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。
9/12(土)の放送
Biden Campaign Lashes Trump Over Concealing the Danger of the Virus
著者：Sydney Ember
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
The presidential contest took another acrimonious turn Thursday as Joe Biden’s campaign amplified its denunciations of President Donald Trump over revelations that he had knowingly minimized the risks of the coronavirus, and the Trump campaign tried to deflect blame back onto Biden.
A day after book excerpts and audio recordings showed that Trump had privately acknowledged to journalist Bob Woodward early this year that he knew of the virus’s danger but downplayed it anyway, Biden surrogates vigorously denounced the president’s response to the public health crisis, directly linking it to the loss of American lives.
The Trump campaign, on the defensive for the second day over Trump’s faltering pandemic response, attempted to control the fallout from the Woodward book by striking back at Biden for what it claimed was the former vice president’s “behind the curve” approach to the virus.
The condemnations from the Biden campaign continued in the afternoon, when its vice-presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, also accused the president of recklessly endangering American lives.
“He had all this information yet he held rallies, he suggested that to wear a mask is a sign of weakness as opposed to a sign of strength,” Harris said at an appearance in Florida. “This is the president of the United States. So we continue to have examples of the fact that this is an individual who is not concerned about the health and safety and well-being of the American people and is frankly engaged in a reckless disregard for the lives and health and well being of the people of our country. I find it so outrageous.”
The dueling attacks over the virus signaled a new, increasingly bitter front in the presidential race as both campaigns seek to shore up support with less than eight weeks until the general election on Nov. 3.
During a news conference at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Trump turned his attention to Biden, claiming that the former vice president “continues to use the pandemic for political gain” and railing against what he perceived as criticism from Biden over Trump’s travel ban on China. (Shortly after Trump issued the travel ban, Biden had denounced Trump’s “record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fearmongering.”)
“Joe’s decision to publicly attack the China ban proved he lacks the character or intelligence or instinct to do what is right,” Trump said.
lash ～を激しく非難する
acrimonious 辛辣な、とげとげしい
amplify ～を増幅する
denunciation 非難
revelation 暴露、発覚
deflect そらす
acknowledge (～を事実だと) 認める、承認する
vigorously 力強く、激しく
faltering 調子が悪い、低迷している
behind the curve 遅れている、時代遅れの (ahead of the curve 先取りの）
condemnation 激しい非難
disregard 無視
shore up (基盤・戦闘力などを) 強化する
hysteria ヒステリー
xenophobia 外国人恐怖症
fearmongering 恐怖心あおり
9/13(日)の放送
City Marks 9/11 at a Time of Harrowing Loss
著者：Michael Gold
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
NEW YORK — The families came together again Friday to honor their loved ones at the site where their lives were stolen. The names of the victims resounded across the plaza, and the bells tolled in New York City as they have in years past, sounding a peal of collective mourning for those killed on one of the darkest days in U.S. history.
Yet the somber, solemn rituals held at the Sept. 11 memorial to mark a tragedy that brought New York and the nation to its knees were unmistakably altered at a time of another crisis — one also marked by devastating loss.
Some of America’s most notable politicians were in attendance, including Vice President Mike Pence and Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate for president. All of them wore masks in addition to their customary memorial ribbons and lapel pins. They exchanged elbow bumps, then distanced themselves 6 feet apart as they stood for the national anthem.
There was no stage in front of them Friday, and no speeches given to the mourners gathered at the site known as ground zero — two hallmarks of past memorials that were removed in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
It has been 19 years since passenger jets hijacked by terrorists slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 lives were lost, some 2,700 of them in New York, in the deadliest attack in the country’s history, a blow to America’s psyche.
Now, the United States confronts a far deadlier calamity. During the pandemic, the United States has exceeded the death toll of Sept. 11, 2001, by orders of magnitude. In New York City alone, more than 23,000 people have died of the virus.
“It’s two of the most traumatic things that have ever happened to New York City, and it’s probably changed it forever,” said Diane Massaroli, whose husband, Michael, was killed in the World Trade Center.
“We just have to find a different way to live now,” she said, her hands clutching a bouquet of roses and an old wedding photograph. “Like I had to find a different way to live then.”
Biden will travel later to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are also expected to attend a memorial service.
Harrowing 痛ましい、悲惨な
Resounded 鳴り響く、 反響する、 共鳴する
Somber 薄暗い、地味な、陰気な
Solemn まじめな、謹厳な、厳粛な
Devastating 破壊的な、圧倒的な
Notable 注目に値する、著しい、顕著な
Lapel pin ピンバッジ
Mourner 哀悼者
Hallmark 太鼓判
Psyche 魂、精神、心
Calamity 大きな不幸、惨事
9/14(月)の放送
SoftBank Said to Near a Deal to Sell British Chip Designer Arm
著者：Michael J. de la Merced and Don Clark
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
SoftBank is near a deal to sell the British chip designer Arm to Nvidia, two people briefed on the matter said Saturday, which would raise billions for the Japanese technology investor and create a powerhouse in the semiconductor industry.
The two sides are close to an agreement for a cash-and-stock transaction whose price could potentially be more than $40 billion, these people said. A deal could be announced within days, though these people cautioned that final details have yet to be ironed out, and the talks could still fall apart.
A transaction — which would be one of the biggest announced so far this year — could also raise concerns from antitrust regulators around the world and from customers of Arm’s chip designs, which drive the majority of the world’s smartphones.
Nvidia is one of the world’s biggest computer chip companies, specializing in powerful chips that are used for computer graphics, data centers, cars and artificial intelligence. As of Friday, its market value was more than $300 billion — nearly $100 billion above that of Intel, the longtime standard-bearer in chip technology — and its stock has been one of the best performers of any technology company this year.
Should the two sides strike a deal for Arm, it would net billions for SoftBank as it seeks to sell assets as part of a business turnaround. It had paid $32 billion for Arm in 2016, as an audacious bet by its chief, Masayoshi Son, on a global rise in internet-connected devices.
In announcing that deal, Son described the so-called Internet of Things as shaping up to be “the biggest paradigm shift in human history,” a phenomenon he was willing to bet big on. That explained the steep price it paid for Arm — 43% higher than where Arm had traded the week before the deal.
Arm has an unusual business model: It doesn’t sell semiconductors itself, and instead supplies design information that other companies incorporate into chips, charging royalties on its specifications. Its customers include Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm and Huawei.
near (動) 近づく
powerhouse 強力な組織
cash-and-stock transaction 現金と株式交換
iron out 円滑にする、調整する
antitrust regulators 独占禁止法規制当局
(*antitrust law 8/15 復習)
standard-bearer グループのリーダー
*bear (動) 運ぶ
(*8/20 復習)
net (動) 手に入れる (= gain)
turnaround 企業業績などの黒字転換
audacious bet 大胆な賭け
*audacious (ラテン語 audax –大胆な + -ious [形])
Internet of Things IoT、モノのインターネット
paradigm shift パラダイムシフト、発想の転換
bet on (動) … に賭ける
incorporate 組み入れる
royalty （特許）使用料
specification 仕様書
9/15(火)の放送
Party Insiders Put Yoshihide Suga on Brink of Being Japan’s Prime Minister
著者：Ben Dooley and Makiko Inoue
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
TOKYO — Japan’s governing party Monday anointed Yoshihide Suga, the current chief Cabinet secretary, as its choice for the next prime minister, settling on what it saw as a safe pair of hands to grapple with the country’s many economic and strategic challenges.
Two weeks after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was stepping down because of ill health, Suga was overwhelmingly elected as leader of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party during a conclave of members of Parliament and select delegates at a luxury hotel in central Tokyo.
The party handily controls Parliament, virtually guaranteeing that Suga, 71, will be elected prime minister this week during a special session of the legislature.
Suga became the odds-on favorite to succeed Abe not long after the prime minister’s announcement. A path was cleared for him inside the party when his most serious competitor, Taro Aso, the deputy prime minister and finance minister and a former prime minister himself, said he would not stand for election.
Suga’s front-runner standing was further solidified when the party’s secretary, Toshihiro Nikai, announced that he would invoke an emergency provision in the organization’s bylaws to exclude rank-and-file members from voting for the new leader.
That decision, which restricted the party election to serving members of Parliament and three representatives from each prefecture, effectively shut out Shigeru Ishiba, the one dark horse candidate who could have posed a challenge to Suga.
Ishiba, a former defense minister who consistently had the highest approval ratings among the declared candidates, is disliked by many party insiders because of his criticism of Abe’s policies. Abe narrowly defeated Ishiba in the party’s 2012 leadership election.
Addressing reporters after his election, Suga rejected the idea that his victory was the result of deal-making, instead pointing to his humble origins and long government experience as the reason for his victory.
“As I said at the outset, my job is to break down bureaucratic divisions, vested interests and the harmful influence of precedent,” Suga said.
Suga’s victory Monday earned him a spot at the top of the party through the end of Abe’s current term in September 2021. At that time, Suga would have to stand again for the LDP presidency in a regular party election.
on Brink of 〜の寸前に
☝️brink(際)
governing party 第一党
anoint(ed) <人を(国王などに)>選ぶ (8/20)
[語源：(聖)油をかける]
conservative 保守的な
☝️コンサバ系
Liberal Democratic Party 自由民主党
☝️省略して、「LDP」
conclave コンクラーベ、秘密会議
☝️The Pope(ローマ教皇)を選ぶ秘密会議から
select delegates 選ばれた代表者
handily 手軽に
virtually 実質的に
☝️物理的にそうではないが事実上そうであること
odds-on 勝ち目のある
succeed 跡を継ぐ
[語源：succeed(跡を継ぐ)→下克上→成功]
serious competitor 一番の競争相手
☝️真面目な競争相手ではありません！
solidified 固められた
invoke 発動する
[語源：in(upon)+voke(声)]
bylaws 内規
[語源：by(住む場所)+law(法律)]
rank-and-file 平社員の、一般組合員の
☝️rank=行、file=列、隊列を組んだ兵士→一兵卒
deal-making 取引形成
☝️deal(商談)をmakeする(作る)こと
9/16(水)の放送
Steven Cohen Agrees to Buy the Mets, Again
著者：David Waldstein
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
NEW YORK — Frustrated New York Mets fans have for years pined for a new owner to swoop in and buy their team, someone to save it from what they felt was decades of mismanagement and mediocrity.
Those fans can finally rejoice. Steven Cohen is buying the team, and this time it appears to be for real.
Cohen, a billionaire hedge fund investor from Long Island, has agreed to purchase the Mets from Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon, the team announced on Monday. The deal is for about $2.4 billion, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal who requested anonymity because the figure had not been made public. Cohen is purchasing 95% of the team, while Katz and Wilpon will retain 5%, according to one of the people.
Cohen will become only the fourth controlling owner of the cherished baseball club that was formed in 1962 to help ease the loss of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants, both of which relocated after the 1957 season.
“I am excited to have reached an agreement with the Wilpon and Katz families to purchase the New York Mets,” Cohen said, according to the Mets’ statement.
This is Cohen’s second effort to buy the team in less than a year. He reached an agreement with the current owners late last year, but it fell apart in January over who would control the team during a five-year interim period after the sale.
Then came the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic fallout, which cast a cloud over the immediate future of Major League Baseball’s finances without fans in stadiums. As a result, the Mets’ asking price fell, and the idea of a temporary power-sharing agreement was dropped, too.
According to one of the people with knowledge of the deal, the sale does not include SNY, the profitable regional sports network. SNY was started, and is still primarily owned, by Sterling Equities, the real estate and finance company started by Wilpon and Katz, who is Wilpon’s brother-in-law.
pined 切望する
swoop さっと舞い降りる
mediocrity 平凡、月並みであること
rejoice 喜ぶ、祝う
anonymity 匿名
retain 〜を持ち続ける、〜を保つ
cherish 大切な
ease 緩和する、軽減する
fallout 予期せぬ影響
cast a cloud ～に暗い影を落とす
asking price 希望価格、提示価格
9/17(木)の放送
A ‘Crossroads’ for Humanity: Earth’s Biodiversity Is Still Collapsing
著者：Catrin Einhorn
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
The world is failing to address a catastrophic biodiversity collapse that not only threatens to wipe out beloved species and invaluable genetic diversity, but endangers humanity’s food supply, health and security, according to a sweeping United Nations report issued on Tuesday.
When governments act to protect and restore nature, the authors found, it works. But despite commitments made 10 years ago, nations have not come close to meeting the scale of the crisis, which continues to worsen because of unsustainable farming, overfishing, burning of fossil fuels and other activities.
“Humanity stands at a crossroads,” the report said.
It comes as the devastating consequences that can result from an unhealthy relationship with nature are on full display: A pandemic that very likely jumped from bats has upended life worldwide, and wildfires, worsened by climate change and land management policies, are ravaging the American West.
“These things are a sign of what is to come,” said David Cooper, an author of the report and the deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the global treaty underlying the assessment. “These things will only get worse if we don’t change course.”
The report looked at a decade of efforts by national governments. In 2010, after painstaking scientific work and arduous negotiation, almost every country in the world signed on to 20 goals under the convention to staunch the biodiversity hemorrhage.
The report, which assesses progress on the 20 goals, has found that the world is doing far too little. At the global level, only six of the biodiversity convention’s 20 targets were partially achieved and none were fully achieved.
The destruction of habitats such as forests, mangroves and grasslands was not cut in half. Overfishing did not decrease. Governments did not stop subsidizing fossil fuels, fertilizers and pesticides that are contributing to the biodiversity crisis.
Indeed, the report estimates that governments around the world spend $500 billion per year on environmentally harmful initiatives, while total public and private financing for biodiversity came to a fraction of that: $80 billion to $90 billion.
“Many governments, within their ministry of environment, have a lot of ambition for biodiversity,” said Anne Larigauderie, an ecologist who attended the conference in 2010 that adopted the 20 targets. “But they don’t have enough power compared to the other ministries: agriculture, transportation, energy.”
crossroad (重大な)岐路、十字路、交差点
biodiversity 生物多様性
collapse 崩壊する
address 対処する
wipe out 一掃する
ravage 荒らす
painstaking 骨の折れる、つらい
staunch 止める
hemorrhage 流出、損失、大出血
subsidize 援助する、助成金を与える
fertilizer 肥料
ambition 大志、野望、念願
9/18(金)の放送
Japan’s New Leader Picks His Team: The Same Old Men, and Fewer Women
著者：Motoko Rich
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company
TOKYO — Japan’s governing party resisted any urge to pick a magnetic crowd-pleaser when it anointed Yoshihide Suga as its leader this week. As Parliament officially elected him prime minister Wednesday, he repaid its support.
Suga, 71, put forward an everyone-old-is-new-again Cabinet dominated by ministers who will continue in the jobs they held under Shinzo Abe, who resigned as prime minister late last month because of ill health. The sea of familiar faces sent an unmistakable signal that Suga intends to make good on his vow to carry on with Abe’s signature policies.
But it also seemed to shut the door on one of them: a pledge — though a largely unfulfilled one — to empower women. The number of women in the Cabinet will actually decline to two from three. Both of them held the same posts in the previous administration.
Above all, Suga’s status quo Cabinet, as well as his appointments of key party leaders, suggested that he was rewarding those who had helped him become prime minister, which was orchestrated by factions within his conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
In important positions, Suga kept Taro Aso, a former prime minister and one of the party’s kingmakers, as finance minister and Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s most senior diplomat, as foreign minister. And in moving Taro Kono, the defense minister and a former foreign minister, to the ministry of administrative reform, Suga gave the defense portfolio to Nobuo Kishi, Abe’s younger brother.
On the issue of women in the Cabinet, Suga’s failure to increase their numbers, some analysts said, reflected the fact that there are simply not enough women in the Liberal Democratic Party overall. Ten percent of party lawmakers are women, and Suga gave ministerial roles to two of them: Yoko Kamikawa, the justice minister, and Seiko Hashimoto, the minister for the Olympics.
But others say that Suga and the Liberal Democrats are simply not committed to gender equality, even after the passage of a law two years ago promoting gender parity in politics.
In selecting Suga, Abe’s longtime chief Cabinet secretary and main government spokesman, the party showed its confidence that it did not need to cater to the public by choosing a flashy frontman to help win future general elections. Part of the party’s calculation as it considers the possibility of a near-term general election is that the opposition is in disarray.
same old 相変わらず／いつもの
magnetic カリスマ性のある／魅力のある
a sea of ______ 多数／〜ばかり
make good on (one’s promise) （約束を）守る／履行する
status quo (6/24の復習） 現状／そのままの状態
orchestrate 仕組む／組織化する
faction 派閥
kingmaker 政界の実力者
parity （８／１６disparities）平等／等価
to cater to （望み）に応じる／〜におもねる
frontman 表看板の人／代表者
