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。

1/23(土)の放送

Biden Unveils a National Pandemic Response That Trump Resisted

著者：Sheryl Gay Stolberg
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

President Joe Biden, seeking to assert leadership over the coronavirus pandemic, signed a string of executive orders and presidential directives on Thursday aimed at creating the kind of centralized authority that the Trump administration had shied away from.

The orders included new requirements for masks on interstate planes, trains and buses, the creation of a national testing board and mandatory quarantines for international travelers arriving in the United States. Biden predicted that the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 would top 500,000 next month, refusing to play down the carnage that his predecessor was loath to acknowledge.

The mask requirement for public transportation, coupled with the order Biden issued on Wednesday requiring mask-wearing in all federal facilities, edges the country toward the kind of comprehensive mask mandate that has dominated debate at the state and local level between public health advocates and those defending what they called individual liberty.

Biden described his approach as a “full-scale wartime effort,” but his chief medical adviser for the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made it clear how difficult the task would be. Appearing in the White House briefing room for the first time since November, Fauci said powerful treatments using manufactured antibodies, which were used on President Donald Trump, were not effective against more infectious variants of the virus circulating in South Africa and Brazil, which have not yet appeared in the United States.

And while the current vaccines still work against the new variants, the immune response they induce might be slightly diminished, he said, adding even more urgency into getting people vaccinated quickly.

The nation, he said, is “still in a very serious situation.”

As thousands of Americans die every day from COVID-19 and the threat of viral mutations looms, the pandemic poses the most pressing challenge of Biden’s early days in office. How he handles it will set the tone for how his administration is viewed, Biden acknowledged.

“History is going to measure whether we are up to the task,” he said in the White House’s State Dining Room, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Fauci by his side.

The president has also promised to inject 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days. But that is actually aiming low. Over that period, the number of available doses should be enough for 200 million injections.

centralized　中央集権化の
shy away from ～するのを避ける、～を敬遠する
carnage 大虐殺 、大量殺傷
predecessor (仕事・地位などの) 前任者、先任者 【対】successor
loath 嫌々の、渋々、気がない 【同】reluctant ; unwilling
comprehensive 包括的な、総合的な
antibody 抗体
induce 誘発する (引き起こす)
mutation 突然変異
loom (危険・期日などが) 不気味に迫る

1/24(日)の放送

Electric Cars Are Better for the Planet — and Often Your Budget, Too

著者：Veronica Penney
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Electric vehicles are better for the climate than gas-powered cars, but many Americans are still reluctant to buy them. One reason: The larger upfront cost.

New data published Thursday shows that despite the higher sticker price, electric cars may actually save drivers money in the long-run.

To reach this conclusion, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated both the carbon dioxide emissions and full lifetime cost — including purchase price, maintenance and fuel — for nearly every new car model on the market.

They found electric cars were easily more climate friendly than gas-burning ones. Over a lifetime, they were often cheaper, too.

Climate scientists say vehicle electrification is one of the best ways to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Jessika Trancik, an associate professor of energy studies at MIT who led the research, said she hoped the data would “help people learn about how those upfront costs are spread over the lifetime of the car.”

For electric cars, lower maintenance costs and the lower costs of charging compared with gasoline prices tend to offset the higher upfront price over time. (Battery-electric engines have fewer moving parts that can break compared with gas-powered engines and they don’t require oil changes.)

The cars are greener over time, too, despite the more emissions-intensive battery manufacturing process. Trancik estimates that an electric vehicle’s production emissions would be offset in anywhere from six to 18 months, depending on how clean the energy grid is where the car is charging.

The new data showed hybrid cars, which run on a combination of fuel and battery power, and can sometimes be plugged in, had more mixed results for both emissions and costs.

Traditional gas-burning cars were usually the least climate friendly option, although long-term costs and emissions spanned a wide range.

Trancik’s team released the data in an interactive online tool to help people quantify the true costs of their car-buying decisions — both for the planet and their budget. The new estimates update a study published in 2016.

Still, the upfront cost of an electric vehicle continues to be a barrier for many would-be owners.

The federal government offers a tax credit for some new electric vehicle purchases, but that does nothing to reduce the initial purchase price and does not apply to used cars. That means it disproportionately benefits wealthier Americans.

Reluctant 嫌がっている
Upfront cost 初期費用
Sticker price 売価、定価
Carbon dioxide 二酸化炭素
Electrification 電化
Greenhouse gas 温室効果ガス
Tax credit 税控除
Disproportionately 不平等

1/25(月)の放送

Larry King, Breezy Interviewer of the Famous and Infamous, Dies at 87

著者：Robert D. McFadden
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

Larry King, who shot the breeze with presidents and psychics, movie stars and malefactors — anyone with a story to tell or a pitch to make — in a half-century on radio and television, including 25 years as the host of CNN’s globally popular “Larry King Live,” died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 87.

Ora Media, which King co-founded in 2012, confirmed the death in a statement posted on King’s own Twitter account and said he had died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The statement did not specify a cause of death, but King had recently been treated for COVID-19. In 2019, he was hospitalized for chest pains and said he had also suffered a stroke.

A son of European immigrants who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and never went to college, King began as a local radio interviewer and sportscaster in Florida in the 1950s and ’60s, rose to prominence with an all-night coast-to-coast radio call-in show starting in 1978, and from 1985 to 2010 anchored CNN’s highest-rated, longest-running program, reaching millions across America and around the world.

King interviewed an estimated 50,000 people of every imaginable persuasion and claim to fame — every president since Richard Nixon, world leaders, royalty, religious and business figures, crime and disaster victims, pundits, swindlers, “experts” on UFOs and paranormal phenomena, and untold hosts of idiosyncratic and insomniac telephone callers.

King might have made a fascinating guest on his own show: the delivery boy who became one of America’s most famous TV and radio personalities, a newspaper columnist, the author of numerous books and a performer in dozens of movies and television shows, mostly as himself. His personal life was the stuff of supermarket tabloids: married eight times to seven women; a chronic gambler who declared bankruptcy twice; arrested on a fraud charge that derailed his career for years.

King lived in Beverly Hills, California, and his show was broadcast mainly from CNN’s Los Angeles studios.

Mainstream journalists scoffed at his lean treatments and nice-guy techniques. But his audiences and sponsors were faithful.

After decades of success, however, “Larry King Live” began losing its high ratings and A-list bookings as many viewers turned to partisan voices like MSNBC’s liberal Rachel Maddow and Fox’s conservative Sean Hannity. By 2010, King’s audience had fallen to a fraction of what it had been in his peak years. He stepped down in December.

In 2012, King migrated to the internet with a show streamed by Ora.tv on Ora TV, Hulu and RT (a U.S. version of Russia Today). The show was called “Larry King Now.”

Larry King was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in Brooklyn on Nov. 19, 1933, the second son of Edward and Jennie Gitlitz Zeiger, immigrants from Austria and Belarus.

Larry King’s father died of a heart attack in 1943. Devastated by his father’s death, King, a good student who had skipped the third grade, neglected studies and listened to the radio. He graduated from Lafayette High School in 1951 with barely passing grades.

In addition to his wife Shawn Southwick and their two sons, Chance and Cannon, his survivors include another son, Larry Jr., from a previous marriage; a stepson, Daniel Southwick; and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

At the peak of his success, King was a media whirlwind. He produced (with various writers) several memoirs, two books on heart disease and volumes on many other subjects; had appeared in dozens of movies and television shows; wrote columns for USA Today for two decades; and was showered with awards, honorary degrees and the adulation of fans. The centerpiece of his career, “Larry King Live,” became television’s highest-rated talk show and CNN’s biggest success story. It won a Peabody in 1992.

breezy （性質・態度など）元気のいい
shoot the breeze おしゃべりをする、無駄話をする
psychic 超能力者
malefactor 犯罪者
make a pitch (言葉巧みに）自分を売り込む、プレゼンをする
stroke 発作 （*suffer a stroke 脳卒中を患う）
rise to prominence (人が成功を収めるなどして)有名になる、名を上げる
*(形) prominent 傑出した、有名な
call-in show 視聴者参加型番組
pundit 専門家、評論家
swindler 超能力者
paranormal 超常的な(ラテン語：para- ～を超えた)
idiosyncratic （ふるまいなどが）風変わりの （ギリシャ語：idio- 個人特有の + syn-=com- 共に、同時に）
insomniac 不眠症の　(*insomnia 不眠症)
chronic (病気が) 慢性の (↔急性の acute)
derail 脱線する
scoff あざ笑う
lean 中身の無い
whirlwind 旋風
adulation 追従、称賛
centerpiece 最も重要なもの

1/26(火)の放送

If Poor Countries Go Unvaccinated, a Study Says, Rich Ones Will Pay

著者：Peter S. Goodman
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

In monopolizing the supply of vaccines against COVID-19, wealthy nations are threatening more than a humanitarian catastrophe: The resulting economic devastation will hit affluent countries nearly as hard as those in the developing world.

This is the crucial takeaway from an academic study to be released Monday. In the most extreme scenario — with wealthy nations fully vaccinated by the middle of this year, and poor countries largely shut out — the study concludes that the global economy would suffer losses exceeding $9 trillion.

Nearly half of those costs would be absorbed by wealthy countries like the United States, Canada and Britain.

In the scenario that researchers term most likely, in which developing countries vaccinate half their populations by the end of the year, the world economy would still absorb a blow of between $1.8 trillion and $3.8 trillion. More than half of the pain would be concentrated in wealthy countries.

Commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce, the study concludes that equitable distribution of vaccines is in every country’s economic interest, especially those that depend most on trade. It amounts to a rebuke to the popular notion that sharing vaccines with poor countries is merely a form of charity.

“Clearly, all economies are connected,” said Selva Demiralp, an economist at Koc University in Istanbul who previously worked at the Federal Reserve in Washington, and one of study’s authors. “No economy will be fully recovered unless the other economies are recovered.”

In the realm of international commerce, there is no hiding from the coronavirus. Global supply chains that are vital to industry will continue to be disrupted so long as the virus remains a force.

If people in developing countries remain out of work because of lockdowns required to choke off the spread of the virus, they will have less money to spend, reducing sales for exporters in North America, Europe and East Asia. Multinational companies in advanced nations will also struggle to secure required parts, components and commodities.

“No economy, however big, will be immune to the effects of the virus until the pandemic is brought to an end everywhere,” said John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce. “Purchasing vaccines for the developing world isn’t an act of generosity by the world’s richest nations. It’s an essential investment for governments to make if they want to revive their domestic economies.”

Unvaccinated　ワクチンを摂取していない状態
☝️un(〜でない)+vaccin(ワクチン)+ate(〜にする) [語源: vaccin(牛の)→天然痘を予防する牛痘摂取から]
monopolizing　独占する [語源: mono(一人)+pol(売る)+ize(〜化する)]
humanitarian　人道的
☝️human(人)が入っているので覚えやすい
catastrophe　大惨事 [語源: cata(下)+strophe(転じる)→転じて悪くなる]
☝️ apostrophe(アポストロフィ「’」)
affluent　裕福
☝️類義語：rich
takeaway　結論
☝️(諸々の詳細から最終的に持ち帰れる)結論
term　呼ぶ
☝️動詞
Commissioned　委託される
equitable　公平な
rebuke　非難 *1/8の復習
merely　〜に過ぎない
☝️「ただ〜しているだけ」で使える
realm　領域 👑王国、という意味で使われる
vital　欠かせない、命に関わる
☝️医療ドラマでよく出てくる「バイタルは？」
choke off　首を締めて(流れを)止める
☝️管状のものを締めて、流れを止める
components　構成部品
☝️機械の部品を指して使う→CDコンポ
commodities　商品
☝️天然資源や原材料を指す
immune　免疫がある
☝️免除、という意味も→tax immunity(免税)
revive　復活させる [語源: re(再び)+vive(生きる)]

1/27(水)の放送

The Metropolitan Opera Hires Its First Chief Diversity Officer

著者：Joshua Barone
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK — Marcia Sells — a former dancer who became an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn and the dean of students at Harvard Law School — has been hired as the first chief diversity officer of the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts institution in the United States.

Her appointment, which the Met announced on Monday, is something of a corrective to the company’s nearly 140-year history and a response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It’s also a conscious step toward inclusivity by a major player in an industry in which some Black singers, including Leontyne Price and Jessye Norman, have found stardom, but diversity has lagged in orchestras, staff and leadership.

Since last summer, cultural institutions across the country have made changes as the Black Lives Matter movement drew scrutiny to racial inequities in virtually every corner of the arts world. The Met was no exception: The company announced plans to open next season with Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” its first opera by a Black composer, directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown, who will become the first Black director to lead a production on the Met’s main stage. It also named three composers of color — Valerie Coleman, Jessie Montgomery and Joel Thompson — to its commissioning program.

But to make broader changes at the Met, an institution with a long payroll and a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the Met is turning to Sells. As a member of the senior management team, she will report to Peter Gelb, the general manager. The human resources department will be brought under her direction, and her purview will be broad: the Met in its entirety, including the board.

“Sometimes horrible events like the killing of George Floyd catalyze people, and they realize this is something we need to do — at the Met and across the arts,” Sells said in an interview about her plans to make the Met a more inclusive company that values the diversity of its staff and the audiences it serves.

corrective　矯正する
conscious　意識的に
inclusivity　包括性
stardom　スターの地位
lagged　遅れた
scrutiny　精密な調査、じろじろ見る様子
every corner　隅々まで、いたるところに
human resources　人事部
purview　（活動や権限の）範囲

1/28(木)の放送

CDC Officials Say Schools Can Be Safe if Precautions Are Taken in the Community

著者：Roni Caryn Rabin
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Open schools. Close indoor dining.

When to keep schools open, and how to do so, has been an issue plaguing the response by the United States to the pandemic since its beginning. President Joe Biden vowed to “teach our children in safe schools” in his inaugural address.

On Tuesday, federal health officials weighed in with a call for returning children to the nation’s classrooms as soon as possible, saying the “preponderance of available evidence” indicates that in-person instruction can be carried out safely as long as mask-wearing and social distancing are maintained.

But local officials also must be willing to impose limits on other settings — like indoor dining, bars or poorly ventilated gyms — in order to keep infection rates low in the community at large, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in the journal JAMA.

School administrators must limit risky activities such as indoor sports, they added. “It’s not going to be safe to have a pizza party with a group of students,” Margaret Honein, a member of the CDC’s COVID-19 emergency response team and the first author of the article, said in an interview. “But outdoor cross-country, where distance can be maintained, might be fine to continue.”

Federal officials cited the many benefits of in-person schooling for children, and argued for prioritizing their educational, developmental and emotional and mental health needs. “Schools are an important source not just of education, but health and social services for children,” Honein said.

Even though the pandemic is rapidly changing, and contagious new variants are spreading, Honein and other CDC officials argued there is little evidence that schools spark the kind of outbreaks seen in nursing homes and meatpacking plants, or contribute to increased transmission in communities.

“Back in August and September, we did not have a lot of data on whether or not we would see the same sort of rapid spread in schools that we had seen in other high-density work sites or residential sites,” Honein said. “But there is accumulating data now that with high face mask compliance, and distancing and cohorting of students to minimize the total number of contacts, we can minimize the amount of transmission in schools.”

plague 悩ます、苦しめる
weigh in with 意見を述べる、議論に加わる
preponderance 優勢、優位　
carry out 実行する、遂行する
at large 全体として、一般の
cite 引用する、挙げる
spark 引き起こす
cohorting 集団、集団隔離

1/29(金)の放送

Vaccine Shortages Hit EU in a Setback for Its Immunization Race

著者：Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Monika Pronczuk
(c) 2021 The New York Times Company

BRUSSELS — Europe’s coronavirus vaccination woes snowballed into a full-blown crisis Wednesday, as Spain became the first country to partly suspend immunizations for lack of doses, and a dispute escalated with AstraZeneca over the drugmaker’s announcement that it would slash deliveries of its vaccine by 60% because of production shortfalls.

The European Union has been beset by a litany of problems since it approved its first coronavirus vaccine, made by Pfizer and BioNTech, in December and rushed to begin a vast immunization campaign weeks behind rich nations like the United States and Britain.

While it is flush with cash, influence and negotiating heft, the bloc of 27 nations has found itself behind those countries, as well as others like Israel, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

AstraZeneca’s sudden announcement last week that it would cut deliveries in February and March by 60% upended European Union vaccination plans. Many countries had built their strategies around expectations of millions of those doses of that vaccine. AstraZeneca said it was having production troubles at one of its factories, but did not specify what those were or offer details on how it was addressing them and when.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to gain approval for use in the European Union on Friday, and the bloc had been expecting some 80 million doses to be delivered in the course of the next two months.

With the company now saying it can’t make good on its promise to deliver, it is unclear when the bloc’s target might be reached.

The pain of supply shortages is being felt across Europe, with Spain announcing Wednesday that it would suspend the vaccination program in Madrid for two weeks, and warning that Catalonia, in the northeast of the country, may follow suit.

In Germany, the bloc’s richest and largest country, regional leaders were livid about the shortages.

“I have to say that I am totally disappointed with how this has played out,” Manuela Schwesig, governor of the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said last week.

“We had a very clear agreement — we in the states prepare the immunization centers and set everything up. We have done that. The logistics are there and we could offer an inoculation to all of our citizens,” Schwesig said on the ZDF public television network. “But we can’t use it because we don’t have enough vaccines.”

woe　苦境／悩み
snowball　　（雪玉のように）増大する／陥る
full-blown　本格的な／完全に発達した
beset by　〜に悩まされる／〜に付きまとわれる
litany　　数々の／〜のリスト
flush with （cash）　　（お金）が溢れている／〜でいっぱいになっている
heft　　重み／勢力（１／２１の hefty の名詞形）
bloc　　連合／圏
make good on （a promise）約束を守る／果たす
livid　　立腹した／頭に来ている