Voicy初の公式英語ニュースチャンネル「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」。チャンネルでは、バイリンガルパーソナリティがThe New York Timesの記事を英語で２つ読み、記事の中に出てくる単語を日本語で解説しています。

Voicy Journalでは、毎週金曜日にその週に読んだ記事を、まとめて紹介します！１週間の終わりに、その週の放送をもう１度聞いて復習するのも良いかもしれません。VoicyのPCページやアプリでは、再生速度も変えられるので、自分の理解度に応じて、調整してみましょう。

8/1(土)の放送

John Lewis, a Man of ‘Unbreakable Perseverance,’ Laid to Rest

著者：Richard Fausset and Rick Rojas
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

ATLANTA — Three former presidents and dozens of other dignitaries were drawn to Ebenezer Baptist Church on Thursday to bid farewell to John Lewis, a giant of Congress and the civil rights era whose courageous protests guaranteed him a place in American history. But even as the funeral looked back over Lewis’ long life, it also focused very much on the tumultuous state of affairs in the country today.

The most pointed eulogy came from former President Barack Obama, who issued a blistering critique of the Trump administration, the brutality of police officers toward Black people and efforts to limit the right to vote that Lewis had shed his blood to secure.

The political tone of the ceremony came as little surprise. Lewis, who died July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, had spent more than three decades in Congress as a thorn in the side of Republican administrations. And he and President Donald Trump had traded public slights since before Trump took office.

Obama compared Lewis to an Old Testament prophet and credited him with directly paving the way for the nation’s first Black president. He also took aim at the forces he said were working against the equality for Black Americans and other oppressed people that Lewis had spent a lifetime championing.

The critique elicited a torrent of applause from the invitation-only audience at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the famed institution that Lewis attended and where Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis’ mentor and ally, once preached.

The mourners, masked to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, were strategically limited in number to ensure social distancing. Some took their seats as an organist played “We Shall Overcome,” a protest anthem sung by Lewis countless times during his nonviolent confrontations with segregationist forces in the South who beat and injured him on several occasions.

In death, Lewis drew a bipartisan crowd, including former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, although Trump did not attend. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and dozens of members of Congress were also at the three-hour service, presided over by Ebenezer’s pastor, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, who is running as a Democrat for a Senate seat.

perseverance　(称賛すべき) 忍耐（力)、粘り強さ
dignitary 高位の人、(政府などの) 高官、要人
bid farewell to ～に別れを告げる
tumultuous 騒々しい、混乱した
eulogy 弔辞
pancreatic cancer 膵臓がん
thorn とげ、苦痛の種
elicit (感情や反応などを) 引き起こす
torrent of 　〜のほとばしり、～の連発
confrontation　対立、敵対

Trump Floats an Election Delay, and Republicans Shoot It Down

著者：Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin and Reid J. Epstein
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Facing disastrous economic news and rising coronavirus deaths, President Donald Trump on Thursday floated delaying the Nov. 3 election, a suggestion that lacks legal authority and could undermine confidence in an election that polls show him on course to lose.

Republican leaders in Congress, who often claim not to have seen Trump’s outlandish statements and tweets and who infrequently challenge him in public, promptly and vocally condemned any notion that the election would be moved.

It was a moment of striking political isolation for the president, as Republicans felt no need to defend him, Democrats condemned him, and three former presidents gathered in a rare moment together, paying tribute at the funeral of Rep. John Lewis of Georgia.

Trump is facing about as dire a runup to a presidential election as any incumbent could imagine: the worst quarter in the economy on record, an unceasing health crisis, protests nationwide and a country paralyzed by the lack of a financial recovery plan with no solution in sight — all compounded by his own inability to curtail his behavior.

His remarks on Twitter about the election delay — which he linked to his baseless claims about the potential for mail-in voter fraud — were one of the few clear signs that the president now realizes how deep a hole he has dug for himself in his reelection effort. Aides have described him as pained by the widespread rejection he is seeing in public opinion polls, even as he continues with self-sabotaging behavior rather than taking steps that might help him, like getting involved in negotiations for a deal on Capitol Hill to lift the economy.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump wrote. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

Trump later pinned the tweet at the top of his Twitter feed, ensuring people would continue to see it. Hours later, despite warnings from his campaign officials that delays are likely in tabulating results on Nov. 3, Trump said in a separate tweet, “Must know Election results on the night of the Election, not days, months or even years later!”

outlandish 風変わりな、突飛な、奇妙な
condemn (人や物事を悪いと) 非難する
dire　悲惨な、恐ろしい
incumbent　現職(者) 、(米) 現職議員
compound (事態を)悪化させる　　
curtail　切り詰める、抑制する
baseless　根拠のない、事実に基づかない
fraudulent　詐欺的な、不正な

8/2(日)の放送

Microsoft Said to Be in Talks to Buy TikTok, as Trump Weighs Curtailing App

著者：Mike Isaac, Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

SAN FRANCISCO — TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app that has been under scrutiny from the Trump administration, is in talks to sell itself to Microsoft and other companies as President Donald Trump weighs harsh actions against the business, including forcing TikTok to divorce itself from its parent company, ByteDance, said people with knowledge of the discussions.

The powerful Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, has been examining ByteDance’s 2017 purchase of Musical.ly, an app that morphed to become TikTok. The committee has decided to order ByteDance to divest TikTok, and the government is engaged in negotiations over the terms of the separation. White House officials have said TikTok may pose a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership.

But it remains unclear what the president will do, including whether the U.S. would apply a divestment order to all of TikTok’s U.S. operations and whether its actions would affect the app’s global business as well.

Trump is weighing other courses of action, including an executive order that could use the powers of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to bar certain foreign apps from U.S. app stores. The administration has also considered whether to add TikTok’s parent to an “entity list,” which would prevent it from purchasing U.S. products and services without a special license.

In comments Friday, Trump told reporters that there were “a couple of options” with TikTok, including “banning” it. He added, “But a lot of things are happening, so we’ll see what happens.”

Later Friday, Trump said he planned to take action as soon as Saturday. He added that he was not leaning toward allowing an American company to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations.

It’s unclear how advanced TikTok’s talks to sell itself to Microsoft and other companies are, but changing ownership is crucial for the app. The United States is one of TikTok’s major markets, so continued operations in the country are a priority.

TikTok has discussed other scenarios to alleviate concerns by U.S. officials. In one scenario, non-Chinese investors like Sequoia Capital, SoftBank and General Atlantic could purchase a majority stake in the app from ByteDance, people familiar with the discussions have said.

Any deal would likely be expensive. ByteDance’s valuation recently stood at around $100 billion, according to the research firm PitchBook.

In a statement, TikTok did not address Trump’s comments or any deal talks.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Curtail 切り詰める、短縮する、省略する
Morph 変形、変化、変態
Divest 脱ぐ、奪う、放棄する
Alleviate 軽くする、緩和する、楽にする
Valuation 評価、見積もり価格

Florida Teenager Is Charged as ‘Mastermind’ of Twitter Hack

著者：Kate Conger and Nathaniel Popper
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

OAKLAND, Calif. — One by one, the celebrity Twitter accounts posted the same strange message: Send Bitcoin and they would send back double your money. Elon Musk. Bill Gates. Kanye West. Joe Biden. Former President Barack Obama. They, and dozens of others, were being hacked, and Twitter appeared powerless to stop it.

While some initially thought the hack was the work of professionals, it turns out the “mastermind” of one of the most high-profile hacks in recent years was a 17-year-old recent high school graduate from Florida, authorities said Friday.

Graham Ivan Clark was arrested in his Tampa apartment, where he lived by himself, early Friday, state officials said. He faces 30 felony charges in the hack, including fraud, and is being charged as an adult.

Two other people, Mason John Sheppard, 19, of the United Kingdom, and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, Florida, were accused of helping Clark during the takeover. Prosecutors said the two appeared to have aided the central figure in the attack, who went by the name Kirk. Documents released Friday do not provide the real identity of Kirk, but they suggest it was Clark.

Clark was skilled enough to go unnoticed inside Twitter’s network, said Andrew Warren, the Florida state attorney handling the case.

“This was not an ordinary 17-year-old,” Warren said.

Clark convinced one of the company’s employees that he was a co-worker in the technology department who needed the employee’s credentials to access the customer service portal, a criminal affidavit from Florida said. By the time the hackers were done, they had broken into 130 accounts and raised significant new questions about Twitter’s security.

Despite the hackers’ cleverness, their plan quickly fell apart, according to court documents. They left hints about their real identities and scrambled to hide the money they’d made once the hack became public. Their mistakes allowed law enforcement to quickly track them down.

Less than a week after the incident, federal agents, search warrant in hand, went to a home in Northern California, according to the documents. There, they interviewed another youngster who admitted participating in the scheme. The individual, who is not named in the documents because he or she is a minor, gave authorities information that helped them identify Sheppard and said that Sheppard had discussed turning himself in to law enforcement.

Mastermind 指導者、立案者、首謀者
Celebrity 有名人
Powerless 無力
Felony 重罪
Fraud 詐欺
Affidavit 宣誓供述書

8/3(月)の放送

More Than 1,000 Companies Boycotted Facebook. Did It Work?

著者：Tiffany Hsu and Eleanor Lutz
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The advertiser boycott of Facebook took a toll on the social media giant, but it may have caused more damage to the company’s reputation than to its bottom line.

The boycott, called #StopHateForProfit by the civil rights groups that organized it, urged companies to stop paying for ads on Facebook in July to protest the platform’s handling of hate speech and misinformation. More than 1,000 advertisers publicly joined, out of a total pool of more than 9 million, while others quietly scaled back their spending.

The 100 advertisers that spent the most on Facebook in the first half of the year spent $221.4 million from July 1 through July 29, 12% less than the $251.4 million spent by the top 100 advertisers a year earlier, according to estimates from the advertising analytics platform Pathmatics. Of those 100, nine companies formally announced a pullback in paid advertising, cutting their spending to $507,500 from $26.2 million.

Many of the companies that stayed away from Facebook said they planned to return, and many are mom-and-pop enterprises and individuals that depend on the platform for promotion.

Facebook said that the top 100 spenders contributed 16% of its $18.7 billion in revenue in the second quarter, which ended June 30. During the first three weeks of July, Facebook said, overall ad revenue grew 10% over last year, a rate the company expects to continue for the full quarter.

Still, the boycott helped amplify discussion of toxic content on Facebook. The issue was raised in a congressional hearing this past week and in repeated meetings between ad industry representatives and Facebook leaders. In the face of the pressure, Facebook released the results of a civil rights audit last month and agreed to hire a civil rights executive.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said during the company’s earnings call that, like the boycott’s organizers, “we don’t want hate on our platforms, and we stand firmly against it.”

Companies like Beam Suntory and Coca-Cola have vowed to continue pressuring Facebook, especially as the presidential race heats up. On Thursday, ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s said it planned to keep withholding spending on product promotions through the end of the year “to send a message.”

scale back 縮小する
pullback 　撤退
mom-and-pop enterprises 家族経営の小規模企業
amplify 拡大する

Red Onions Linked to Salmonella Outbreak, Officials Say

著者：Christina Morales
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Red onions grown in California have been traced as the potential source of a salmonella outbreak that has infected more than 500 people in the United States and Canada, health officials said.

Confirmed cases have surfaced in 34 states. Those most affected as of Saturday included Oregon (71); Utah (61) and California (49), the Food and Drug Administration said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada reported that the country had 114 cases of salmonella and that at least 16 people had been hospitalized. In the United States, 396 illnesses and 59 hospitalizations have been reported, the FDA said.

The administration said it was able to identify Thomson International, a produce supplier in Bakersfield, California, as a likely source of contaminated red onions.

Thomson said on Saturday that it recalled red, yellow, white and sweet onions that were shipped since May 1 because of the risk of contamination.

Onions were distributed to wholesalers, restaurants and retail stores across the country and in Canada, Thomson said. They were also distributed in mesh sacks and cartons under the names TII Premium, El Competitor, Hartley, Onions 52, Imperial Fresh, Utah Onions and Food Lion.

Health officials recommend that consumers throw away any onions or foods made with onions supplied by Thomson, and in general throw away onions if they were unsure of where they came from.

The illness, named salmonellosis, can persist for four to seven days, the agency said. Children, older adults and people with weaker immune systems are most at risk to develop severe illness.

Symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. Those who are severely ill may also experience a high fever, headaches or a rash.

Salmonella can be spread when the hands, surfaces and tools of food handlers are not clean, and when people eat raw or undercooked food, health officials said. It can also be spread to people from animals.

contaminated 腐った、汚染された
　*ラテン語:con 一緒に+ tangō 触れる、接触する
contamination 汚染 (7/31 復習)
salmonellosis サルモネラ症
diarrhea 下痢
　　*古典ギリシャ語: dia通り抜けて+ rheo流れる
abdominal 腹部の
abdomen (名)腹部
cramp(s) 痙攣
　→ abdominal cramps 急激な腹痛
rash 発疹
　→ a heat rash あせも

8/4(火)の放送

U.S. Identifies Some of the Mysterious Seeds Mailed From China

著者：Allyson Waller
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

A federal agency said it had identified 14 types of plants from unsolicited packages of seeds that appeared to have been mailed from China, revealing a “mix of ornamental, fruit and vegetable, herb and weed species.”

Among the plant species botanists have identified so far: cabbage, hibiscus, lavender, mint, morning glory, mustard, rose, rosemary and sage, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

“This is just a subset of the samples we’ve collected so far,” Osama El-Lissy, deputy administrator for the service’s plant protection and quarantine, said this past week.

Last month, a number of states reported that residents were getting packages of seeds they did not order.

All 50 states have since issued warnings about the unsolicited packages and the inspection service said it had been sent packets from at least 22 states.

Doyle Crenshaw of Booneville, Arkansas, said he had planted some of the unsolicited seeds he got.

“I told my wife, ‘They don’t look like any flower seed I had ever seen,’ ” he said Sunday.

Crenshaw said he had ordered blue zinnia seeds from Amazon, but when he got the package about two months ago, it contained the blue zinnia seeds as well as seed packets he did not order.

The package label read “studded earrings” and “China,” he said.

“It’s a really pretty plant,” he said, describing what grew from the unsolicited seeds. “It looks like a giant squash plant.”

A representative from Amazon could not be immediately reached Sunday.

Crenshaw said he called the Arkansas Department of Agriculture and officials were set to come this week to dig up the plant that grew from the unsolicited seeds. He also plans to have them collect another unsolicited package he received — but has not opened — that was labeled to say it contained beads.

The federal inspection agency said evidence indicates the packages are part of a “brushing scam” in which sellers send unsolicited items in hopes of increasing sales.

Although the risk is low for some nefarious outcome, like introducing an exotic species in the United States or some form of biological warfare, recipients of the mailings should not plant the seeds, said Art Gover, a plant science researcher at Penn State University.

unsolicited　一方的に送られる
solicit(懇願する、求める)
ornamental　観賞用の
　☝️クリスマスツリーのオ―ナメント(飾り)
morning glory　アサガオ
　☝️朝、glory(栄光)に輝く→後は没落
subset　部分集合
zinnia　百日草
studded　散りばめられた
　[語源：stud(柱)→埋め込まれて突き出るもの]
　☝️スタッドレスタイヤ、スタッド
squash plant　かぼちゃ
　☝️squash(ぐしゃっと潰す)
brushing scam　ブラッシング詐欺
nefarious　極悪な
exotic　外来の
　☝️異国情緒あふれる
warfare　戦闘行為
　[語源：war(戦争)+fare(旅、道のり)]

District Attorney Is Investigating Trump and His Company Over Fraud, Filing Suggests

著者：William K. Rashbaum and Benjamin Weiser
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK — The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office suggested Monday it has been investigating President Donald Trump and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud, a significantly broader inquiry than the prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.

The office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., made the disclosure in a new federal court filing arguing Trump’s accountants should have to comply with its subpoena seeking eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns. Trump has asked a judge to declare the subpoena invalid.

The prosecutors did not directly identify the focus of their inquiry but said that “undisputed” news reports last year about Trump’s business practices make it clear that the office had a legal basis for the subpoena.

The reports, including investigations into the president’s wealth and an article on the congressional testimony of his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, said the president may have illegally inflated his net worth and the value of his properties to lenders and insurers. Lawyers for Trump have said he did nothing wrong.

The clash over the subpoena comes less than a month after the Supreme Court, in a major ruling on the limits of presidential power, cleared the way for Vance’s prosecutors to seek Trump’s financial records.

The filing from prosecutors came in response to an argument Trump made last week, calling the subpoena from Vance, a Democrat, “wildly overbroad” and issued in bad faith.

Vance’s office subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in August 2019 for the tax returns as part of its investigation, which until now was believed to be focused on hush-money payments made to two women who said they had affairs with Trump, including adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

Vance’s office has been looking into whether any New York state laws were broken when those payments were made.

If Vance succeeds in eventually obtaining Trump’s records, they are unlikely to become public anytime soon because they will be shielded by grand jury secrecy rules. The records might only emerge later if criminal charges are brought and the records are introduced in a trial.

District Attorney　地方検事
Fraud　詐欺　(8/1,2 の復習)
　☝️「偽物」にも使います
Filing　書類提出
prosecutors　検察官
accountants　会計士
　☝️count(数える)が隠れています
subpoena　召喚状
　☝️下から三段落目では動詞「請求」
undisputed　明白な
　[語源：un(〜ない)+disputed(論争する)]
congressional testimony　議会証言
overbroad　過度に広い
in bad faith　悪意をもって
　☝️↔︎in good faith 善意で
hush-money payments　口止め料
　☝️hush(黙る)

8/5(水)の放送

East Coast Braces for Floods and Wind as Isaias Intensifies

著者：Rick Rojas and Lucy Tompkins
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

ATLANTA — Tens of millions of Americans were warned on Monday to brace themselves for the threat of flooding, power outages and downed trees as Hurricane Isaias intensified while moving up the Atlantic Coast.

On the coast of the Carolinas, residents were preparing for the Category 1 storm’s arrival Monday night, boarding up their windows and stocking up on generators, flashlights and gas cans. Farther inland, in North Carolina and Maryland, officials said that flooding would be one of the storm’s most perilous risks.

The storm is expected to soak much of the East Coast in the coming days, prompting state officials to caution residents that they must prepare for heavy rainfall and powerful winds while remaining vigilant against the coronavirus.

“I know that North Carolinians have had to dig deep in recent months to tap into our strength and resilience during the pandemic, and that hasn’t been easy,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said. “But with this storm on the way, we have to dig a little deeper. Let’s keep each other safe from the wind and water as well as from the virus.”

Isaias, which is written as Isaías in Spanish and pronounced ees-ah-EE-ahs, strengthened back into a hurricane on Monday night before making landfall near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, at about 11:10 p.m. Eastern. A hurricane warning was issued from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Surf City, North Carolina, a region that includes Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The eastern Carolinas and Virginia may get 3 to 6 inches of rain, with isolated areas receiving up to 8 inches. Significant flash floods and urban flooding can be expected through the middle of the week, and widespread minor to moderate river flooding is possible. Tropical-force winds and heavy rain were also expected to hit Maryland.

The Middle Atlantic states, southeastern New York and New England can also expect a few inches of rain. Tropical storm warnings and watches were in effect Monday night all the way up the Eastern Seaboard, including in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Stonington, Maine.

Officials in Florida expressed relief over the weekend, saying that Isaias failed to deliver the punch they had feared after it first became a Category 1 hurricane in the Caribbean. It brought rain and wind, but not enough to create significant damage.

brace　身構える、準備をする
intensify　増大させる
perilous　非常に危険な
soak　ずぶ濡れになる
prompt　促す
vigilant　警戒

FTC Investigating Twitter for Potential Privacy Violations

著者：Kate Conger
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter said Monday that it was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for potentially misusing people’s personal information to serve ads, adding that it faced fines of $150 million to $250 million.

In a corporate filing, Twitter disclosed that the FTC began the investigation last October after it had linked a database of its users’ personal information, which it had for security purposes, with a system used by advertising partners.

The action, which Twitter said was inadvertent, may have violated a 2011 agreement that the company signed with the FTC over consumer privacy. At the time, Twitter had agreed to a settlement with the agency after hackers had gained administrative control of the social media service on multiple occasions. Under the agreement, Twitter was restricted from misleading people about the measures it took to protect their security and privacy.

An FTC spokeswoman declined to comment on the investigation.

Brandon Borrman, a Twitter spokesman, said the company was contacted by the FTC after it reported quarterly financial results on July 23. The investigation was disclosed in accordance with “standard accounting rules” and was included in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he added.

Twitter encourages people to provide their phone numbers so that it can add a second step to the login process, called two-factor authentication, which ensures that users receive a text message before gaining access to their own account. But the phone numbers also ended up in a system that allowed advertisers to tailor their ads to specific audiences, the company said. It was unclear how many people were affected, Twitter said.

“When an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, we may have matched people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone number the Twitter account holder provided for safety and security purposes,” the company said in an October blog post that disclosed the incident.

Twitter’s security practices have recently been under scrutiny for other reasons. Last month, hackers took over dozens of Twitter accounts and sent tweets from the accounts of prominent individuals, including former President Barack Obama and reality TV star Kim Kardashian West, to gain bitcoins.

inadvertent　故意ではない、不注意の
violate　違反する
occasion　出来事、機会
tailor　〜にあわせる、〜に調整する
prominent　有名な、著名な

8/6(木)の放送

Google Faces European Inquiry Into Fitbit Acquisition

著者：Adam Satariano
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

LONDON — European Union authorities Tuesday announced an investigation into Google’s $2.1 billion purchase of fitness-tracking company Fitbit, raising alarms about the health data the internet giant would be acquiring as part of the deal.

The inquiry shows the increased scrutiny Google and other large technology companies are facing from regulators in Europe and the United States about their growing dominance of the digital economy. Officials have raised concerns that the biggest tech platforms buy smaller companies to solidify their dominance and limit competition.

Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s top antitrust regulator, said a preliminary investigation of the Fitbit deal had raised concerns about how Google would use data collected from Fitbit for its online advertising services, a market where Google is already dominant. The health and fitness data could be used to more narrowly target ads, she said.

“By increasing the data advantage of Google in the personalization of the ads it serves via its search engine and displays on other internet pages, it would be more difficult for rivals to match Google’s online advertising services,” the commission said in a statement announcing the investigation.

The commission, the executive body of the European Union, said the investigation would be completed by Dec. 9.

Google defended the acquisition, saying it competes with companies like Apple, Samsung and Garmin that offer fitness tracking devices.

“This deal is about devices, not data,” Rick Osterloh, senior vice president for devices and services, said in a blog post. The company said it would not use Fitbit health and wellness data for advertising services and offered to make a legally binding commitment to the commission to limit its use of the data.

Google said last year that it was buying Fitbit to gain a foothold in the market for wearable devices. One of the earliest companies in the segment, Fitbit helped popularize the goal of logging 10,000 steps a day. More recently, the San Francisco-based company has faced stiff competition from Apple and other makers of so-called smartwatches that blend some of the functionality of a smartphone with tracking of fitness activity.

acquisition 企業買収
regulator 規制者、取り締まる人
solidify (関係・支持など)を強固にする
(意見など)を固める
gain a foothold in …に足がかりを得る

More U.S. Troops Will Leave Afghanistan Before the Election, Trump Says

著者：Thomas Gibbons-Neff
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

President Donald Trump said that there would be fewer than 5,000 American troops in Afghanistan by Election Day in November, signaling that the United States would continue to withdraw troops from the country despite limited progress toward the start of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

“We’re going down to 4,000, we’re negotiating right now,” Trump said in an interview with Axios that was filmed on July 28 and released in full Monday night.

The president’s statement seems to undercut U.S. diplomats’ repeated assertions that any further troop reductions in Afghanistan would be based on the Taliban’s commitment to the Feb. 29 peace agreement signed with the United States. After the signing, the U.S. military is supposed to completely withdraw from Afghanistan in 14 months, a move that senior military officials have called “aspirational.”

Trump’s drive to pull U.S. forces from war zones, especially Afghanistan, has often put the White House at loggerheads with the State Department, as U.S. negotiators and military officials have tried to keep an already shaky peace process on track.

The Taliban continues to attack Afghan troops, and the U.S. military has bombed the insurgent group dozens of times in their defense since the agreement. The U.S.-led mission has refused to publicly acknowledge the strikes. The Taliban have agreed not to attack U.S. and NATO coalition forces, but Afghan forces continue to be targeted despite hopes that there would be a reduction in violence after the deal.

This summer, the Pentagon prepared several options for further troop reductions. The president’s decision to move from 8,600 to about 5,000 troops was the Pentagon’s preferred option of those proposed, defense officials said. The effect of the coronavirus pandemic has already greatly restricted U.S. military operations in the country, making some troops already deployed there next to useless because many of their roles require in-person training with Afghan forces.

As part of the February agreement, the U.S. military cut its numbers in Afghanistan from 12,000 to about 8,600 and closed several bases. Negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban were supposed to start months ago but have been held up over a prisoner exchange between the two sides.

troop 軍隊
undercut 弱める、無効にする
at loggerheads 仲違いして、言い争って
insurgent 反乱の、暴動の

8/7(金)の放送

As Smoke Clears in Beirut, Shock Turns to Anger

著者：Ben Hubbard
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

BEIRUT — Since an orphaned shipment of highly explosive chemicals arrived at the port of Beirut in 2013, Lebanese officials treated it the way they have dealt with the country’s lack of electricity, poisonous tap water and overflowing garbage: by bickering and hoping the problem might solve itself.

But the 2,750 tons of high-density ammonium nitrate combusted Tuesday, officials said, unleashing a shock wave on the Lebanese capital that gutted landmark buildings, killed 135 people, wounded at least 5,000 and rendered hundreds of thousands of residents homeless.

The government has vowed to investigate the blast and hold those responsible to account. But as residents waded through the warlike destruction on Wednesday to salvage what they could from their homes and businesses, many saw the explosion as the culmination of years of mismanagement and neglect by the country’s politicians.

Nada Chemali, an angry business owner, urged her fellow Lebanese to confront the political leaders, the “big ones” she accused of driving the country to ruin. “Go to their homes!” she shouted.

Her housewares shop and her home had been destroyed and she expected no government aid to fix them.

“Who from the big ones is going to help us?” she yelled. “Who is going to reimburse us?”

The toll from the blast came into stark relief across Beirut and beyond on Wednesday, the day after it left a smoldering crater where the port had been. Beirut’s governor said the damage extended over half of the city, estimating it at $3 billion.

Rescue workers struggled to treat the thousands of wounded with few resources and several hospitals knocked out of commission. “We need everything to hospitalize the victims, and there is an acute shortage of everything,” said Hamad Hassan, the health minister.

No neighborhood was spared. While the damage was greatest along the Mediterranean waterfront and in the residential districts near the port, the shock waves also blew out windows miles away in the hills above Beirut.

Near the city center, the walls of windows on the city’s landmark hotels had been shattered, their curtains left to blow in the wind. In the downtown quarter rebuilt after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, a proud symbol of the country’s rise from the ashes, high-end boutiques and posh restaurants had collapsed inward, littered with their own debris.

orphaned　　　放棄された／孤児になった
bicker　　　　（大人気なく）口論する／口喧嘩する
ammonium nitrate　硝酸アンモニウム
combust 　燃焼
hold (someone) to account　　責任を負わせる
reimburse　　　弁償を与える／返済するq
uarter　　　　地区／繁華街
posh　　　　　贅沢な／ゴージャスな

Facebook Removes Trump Campaign’s Misleading Coronavirus Video

著者：Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — Facebook took down a video posted by the campaign of President Donald Trump on Wednesday in which he claimed children were immune to the coronavirus, a violation of the social network’s rules against misinformation around the virus.

It was the first time Facebook has removed a post by Trump’s campaign for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus, although the social network has previously taken down other ads and posts by the campaign for violating other policies. In June, for example, Facebook took down campaign ads that used a Nazi-related symbol, which broke the company’s rules against organized hate.

The action on Wednesday did not signal a change to Facebook’s fierce defense of free expression. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has said the social network is not an arbiter of truth and that it is in the public’s interest to see what political leaders post — even if they include falsehoods by politicians like Trump. Zuckerberg has stood by the position, even as other social media companies like Twitter have ramped up their enforcement of the president’s speech.

The stance has put Facebook under tremendous pressure from employees, advertisers and civil-rights leaders, who have opposed permitting Trump to spread falsehoods around mail-in voting on the site and to allow comments and threatening language around the Black Lives Matter protests to remain up.

The video that Trump’s campaign posted on Wednesday was of an interview held earlier in the day with Fox News. In the clip, he pressed for the opening of schools this fall, arguing that children were “virtually immune” from the coronavirus. That theory is not supported by most medical experts.

“They’ve got much stronger immune systems than we do somehow for this,” Trump said. “They don’t have a problem. They just don’t have a problem.”

Facebook took down the video about four hours after it was uploaded, saying the post violated its policies specifically tailored for health misinformation around the coronavirus. The post was viewed nearly half a million times before it was removed, according to CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool for analyzing social interactions.

Twitter on Wednesday also took down the Trump campaign’s post with the video, saying it had violated its rules on coronavirus misinformation.

claim　　主張する／言い張る
　　（⚠️日本語の「クレーム」の使い方と違う！）
immune　免疫（性）がある／〜の影響を感じない
arbiter　　決定者／裁断者
clip　　　　動画の一部／短い動画　v
irtually　〜とほぼ同じ／ほとんど