音声プラットフォーム「Voicy」で平日毎朝7時に更新中の英語ニュースチャンネル「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」。このチャンネルでは、The New York Timesの記事をバイリンガルのパーソナリティが英語で読み上げ、記事と英単語を日本語で解説しています。英語のニュースを毎朝聴いて、リスニング力の向上と英語学習にお役立てください。

このVoicy Journalでは、毎週金曜日に1週間分のスクリプトをまとめて紹介しています。PCページやアプリから無料でいつでもご視聴いただけます。

4/27(月)放送の英文記事と英単語：歓迎する、余地

Saudi Arabia Abolishes Flogging as a Punishment for Crime

flog 鞭うつ
hail 歓迎する
de facto 〈ラテン語〉事実上の
damp one’s enthusiasm 熱意をそぐ
monarchy 君主制
adultery 不倫、不貞
amputation 切断術
leeway〔自由裁量の〕余地
laud 賞賛する
denounce 非難する、責める

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

BEIRUT, Lebanon — When judges in Saudi Arabia convict someone of a crime, they now have one fewer punishment to hand down. As of this month, they can no longer have people flogged.

The decision to ban flogging, which the state-run human rights commission confirmed Saturday, removes one aspect of the kingdom’s justice system that has often generated criticism abroad.

While Saudi officials hailed the move as a bold reform by the kingdom’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, Western human rights campaigners gave more muted reactions.

“I would not call it a breakthrough,” said Adam Coogle, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who tracks Saudi Arabia. “I would call it a positive step.”

Dampening his enthusiasm, he said, were what he called the many other aspects of the kingdom’s justice system that remain problematic, including the ability to hold people for months without charge, execution by beheading and the lack of a unified penal code.

“I surely hope he intends to go after the whole justice system, because it is very flawed in both regulations and implementation,” Coogle said of Crown Prince Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s few absolute monarchies and administers justice based on Shariah law. Drinking alcohol is a criminal offense, and drug trafficking often a capital crime. While stoning as a punishment for adultery and the amputation of limbs for theft remain technically on the books, they are rarely, if ever, carried out.

The lack of a unified penal code gives judges great leeway in sentencing, and flogging was most often part of the punishment for moral crimes such as public drunkenness or what judges deemed to be inappropriate contact between unrelated women and men.

The kingdom’s most famous flogging case was that of Raif Badawi, who ran a website that published material criticizing Saudi religious figures, lauding Western legal systems and arguing that atheists should be free to state their views without being punished.

That angered Saudi conservatives, who denounced him.

Saudi authorities arrested Badawi in 2012 and put him on trial on charges that included cybercrime and disobeying his father. In 2014, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, fined more than $250,000, and ordered to endure 1,000 blows with a cane in weekly installments over several months.

Johnson Aide Attended Secretive U.K. Coronavirus Panel

aide 補佐官、顧問、側近
mastermind 〔計画などの〕立案者、黒幕
landslide〔選挙の〕地滑り的勝利
cite ～を引き合いに出す、～に言及する
tarnish 名声・名誉・評判などを〕汚す、傷つける、落とす

著者：Mark Landler
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

LONDON — The British government came under heightened pressure to disclose details about a secretive scientific advisory group after a report Friday that a top political aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson had taken part in the group’s meetings on the coronavirus pandemic.

The adviser, Dominic Cummings, as well as a data scientist with close ties to Cummings, attended a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies, or SAGE, on March 23, the day that Johnson ordered a lockdown to try to curb the spread of the virus, according to a report in The Guardian.

Cummings was a major strategist in the 2016 campaign for Brexit and is viewed as one of the masterminds of Johnson’s landslide election victory in December, when he used the slogan “Get Brexit Done.” The data scientist, Ben Warner, worked with Cummings on the Brexit “Vote Leave” campaign.

The government has refused to disclose the members of SAGE or publish the minutes of its meetings, citing the security and independence of the scientists. That has raised questions about its role, particularly after the government abruptly shifted its response to the virus in late March from a more relaxed approach to a lockdown that put Britain in line with other European countries.

The latest report added fuel to the fire, with the opposition saying it tarnished the government’s credibility.

“Dominic Cummings has no place on the government’s scientific advisory group on the coronavirus,” Jonathan Ashworth, the Labour Party’s shadow health and social care secretary, said in a statement. “He is a political adviser, not a medical or scientific expert.”

Even Conservative lawmakers expressed misgivings.

“We should publish the membership of SAGE,” David Davis, a former Cabinet minister, said on Twitter, adding that the government should “remove any nonscientist members” and “publish their advice in full.”

The government denied that Cummings or Warner were members of the group. In a statement, it said they had merely listened in to its deliberations and occasionally asked questions or offered help in navigating the bureaucracy.

音声はこちら

4/28(火)の英文記事と英単語：たどたどしい、集まる、群がる

Governors, Facing Pressures on All Sides, Weigh Reopening Their States

halting たどたどしい、ぐずぐずした、不完全な
move past ～を通過する
cascade〔次々に起きる〕多くのもの、こと
curbside 歩道の
flock 集まる、群がる

著者：Shaila Dewan and Vanessa Swales
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Facing the same competing pressures between keeping people safe in a pandemic and reviving some elements of a more functioning society, governors around the country Sunday made their case for steps they were taking — or not taking — to begin reopening.

Their efforts reflected the halting patchwork of attempts by several states to begin moving past severe restrictions in the face of the coronavirus, as a cascade of stay-at-home orders began to expire.

As Colorado’s order ended this weekend, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, defended his moves to relax some social distancing restrictions, allowing curbside retail deliveries and soon allowing the reopening of workplaces at half capacity and the resumption of elective surgeries.

“What matters a lot more than the date that the stay-at-home ends is what we do going forward, and how we have an ongoing, sustainable way, psychologically, economically and from the health perspective, to have the social distancing we need,” he said Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Otherwise, if we can’t succeed in doing that on an ongoing basis, the stay-at-home was for nothing.”

In Georgia, there were haircuts, manicures and even massages. In Montana, churches resumed in-person services. And in Alaska, there were restaurant tables to be had — reservations only, no walk-ins. In California, people flocked to open beaches in Ventura and Orange counties.

Only a handful of states began to ease their lockdowns. Some, like Michigan and Hawaii, extended stay-at-home orders with some modest changes. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, outlined a plan that could allow some “low-risk” businesses in upstate New York to open as soon as mid-May.

About a dozen states have restrictions that are set to expire in the coming days, and for most, it remains to be seen whether they will be renewed.

In Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said the state’s restrictions had accomplished what they were meant to: allowing time to increase the number of available hospital beds and flatten the curve of new infections.

“March 30 we had, we peaked at hospitalizations, with 560 across the state,” Stitt said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Dozens of Gay Men Are Outed in Morocco as Photos Are Spread Online

peril 差し迫った危険
keep 〜 under wrap 〜を秘密にしておく
recourse 〔助けなどを求めて〕頼みとする人［もの］
hypocrisy 偽善
vicinity 近所、近辺、付近
homophobic 同性愛嫌悪の

著者：Aida Alami
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

PARIS — At least 50 to 100 gay men were outed in Morocco over the past two weeks, rights activists say, after the men were identified on location-based meeting apps while sheltering at home amid a coronavirus lockdown.

In at least three cases, men were kicked out of their houses, LGBTQ activists said. In interviews, many others in the country said they had been blackmailed and threatened, and thousands fear that their photos will be spread on social media.

In Morocco, a North African kingdom where homosexuality and sex outside marriage are crimes, gay people are painfully accustomed to the feelings of peril and rejection, and many keep their sexual identities under wraps.

Now their cover has been blown in a way that would be criminal in most Western societies, rights advocates say. Yet they have no legal recourse.

What makes this episode particularly painful, gay leaders say, is that it was ignited by someone who had also been singled out.

On April 13, a Moroccan transgender Instagram personality based in Istanbul, Naoufal Moussa or Sofia Talouni, was insulted about her sexual orientation. In a rage, she released a profanity-laced video encouraging women to download location-based meeting apps, like Grindr and Planet Romeo, which are usually used by gay men.

In subsequent videos, she said her aim was to reveal the hypocrisy of Moroccan society by showing her attackers how many gay men were living in their vicinity, perhaps even in their own homes.

Many people followed Moussa’s lead and created fake accounts on the apps to gather photos of gay men, which they then posted on private and public Facebook pages, setting off the homophobic attacks.

The attacks ignited a firestorm of criticism, both of Moussa and of Morocco’s discriminatory laws.

Adam Eli, founder of the New York-based activist group Voices4, worked in coordination with Moroccan LGBTQ rights activists to get Moussa’s Instagram account deleted.

A spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram, confirmed that Moussa’s account had been suspended.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

音声はこちら

4/29(水)の放送の英文記事と英単語：疲れた、厳粛な、衰える

Boris Johnson, Back on the Job, Urges Caution in Easing COVID-19 Rules

mugger 路上強盗
wrestle to the floor 組み伏せる
brio 〈イタリア語〉生気、活気
weary 疲れた
somber 〔態度などが〕厳粛な、粛々とした、堅苦しい
underscore ～を強調する、～を明確に示す
languish 〔人や動植物が〕衰える、やつれる、しおれる
toll〔事故や災害の〕犠牲者、損害
fatality 死亡者
concession 譲歩

著者：Mark Landler and Stephen Castle
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

LONDON — A pale but vigorous-sounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work Monday, declaring that the coronavirus that nearly killed him was like an “unexpected and invisible mugger” the British people had begun to wrestle to the floor but had not yet fully disabled.

For all his determined brio, Johnson’s message to his lockdown-weary nation was somber, underscoring the hard choices that Britain faces as the economy languishes and the death toll from the virus soars above 21,000.

Johnson, who was discharged from the hospital only two weeks ago, signaled that the government would keep some social-distancing measures in place for the foreseeable future. To lift them too soon, he warned, would mean “not only a new wave of death and disease but also an economic disaster.”

The government has said it will reassess the lockdown May 7, and it is likely to relax some restrictions. But it is lagging badly in testing and contact tracing, which experts view as a precondition for reverting to a more normal status, like in South Korea, which pioneered an ambitious national testing program.

Johnson’s return will inject energy into a government response that had seemed to drift in recent weeks, analysts said. But it does not alter the fact that Britain has fared especially badly during the pandemic, with a death toll approaching that of Spain and Italy.

With the daily death toll in hospitals falling, there is evidence that Britain has passed the peak of infections. Johnson emphasized the National Health Service’s success in scaling up capacity, which ensured hospitals have not been overwhelmed in Britain as they were in northern Italy.

But the government once hoped to hold the number of fatalities to 20,000, a goal it could now miss by 10,000 or more.

Britain had faced criticism for its secrecy over the membership and deliberations of a scientific panel that advises the government on key decisions.

On Monday, Downing Street announced a minor concession by saying it would name the members of the panel — the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, known as SAGE — but only if they agreed to be publicly identified.

In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead

inoculation 接種、予防接種       
venture 冒険的企て、危険、冒険的事業
bellwether 〔業界などの〕先導者
rhesus macaque アカゲザル

著者：David D. Kirkpatrick
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford University.

Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety. But scientists at the university’s Jenner Institute had a running start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against an earlier coronavirus — were harmless to humans.

That has enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month, hoping to show not only that it is safe but also that it works.

The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other announced efforts — if it proves to be effective.

Now, they have received promising news suggesting that it might.

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine. The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus that is causing the pandemic — exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab. But more than 28 days later all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher who conducted the test.

“The rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans,” Munster said, noting that scientists were still analyzing the result. He said he expected to share it with other scientists next week and then submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.

Immunity in monkeys is no guarantee that a vaccine will provide the same degree of protection for humans. A Chinese company that recently started a clinical trial with 144 participants, SinoVac, has also said that its vaccine was effective in rhesus macaques. But with dozens of efforts now underway to find a vaccine, the monkey results are the latest indication that Oxford’s accelerated venture is emerging as a bellwether.

“It is a very, very fast clinical program,” said Emilio Emini, a director of the vaccine program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is providing financial support to many competing efforts.

音声はこちら

4/30(木)の放送の英文記事と英単語：空中に、伝染、増加していく

Chickens Are Killed by Delaware Plant as Workers Are Depleted by COVID-19

airborne 空中を通る
aloft 空中に
transmission 〔病原体の〕伝染
mounting 増加していく、高まる、増大する
viral ウイルスの

著者：Christine Hauser
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

A chicken processing company based in Delaware killed nearly 2 million chickens this month after many of its workers were sidelined by illness or quarantine orders related to the coronavirus, industry officials said.

The action by Allen Harim Foods was the latest example of how food processors are being affected by the coronavirus, which is keeping workers away because of illness or quarantine. Meat processors, dairy farmers and vegetable growers have shuttered plants or dumped products at a time when many Americans are lining up at food banks or facing scarcity at supermarkets.

Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., which represents plants on the Delmarva Peninsula, a 170-mile-long strip of land shared by Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, announced the plans in a memo to its members April 9, saying the plant was one of many facing difficulties in meeting production targets.

“Because of reduced attendance, meat processing companies may need to make the difficult choice to humanely depopulate animals on farms instead of transporting them to plants with reduced processing capacity,” Holly Porter, executive director of the organization, said Tuesday.

Porter said the company euthanized nearly 2 million chickens on farms in Delaware and Maryland using methods approved for cases of infectious avian disease.

There are 1,325 growers and five chicken processing companies on the Delmarva Peninsula that operate a total of 10 processing plants.

Michele Minton, director of live operations for Allen Harim Foods, told growers in a letter April 8 that it would be forced to start depopulating chickens April 10.

Worker attendance was at 50%, meaning the company was no longer able to harvest the amount of birds needed to meet targets, Minton said in the letter. She and other company officials could not be reached for comment.

The news of the Delmarva chicken killings has highlighted the strains on the food supply chain in the United States as the virus undermines staffing, either through illness or isolation orders.

As workers get sick, plants and producers are casting around for solutions. Beef and pork processors have closed their plants. Farmers are dumping excess dairy products and plowing unharvested vegetables back into fields or compost.

In March, the National Chicken Council said it was not seeing any disruptions in production and that there were ample amounts of surplus chicken in cold storage.

Airborne Coronavirus Detected in Wuhan Hospitals

dairy 乳製品製造所、酪農場
shutter 休業する
depopulate 人口を減らす
euthanize 〜を安楽死させる
avian 鳥の
strain 負担、重圧、試練
undermine ～を徐々に弱らせる、弱体化させる、むしばむ
plowing 耕起
compost 堆肥
ample 有り余る
surplus 余り、余剰

著者：Kenneth Chang
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Adding to growing evidence that the novel coronavirus can spread through air, scientists have identified genetic markers of the virus in airborne droplets, many with diameters smaller than one-ten-thousandth of an inch.

That had been previously demonstrated in laboratory experiments, but now Chinese scientists studying real-world conditions report that they captured tiny droplets containing the genetic markers of the virus from the air in two hospitals in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak started.

Their findings were published Monday in the journal Nature.

It remains unknown if the virus in the samples they collected was infectious, but droplets that small, which are expelled by breathing and talking, can remain aloft and be inhaled by others.

“Those are going to stay in the air floating around for at least two hours,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who was not involved with the Nature paper. “It strongly suggests that there is potential for airborne transmission.”

Marr and many other scientists say evidence is mounting that the coronavirus is being spread by tiny droplets known as aerosols. The World Health Organization has so far downplayed the possibility, saying that the disease is mostly transmitted through larger droplets that do not remain airborne for long, or through the touching of contaminated surfaces.

Even with the new findings, the issue is not settled. Although the coronavirus RNA — the genetic blueprint of the virus — was present in the aerosols, scientists do not know yet is whether the viruses remain infectious or whether the tests just detected harmless virus fragments.

“The missing piece is viable viral replication,” said Harvey V. Fineberg, who leads the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. “Could you culture this virus from the air?”

In the Wuhan research, no viruses were detected in most of the public places they studied, including the residential building and the supermarket, although some levels were detected in crowded areas outside one of the hospitals and in the department stores.

“It was interesting to see there were measurable amounts,” Marr said. “I think it adds good evidence to avoid crowding.”

5/1(金)の放送の英文記事と英単語：対決する、目まぐるしい

It’s a Boy: Johnson and Symonds Announce Birth of 1st Child

dizzying 目まいがするような、目が回るほどの、目まぐるしい
face off 対決する
coy 遠慮がちな、控えめの、関わろうとしない、何も語ろうとしない

著者：Mark Landler
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, on Wednesday morning announced the birth of a baby boy, adding another milestone to a year of dizzying ups and downs for the British leader.

Two days after Johnson returned to work following a serious illness caused by the coronavirus, he and Symonds, 32, said their baby had been born at a London hospital and was healthy.

Symonds had also suffered symptoms of the virus and had isolated herself during the period when Johnson, 55, was hospitalized. After three nights in intensive care, he was released on Easter Sunday.

Symonds and the baby are “doing very well,” a spokeswoman for Johnson and his fiancée said, the BBC reported.

The prime minister will take a short paternity leave this year, a spokeswoman for Downing Street said by phone.

The couple announced in late February that Symonds, a former communications aide for the Conservative Party, was pregnant, and that they planned to be married this summer. A month later, Johnson contracted the virus and went into isolation.

Johnson had been scheduled to face off against the new Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, in Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, which would have been their first encounter in those roles.

But Downing Street had been coy about whether Johnson would appear or hand off the duties to Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, who had taken on many of the prime minister’s duties while he was ill.

Democratic Frustration Mounts as Biden Remains Silent on Sexual Assault Allegation

presumptive 仮定（上）の、推定（上）の
circulate ～を人から人へと移動させる［渡らせる・伝える］
corroborate 〔証拠を挙げて～が真実であることを〕補強する、裏付ける
blowback 〔否定的な〕反応
primary 予備選挙
general election 総選挙
surrogate 代理人

著者：Lisa Lerer and Sydney Ember
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

For more than three weeks, progressive activists and women’s rights advocates debated how to handle an allegation of sexual assault against Joe Biden. The conversations weren’t easy, nor were the politics: Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, faced one allegation; his opponent, President Donald Trump, at least a dozen.

Finally, several of the women’s groups prepared a public letter that praised Biden’s work as an “outspoken champion for survivors of sexual violence” but also pushed him to address the allegation from Tara Reade, a former aide who worked in Biden’s Senate office in the early 1990s.

Nearly two weeks later, the Biden campaign has said little publicly beyond saying that women deserve to be heard and insisting that the allegation is not true; privately, Biden advisers have circulated talking points urging supporters to deny that the incident occurred.

As two more women have come forward to corroborate part of Reade’s allegation, the Biden campaign is facing attacks from the right and increasing pressure from the left to address the issue.

Since Reade spoke out in March with her allegation — that Biden penetrated her with his fingers in a Senate building in 1993 — his aides and advisers have denied it, saying it is “untrue.” They have remained unconcerned about any significant political blowback from Reade’s accusation, according to people who have spoken with the campaign, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In recent months, Biden has taken steps that appear to show he understands how a commitment to representation and equity might resonate with women, who make up the majority of voters for Democratic candidates. He has pledged to pick a woman as a running mate and nominate a black woman to the Supreme Court.

Yet as he seeks to unite the Democratic Party after the primaries and pivot to a general election against Trump, Reade’s allegation remains a subject of intense discussion in the political world.

“Joe Biden himself needs to respond directly,” said Yvette Simpson, the chief executive of Democracy for America, a progressive advocacy organization, which plans to back the Democratic nominee. “While it is absolutely essential that we defeat Donald Trump in November, trying to manage the response through women surrogates and emailed talking points doesn’t cut it in 2020 — especially if Democrats want to continue to be the party that values, supports, elevates, hears and believes women.”

「Voicy News Brief with articles from New York Times」は平日毎朝7時にVoicyで更新中！いつでも無料で聴けるVoicyの英語チャンネルを活用して、英語力向上にお役立てください。