steps to increase racial diversity in the league’s leadership ranks but stopped short of adopting the most aggressive measure under consideration, which would have tied hiring to draft slots.
The owners approved a proposal to change the league’s anti-tampering policy by prohibiting teams from denying assistants chances to interview with other clubs for head coaching or coordinator positions, regardless of their contract status. The proposal also broadens the tampering rule to allow lower-level football executives under contract with one team to interview for an assistant general manager’s job with another.
The ability of teams to block movement by coaches on their staffs is believed to have prevented coaches of color from landing better positions.
The owners declined to make a decision on a more contentious proposal that would have rewarded teams that hire head coaches or general managers of color by giving the clubs improved picks in the draft.
The plan was widely criticized, including by several prominent African-American coaches, after details of the proposal were published on Friday. Some said that teams should not need incentives to hire minority coaches and that the measure’s intent could be distorted by teams that just want to move up in the draft.
“I just have never been in favor of rewarding people for doing the right thing,” Tony Dungy, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts, said in a podcast interview. “And so I think there’s going to be some unintended consequences.”
After the vote, which came at a scheduled virtual meeting of the league’s owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell emphasized that the proposal including incentives had been set aside, not rejected. The owners, he said, were supportive of the idea and considering ways to improve it.
The measures were the latest attempt by the NFL to address the lack of diversity in its decision-making ranks. Three-quarters of the league’s players are people of color, but the vast majority of top coaches and player personnel executives are white men.
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5/22(金)の放送の英文記事と英単語:神経質な、承認、賛成
Health Agencies Offer Tips on Sex During the Pandemic
skittish 神経質な、臆病な
blessing 承認、賛成
draw attention 注目を集める
著者:Jenny Gross and Claire Moses
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
As countries around the world slowly begin to come back to life, governments are experimenting with exactly how prescriptive they should be when giving guidelines on how people should navigate the new normal — including on sex and dating.
It has involved some trial and error.
In the Netherlands, Dutch officials relaxed the government’s rules on sex during the coronavirus pandemic, advising last week that locked-down singles find “sex buddies.” Acknowledging that human touch is important, the guidance said the two parties must be in strict agreement about limiting the spread of the virus.
Officials at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands later clarified that advice, however, removing the term “seksbuddy” from the website after it drew attention from the international news media.
A spokeswoman for the agency told the Dutch news website NU.nl that the advice did not encourage “random sex contacts.”
Different cities and countries have taken varying approaches to guidance on sex during the pandemic, with some more skittish than others.
In Denmark, the country’s health chief gave his blessing to even casual sexual encounters throughout the pandemic.
“Sex is good. Sex is healthy,” Soren Brostrom, director general of the Danish Health Authority, said in April, according to The Local DK, an English-language news site.
In New York, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities, however, officials recommended masturbation, and suggested avoiding sexual contact with people in other households.
“You are your safest sex partner,” according to guidelines in New York and Los Angeles.
San Francisco officials recommended “limiting sex to your main partner(s).” In Washington, the mayor’s office told residents that having sex with a live-in partner was OK, so long as they first check to make sure their partner is also feeling well.
Oregon went further. In a detailed poster, the Oregon Health Authority offered graphics to go with its suggestions.
“Avoid kissing anyone who is not part of your small circle of close contacts,” the notice said. Health officials also encouraged partners to consider sexting and web chat platforms for remote sex.
U.S. Arrests 2 Suspected of Helping Carlos Ghosn Flee Japan
brazen 厚かましい、ずうずうしい
bail 保釈
warrant〔逮捕や捜索などの〕令状
extradite 〔犯罪【容疑】者を管轄国に〕引き渡す、送還する
smuggle ~をこっそり持ち込む[出す]
著者:Ben Dooley
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
Two men suspected of helping former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn flee Japan, where he was facing financial charges, were arrested in Massachusetts on Wednesday morning, according to U.S. authorities.
Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret, and his son Peter Maxwell Taylor are believed by Japanese authorities to have helped plan and carry out Ghosn’s flight to Lebanon from Tokyo in December.
The two executed “one of the most brazen and well-orchestrated escape acts in recent history,” Stephen W. Hassink, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in a filing arguing that the two should be held without bail.
The U.S. District Court in Massachusetts issued a warrant for the arrests May 6, after a request from Japanese prosecutors. Japanese authorities have told their U.S. counterparts that they will seek to extradite the Taylors to face trial in Japan, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
A lawyer for the Taylors, Paul Kelly, declined to comment. Michael and Peter Taylor did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. officials moved to capture the Taylors after learning that Peter Taylor, 27, was preparing to fly from Boston to Beirut, a court filing said.
According to the timeline provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Peter Taylor met with Ghosn in Tokyo on at least three occasions before the former auto executive’s flight from justice.
Shortly after the last meeting, Ghosn left his home in Tokyo and walked to a hotel, where he met Michael Taylor and George Antoine Zayek, a veteran of the Lebanese Civil War.
The two men and Ghosn then boarded a bullet train to Osaka, where they entered a hotel room where Michael Taylor and Zayek had brought two large boxes “that looked like they were for audio equipment,” the U.S. attorney’s office filing said. Ghosn hid in one of the boxes, and two men smuggled the luggage through security at a private jet terminal and onto a plane bound for Turkey, the documents said.
Ghosn is beyond the reach of Japanese authorities while he is in Lebanon because there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.
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「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」は平日毎朝7時に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。