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。

11/28(土)の放送

Trump, Still Claiming Victory, Says He Will Leave if Electors Choose Biden

著者：Michael Crowley
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would leave the White House if the Electoral College formalized Joe Biden’s election as president, even as he reiterated baseless claims of fraud that he said would make it “very hard” to concede.

Taking questions from reporters for the first time since Election Day, Trump also threw himself into the battle for Senate control, saying he would soon travel to Georgia to support Republican candidates in two runoff elections scheduled there on Jan. 5.

When asked whether he would leave office in January after the Electoral College cast its votes for Biden on Dec. 14 as expected, Trump replied: “Certainly I will. Certainly I will.”

Speaking in the Diplomatic Room of the White House after a Thanksgiving video conference with members of the U.S. military, the president insisted that “shocking” new evidence about voting problems would surface before Inauguration Day. “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede,” he said, “because we know that there was massive fraud.”

But even as he continued to deny the reality of his defeat, Trump also seemed to acknowledge that his days as president were numbered.

“Time is not on our side,” he said, in a rare admission of weakness. He also complained that what he referred to, prematurely, as “the Biden administration” had declared its intention to scrap his “America First” foreign policy vision.

The president was also strikingly testy at one point, lashing out at a reporter who interjected during one of his several rambling statements about the supposedly fraudulent election.

“You’re just a lightweight,” Trump snapped. “Don’t talk to me that — don’t talk — I’m the president of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.”

Asked whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration, Trump was coy.

“I don’t want to say that yet,” the president said, adding, “I know the answer, but I just don’t want to say.”

At times, Trump shifted his explanation of his defeat from claims of fraud to complaints that the political battlefield had been slanted against him.

“If the media were honest and big tech was fair, it wouldn’t even be a contest,” he said. “And I would have won by a tremendous amount.”

Trump quickly caught himself and revised his conditional statement.

“And I did win by a tremendous amount,” he added.

Electoral College　選挙人団
reiterate ～を何度も繰り返し言う
concede 敗北を認める、譲歩する
runoff election　(2回投票制選挙の) 決選投票
inauguration　(合衆国大統領の) 就任 (式)
number　～を数える、～の数を確認する、～に達する
prematurely　通常より早く、時期尚早に
testy 短気な、怒りっぽい、怒った
interject (話半ばに言葉を) 差し挟む
fraudulent 詐欺的な、不正な、
lightweight　(知性などが) 足りない、軽薄な
coy　遠慮がちな、控えめの、恥ずかしがりな

11/29(日)の放送

Wedding Rings Lost in Shipwreck Will Be Returned to Migrant Couple.

著者：Isabella Kwai
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The red backpack had been floating for two weeks in the central Mediterranean between Libya and Italy when a rescue boat came across it. Inside, along with clothes and some notes in Arabic, was a simple treasure: two wedding rings engraved with hearts and the names Ahmed and Doudou.

For rescuers with Open Arms, a nongovernmental organization that picks up migrants making the perilous journey by boat to Europe, the discovery Nov. 9 was “like a punch,” Riccardo Gatti, director of Open Arms Italy, said.

“We didn’t know if it belonged to someone that died or had a shipwreck — or someone alive,” Gatti said.

It might have remained yet another presumed loss in the notoriously perilous Mediterranean crossing that migrants from North Africa have made to reach Europe.

“Who are Ahmed and Doudou?” the Italian newspaper La Repubblica asked.

But in an unusual stroke of luck, the rings will be reunited with their owners, an Algerian couple who survived a capsizing in late October in a boat from Libya and were found two weeks ago by Doctors Without Borders representatives who have been providing support to the migrants in a reception center in Sicily.

When they saw pictures of the newly found rings, they “couldn’t believe it,” the couple, who declined to provide their last names for privacy reasons, said in a statement provided by the organization.

The rings were broken, and Ahmed, 25, and Doudou, 20, had wanted to repair them after arriving in Europe.

“We had lost everything, and now the few things we had set out with have been found,” they said.

The couple are among 15 survivors of a boat that left Zawiya on the coast of Libya in October. After a two-day journey in the Mediterranean without food or water, the boat ran out of fuel about 40 miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa, according to Doctors Without Borders. As the weather worsened, a wave capsized the ship, and five people died, including a 2-year-old girl.

Passing fishermen rescued Ahmed and Doudou from the ocean, and the pair were put into quarantine as a coronavirus prevention measure before being moved to a reception center in Agrigento, Sicily. The backpack and the clothes inside have been washed and will be returned to the couple as soon as possible, Gatti said.

Shipwreck 難破
Migrant 移民
Mediterranean 地中海
Engrave 彫る
Perilous 危険な
Presumed 推定
Notorious 悪名高い
Crossing 国境を超える事
Stroke of luck 思いがけない幸運
Reunite 再会
Capsizing 転覆

11/30(月)の放送

Pushed by Pandemic, Amazon Goes on a Hiring Spree Without Equal

著者：Karen Weise
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

SEATTLE — Amazon has embarked on an extraordinary hiring binge this year, vacuuming up an average of 1,400 new workers a day and solidifying its power as online shopping becomes more entrenched in the coronavirus pandemic.

The hiring has taken place at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, at its hundreds of warehouses in rural communities and suburbs, and in countries such as India and Italy. Amazon added 427,300 employees between January and October, pushing its workforce to more than 1.2 million people globally, up more than 50% from a year ago. Its number of workers now approaches the entire population of Dallas.

The spree has accelerated since the onset of the pandemic, which has turbocharged Amazon’s business and made it a winner of the crisis. Starting in July, the company brought on about 350,000 employees, or 2,800 a day. Most have been warehouse workers, but Amazon has also hired software engineers and hardware specialists to power enterprises such as cloud computing, streaming entertainment and devices, which have boomed in the pandemic.

The scale of hiring is even larger than it may seem because the numbers do not account for employee churn, nor do they include the 100,000 temporary workers who have been recruited for the holiday shopping season. They also do not include what internal documents show as roughly 500,000 delivery drivers, who are contractors and not direct Amazon employees.

Such rapid growth is unrivaled in the history of corporate America. It far outstrips the 230,000 employees that Walmart, the largest private employer with more than 2.2 million workers, added in a single year two decades ago. The closest comparisons are the hiring that entire industries carried out in wartime, such as shipbuilding during the early years of World War II or home building after soldiers returned, economists and corporate historians said.

“It’s hiring like mad,” Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said of Amazon. “No American company has hired so many workers so quickly.”

Even for a company that regularly sets new superlatives, Amazon’s employee growth stands out as a stark illustration of its might. At this pace, it is on track to surpass Walmart within two years to become the world’s largest private employer.

spree ばか騒ぎ、度が過ぎる行動
*go on a shopping spree 派手に買い物をする、ヤケ買いをする
without equal 並ぶもののない、無類の (= unparalleled)
embark on (困難な事･新たな事を)始める、着手する　[em(中へ)bark(船)]
binge （食べ物や飲み物を）食べたり飲んだりして騒ぐこと
*binge-watching イッキ見
entrench in (身の安全などが)かたく守られる
the onset of … (特に望ましくないこと)の始まり、開始
turbocharge …を加速する [tɜː.bəʊˌtʃɑːdʒ]
power （動）～を推進させる、～の勢いを良くする
employee churn 離職 ( ≒ turnover　離職率)
temporary worker 派遣労働者、季節労働者
contractor 請負業者、契約社員
unrivaled 並ぶもののない、類まれな(≒ matchless, unequaled)
outstrip に勝る、…をしのぐ(＝surpass)
like mad がむしゃらに、おかしいみたいに （米 = like crazy）
superlative 最高の物　*the superlative: 最上級　[suːpɜː.lə.tɪv]
stark まったくの、明確な　*a stark difference 明確な違い
be on track to ～の方向に向かっている、～しようとしている
surpass 上回る、しのぐ　= outstrip

12/1(火)の放送

Guns, Drugs and Viral Content: Welcome to Cartel TikTok

著者：Oscar Lopez
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

MEXICO CITY — Tiger cubs and semi-automatic weapons. Piles of cash and armored cars. Fields of poppies watered to the sound of ballads glorifying Mexican drug cartel culture.

This is the world of Cartel TikTok, a genre of videos depicting drug trafficking groups and their activities that is racking up hundreds of thousands of views on the popular social media platform.

But behind the narco bling and dancing gang members lies an ominous reality: With Mexico set to again shatter murder records this year, experts on organized crime say Cartel TikTok is just the latest propaganda campaign designed to mask the bloodbath and use the promise of infinite wealth to attract expendable young recruits.

“It’s narco-marketing,” said Alejandra León Olvera, an anthropologist at Spain’s University of Murcia who studies the presence of Mexican organized crime groups on social media.

Circulating on Mexican social media for years, cartel content began flooding TikTok feeds in the United States this month after a clip of a high-speed boat chase went viral on the video-sharing platform.

Asked about their policy regarding the videos, a TikTok spokesperson said that the company was “committed to working with law enforcement to combat organized criminal activity” and that it removed “content and accounts that promote illegal activity.” Examples of cartel videos that were sent to TikTok for comment were soon removed from the platform.

While cartel content might be new for most teen TikTokers, according to Ioan Grillo, author of “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency,” online portrayals of narco culture go back more than a decade, when Mexico began ramping up its bloody war against the cartels.

At first, the videos were crude and violent — images of beheadings and torture that were posted on YouTube, designed to strike fear in rival gangs and show government forces the ruthlessness they were up against.

But as social platforms evolved and cartels became more digitally savvy, the content became more sophisticated.

While some videos are made to strike terror, others are created to show young men in rural Mexico the potential benefits of joining the drug trade: endless cash, expensive cars, beautiful women, exotic pets. But the ultimate goal is the same: drawing in an army of young men willing to give their lives for a chance at glory.

<Pickup Vocabs 1>
cubs　(クマ、ライオン、トラなど肉食動物の)子ども
☝️Chicago Cubs(MLBの野球チーム)
armored　装甲した
☝️armor(よろい)の動詞
poppies　芥子の花
glorifying　讃える
☝️glory(栄光) を讃える
depicting　描写している
[語源: de(下に)+pict(塗る)]
drug trafficking　麻薬の不法取引
☝️trafficking(移動、交通)
narco　麻薬ディーラーの
☝️narcotic(麻薬)から
bling　うわべだけの派手なアクセサリー
☝️ラップのスラングから、宝石の輝く音を表す
ominous　不吉な
[語源: omen(前兆)]
shatter (records)　記録を打ち砕く／大差で記録を更新する
organized crime　組織犯罪
bloodbath　大量殺人
☝️blood(血の)+bath(お風呂)→血の海
expendable　消耗用の
☝️映画エクスペンダブルズ(米、2010年)
<Pickup Vocabs 2>
Insurgency　反乱
[語源:in(〜に対して)+surge(上昇する)]
portrayals　描写
☝️portray(描写する)
ramp up　強化する
☝️ramp(斜面)をup(登る)
crude　加工していない、粗野な
strike fear　恐怖させる
ruthlessness　無慈悲さ
[語源: ruth(慈悲)+less(〜がない)+ness(状態の名詞化)]
savvy　知る、わかる
☝️Pirates of the CaribbeanのJackの口癖、”Savvy?”
sophisticated　洗練された

12/2(水)の放送

For Japanese Princess, Fairy-Tale Wedding May Be Distant Prospect

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

When Princess Mako of Japan became engaged to her college boyfriend in 2017, many Japanese hoped for a fairy-tale wedding for the couple.

But three years later, the prospects of the eldest daughter of Crown Prince Akishino and her beau, Kei Komuro, a commoner and aspiring lawyer, living happily ever after look, well, complicated.

In remarks released Monday, Akishino said he approved of the wedding. But he also said there appeared to be opposition to the union in Japan, making it difficult to proceed with an official ceremony. The crown prince has previously said that could happen only if the Japanese public approved of the marriage.

“The constitution says marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes,” Akishino said in a transcript of the remarks, made Nov. 20 on the occasion of his 55th birthday. “If that is what they really want, then I think that is something I need to respect as a parent,” he said.

But, he added, “I think it’s not the case that many people approve and are happy about it.”

The couple, both 29, were originally set to marry in 2018, but the date was pushed back after Japanese tabloids caught wind of money problems in Komuro’s family. His mother had become embroiled in a dispute with a former fiance of hers over $36,000, some of which was reportedly used for Komuro’s schooling.

The reports raised questions about Komuro’s intentions, with some detractors accusing him of being a gold digger. The whiff of scandal proved too much for many Japanese, not to mention the sensibilities of the imperial family, which has no taste for the incessant dramas that have plagued royals in other countries.

In a 2018 news conference, Akishino said an official ceremony would not take place unless the public approved.

Unperturbed, the couple said they would tie the knot in 2020.

In the meantime, Komuro went to Fordham Law School in New York to pursue a master’s degree.

In November, Mako released a statement saying that while she and Komuro remained committed to each other, the wedding would not take place this year. She did not say when she expected it to happen.

engaged　婚約
fairy-tale　おとぎ話
prospects　見通し
beau　恋人
commoner　一般人
opposition　反対意見
embroiled　巻き込まれる
dispute　争い
detractors　中傷する人
incessant　絶え間ない
plague　悩ませる
unperturbed　落ち着いた

12/3(木)の放送

China Lands Chang’e-5 Spacecraft on Moon to Gather Lunar Rocks and Soil

著者：Steven Lee Myers and Kenneth Chang
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

China has landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon, a state newspaper reported on Tuesday. The probe will gather rocks and dirt from the lunar surface, with the goal of returning the first cache of moon samples to Earth since 1976.

The spacecraft, Chang’e-5, was the third successful uncrewed moon landing by China since 2013, when Chang’e-3 and its Yutu rover became China’s first visitor to make a lunar soft landing. In 2019, Chang’e-4 landed on the moon’s far side, the first spacecraft from Earth to ever do that. At least three more Chang’e moon landers are planned for the coming decade, ahead of China’s aspiration of building a moon base for astronauts in the 2030s.

A Long March 5 rocket carrying the probe launched on early last Tuesday from a site on China’s southern Hainan Island. In an unusual move for China’s typically secretive space program, the liftoff and journey to orbit was covered live by state broadcasters, complete with footage made by cameras mounted on the rocket.

If the operations on the moon and the return to Earth are successful, China will be only the third nation to bring lunar samples here. NASA astronauts accomplished that feat during the Apollo moon landings, as did the Soviet Union’s Luna robotic landers, ending with Luna 24 in 1976.

After the spacecraft entered orbit around the moon, Chang’e-5 was split into two: the lander now on the surface and an orbiter that awaits its return.

The lander touched down at Mons Rümker, a volcanic plain on the moon’s near side that is estimated to be around 1.2 billion years old. That is considerably younger than the places explored by Apollo and Luna, which were more than 3 billion years old.

The lander will need to accomplish its drilling and scooping tasks within a single lunar day, which lasts 14 Earth days. It is not designed to survive the frigid and dark lunar night.

The Chang’e-5 lander includes a small rocket, and before the sun sets, it will blast off with the rock and soil samples. The sample is scheduled to land in China’s Inner Mongolia region in the middle of December.

probe 無人観測宇宙船、調査
dirt 土
cache 隠した物、隠し場所
uncrewed 無人の
rover 惑星探査車
aspiration 抱負、野心
orbit 軌道を回る
(orbiter 人工衛星、軌道を回る宇宙船)
cover 放送する
footage 一連のシーン、画面
await 待つ
blast off 発射する

12/4(金)の放送

U.K. Approves Pfizer Coronavirus Vaccine, a First in the West

著者：Benjamin Mueller
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

LONDON — Britain gave emergency authorization Wednesday to Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, leaping ahead of the United States to become the first Western country to allow mass inoculations against a disease that has killed more than 1.4 million people worldwide.

The decision cleared the way for a vaccination campaign with little precedent in modern medicine, encompassing not only ultracold dry ice but also a crusade against anti-vaccine misinformation.

Britain’s beating the United States to authorization — on a vaccine codeveloped by a U.S. company, no less — intensified pressure on U.S. regulators, who are under fire from the White House for not moving faster to get doses to people. But it also fueled concerns that Britain was acting in haste for political reasons or trying to muscle its way to the front of the line for deliveries.

European regulators Wednesday cast doubt on the rigor of Britain’s review and said that the authorization was limited to specific batches of the vaccine, a claim that Pfizer denied and British officials did not address.

Britain’s move provoked a spirited debate among U.S. scientists about whether U.S. regulators, who are known to be unusually meticulous, could afford to hold off any longer on authorizing a vaccine against a virus that is claiming more than 10,000 lives a day worldwide.

U.S. regulators have argued that they lag behind because they are virtually alone in reanalyzing thousands of pages of raw data from vaccine trials before approval. Backers of that approach say it is the only way to minimize unintended damage, in lives and in public trust, from vaccines not working.

No country until Wednesday had authorized a fully tested coronavirus vaccine; Russia and China approved vaccines without waiting for large-scale efficacy tests.

Roughly 800,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, developed with BioNTech, a German firm, were being packaged at the company’s Belgian manufacturing plant Wednesday for shipment to Britain. How and when they will arrive is a secret for security reasons, the company said.

“Help is on its way with this vaccine — and we can now say that with certainty, rather than with all the caveats,” the British health secretary, Matt Hancock, said Wednesday.

inoculation（１１／２６のinoculateの名詞形） 接種／注入
encompass（６／１６の復習）　　含む／取り囲む
ultracold 極低温／絶対零度に近い温度
crusade 闘い／改革運動
rigor 厳格／正確さ
batch （１１／２の復習） 束／〜回分
spirited 猛烈な／熱い
meticulous 几帳面／非常に慎重
hold off 先延ばしにする／延期する
on its way 途上にある／来てる途中
☝️on the wayとも言います
caveat （７／２の復習）警告／断り書き