Voicy Journal

Voicy News Brief with articles from The New York Times ニュース原稿 6/27-7/3

Voicy News Brief with articles from The New York Times ニュース原稿 6/27-7/3

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。

6/27(土)の放送

Australia and New Zealand Named Hosts of 2023 Women’s World Cup

著者:Tariq Panja and Andrew Das
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company


Australia and New Zealand will serve as co-hosts for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, FIFA announced Thursday, sending one of its two biggest tournaments — and its first 32-team women’s championship — to nations that have embraced the women’s game.

FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, announced its decision after its governing council held a vote by videoconference. It also announced that the council had approved $1 billion in investment in women’s soccer over the next four years, funding that could prove vital in developing enough competitive national teams to fill the 32-team field.

“We’ve been given a treasure,” said Johanna Wood, a member of the FIFA Council from New Zealand, who recused herself from the vote. “We will look after the treasure and work toward making women’s football more front and center on the world stage.”

The council’s vote was 22-13. A bloc of European and South American members voted for Colombia. The U.S. member, former U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati, voted for the Australia-New Zealand bid. As it did with the vote for the 2026 men’s World Cup two years ago, the first since reforms were passed after earlier voting scandals, FIFA released the members’ votes after the decision.

FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, said he was surprised by bloc votes in the bidding process. He said that the technical reports must have an impact on the final decision taken by voters, and that he had based his own vote on their conclusions.

Infantino also suggested the decision on future hosts would be taken out of the hands of the council and decided by FIFA’s member associations at its annual congress, a change that has already occurred for the choice of the host of the men’s World Cup.

“There’s no reason to treat men and women differently,” Infantino said.

The joint bid from Australia and New Zealand, the first from two countries from two separate confederations, had been considered the leading contender to land the tournament for months; several other contenders had dropped out earlier in the process, and by Thursday its only remaining competition was a bid from Colombia.

The winning plan proposed using 13 stadiums in 12 cities — seven in Australia and five in New Zealand. Two of the stadiums would be in Sydney, including the 70,000-seat facility built for the 2000 Summer Olympics.

embrace (主義・思想などを) 受け入れる、
採用する
recuse  拒絶する、関与しない
reform (組織などを) 改革する、刷新する
confederation  同盟、連合
contender  競争者、候補者

Kentucky Derby to Allow Spectators in September

著者:Gillian R. Brassil
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The Kentucky Derby — known for its atmosphere as much as its thoroughbred racing — is keeping its fans this year for betting, mint juleps, and to see and be seen with elaborate millinery and seersucker suits.

There will be fewer spectators and new health precautions because of the coronavirus outbreak, but fans will indeed be on hand Sept. 5, race organizers said Thursday, to see if Tiz the Law can win the second leg of this year’s untraditional Triple Crown.

The new measures include masks for fans and employees, fewer interactions throughout the venue and spaced out guest areas.

The plan, developed with the local health and labor departments, encourages guests to wash their hands frequently and remain socially distant. But it was not clear how many guests would be allowed at Churchill Downs, the venue in Louisville, Kentucky, that has hosted the race since 1875 and welcomed more than 150,000 fans for the Derby last year. General admission could be cut as much as 60%, the racetrack’s president, Kevin Flanery, said Thursday.

It was also unclear how the protocols would be enforced, though officials said they would “severely” limit access throughout the facility. General admission tickets would be sold only for the track’s infield, and “guests will be consistently and frequently encouraged to wear a mask at all times unless seated in their reserved seat or venue,” the plan said. Flanery said in an interview that employees at the track would be required to wear masks in accordance with state protocols at the time of the race.

“It’s going to be a very different experience, and we want to be respectful moving forward in a responsible way,” Flanery said. “But it will be different, and we’re relying on spectators coming together with us to make this a unique and safe experience.”

For now, there aren’t expected to be daily health screenings for racegoers. But food will be served individually, rather than at chefs’ tables; concession lines and betting tellers will be spread out with queued lines; and gamblers will be encouraged to wager from their phones.

Gamblers wagered nearly $251 million on the entire Kentucky Derby slate of races last year.

Tickets purchased for the Derby’s original date in May were automatically valid, the announcement said.

thoroughbred サラブレッド種の、純血種の
millinery (女性用) 帽子
seersucker suits サッカー地のスーツ(インド産の織物)
infield 内野の
in accordance with (規則・規格・指示など) に従って
concession 売店
queue (順番待ちの) 列をつくる
wager 賭ける

6/28(日)の放送

Amazon to Buy Zoox, in a Move Toward Self-Driving Cars

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

SEATTLE — Amazon said Friday it was buying autonomous ride-hailing startup Zoox, an ambitious move that could put the tech giant in the business of moving people and not just packages.

Amazon agreed to pay more than $1.2 billion for the company, according to a person familiar with the deal. He would speak only anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the transaction.

Amazon has invested heavily in building out the logistics infrastructure to bring orders to customers, with fleets of planes, trucks and delivery drivers. But Zoox’s ambitions have focused on creating a new kind of autonomous car designed specifically for passenger rides without a driver, sometimes called a “robo-taxi.”

“Zoox is working to imagine, invent and design a world-class autonomous ride-hailing experience,” Jeff Wilke, who runs Amazon’s consumer business, said in a blog post announcing the deal.

Amazon for several years has worked on self-driving technology to deliver goods, a natural fit with its shopping business. Last year, it invested in Aurora, a driverless-technology startup.

Wilke expressed concerns in the past that Uber, through its ride-hailing business, could build a direct-delivery relationship with customers that it could use to compete with Amazon, according to a person with direct knowledge of the comments.

Uber has said it wants to be the Amazon of transportation, though its self-driving ambitions have been derailed by cost-cutting and legal battles. Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company started at Google, General Motors’ Cruise and Tesla have all been investing heavily in autonomous passenger cars.

Amazon said Zoox would operate as a “stand-alone business” and be run by Aicha Evans, Zoox’s chief executive, and Jesse Levinson, its co-founder and technology chief.

Amazon declined to comment on the cost of the deal or Wilke’s thoughts about Uber. It did not say when it expected the transaction to close.

Laura Gunning, an Amazon spokeswoman, said delivering products was not the reason for the deal. She pointed to the blog post, where Amazon said it hoped to bring Zoox’s “vision of autonomous ride-hailing to reality.”

autonomous 自治権のある、自主的な
ride-hailing タクシー等を呼ぶ
derail 脱線

White Actors Leaving Nonwhite Roles at ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy’

著者:Dave Itzkoff
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

For the Fox comedies “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” two of the most prominent and longest running animated series on television, announcements Friday outlined major shifts in the use of white actors to play characters of color on those shows.

Mike Henry, a “Family Guy” voice actor who is white, said in a tweet that he would no longer play the role of Cleveland Brown, a Black character who has appeared on that series since its debut in 1999.

“It’s been an honor to play Cleveland on ‘Family Guy’ for 20 years,” Henry wrote in his tweet. “I love this character, but persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”

Separately, the producers of “The Simpsons” said that the show, which recently completed its 31st season, would make even broader changes. “Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice nonwhite characters,” its producers said in a statement.

The announcements come amid a wider consideration of systemic racism in media and entertainment that has followed several police killings of Black Americans.

Earlier this week, the actresses Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell, both of whom are white, said that they would stop playing biracial characters on animated shows.

“The Simpsons,” which made its series debut in 1989, had been increasingly criticized in recent years for its depiction of the character Apu, an Indian immigrant played by a white actor, Hank Azaria.

Earlier this year, Azaria said he would no longer play Apu, having come to the understanding that the character perpetuated stereotypes that were hurtful to viewers of Indian descent.

“The Simpsons” has many other supporting Black characters whose voices are provided by white actors, including Homer Simpson’s workmate, Carl Carlson, (played by Azaria) and the Simpson family physician, Dr. Hibbert (played by Harry Shearer). It was not immediately clear how these characters would be handled going forward at the show.

The “Family Guy” roster also has other nonwhite characters played by white performers, like Tricia Takanawa, a Japanese-American TV news reporter played by Alex Borstein. The show did not immediately indicate what would happen to these characters and a press representative for “Family Guy” did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

step down 退任する、降板する
depiction 描写、叙述
perpetuate 永存させる、永続させる
stereotype 定型、典型
roster 名簿、登録簿

6/29(月)の放送

A ‘Cure for Heart Disease’? A Single Shot Succeeds in Monkeys

著者:Gina Kolata
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

In the first gene-editing experiment of its kind, scientists have disabled two genes in monkeys that raise the risk for heart disease. Humans carry the genes as well, and the experiment has raised hopes that a leading killer may one day be tamed.

“This could be the cure for heart disease,” said Dr. Michael Davidson, director of the Lipid Clinic at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.

But it will be years before human trials can begin, and gene-editing technology so far has a mixed tracked record. It is much too early to know whether the strategy will be safe and effective in humans; even the monkeys must be monitored for side effects or other treatment failures for some time to come.

The results were presented Saturday at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, this year held virtually with about 3,700 attendees around the world. The scientists are writing up their findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed or published.

The researchers set out to block two genes: PCSK9, which helps regulate levels of LDL cholesterol; and ANGPTL3, part of the system regulating triglyceride, a type of blood fat. Both genes are active in the liver, which is where cholesterol and triglycerides are produced. People who inherit mutations that destroyed the genes’ function do not get heart disease.

Researchers at Verve Therapeutics, led by Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, the chief executive, decided to edit the genes instead. The medicine they developed consists of two pieces of RNA — a gene editor and a tiny guide that directs the editor to a single sequence of 23 letters of human DNA among the genome’s 32.5 billion letters.

The RNA is shrouded in tiny lipid spheres to protect the medicine from being instantly degraded in the blood. The lipid spheres travel directly to the liver where they are ingested by liver cells. The contents of the spheres are released, and once the editor lands on its target, it changes a single letter of the sequence to another — like a pencil erasing one letter and writing in another.

tame 飼いならす
LDL cholesterol LDLコレストロール(悪玉)
  (LDL=Low Density Lipoprotein低比重リポタンパク質 
↔ HDL(=High Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol: HDLコレストロール(善玉)
mutation 突然変異
 *mutant 突然変異体(X-menなど)
RNA  リボ核酸
 (RNA= ribonucleic acid)
shrouded 包まれた、覆われた
lipid   脂質

Kanye West and Gap Strike 10-Year Deal for ‘Yeezy Gap’ Apparel Line

著者:Sapna Maheshwari
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The Gap brand, which has flailed in recent years as it struggled with an identity crisis, has a new idea for how to revive its fortunes: Kanye West.

The retailer is partnering with West and Yeezy, his fashion company, for a new clothing line called Yeezy Gap that will be introduced in the first half of 2021, the companies said Friday. Yeezy’s design studio, under West’s creative direction, plans to create “modern, elevated basics for men, women and kids at accessible price points.” West’s “design vision” will extend to how the line will be showcased in Gap’s stores and online.

Gap is making a far bigger bet on Yeezy and West — a celebrity, creative entrepreneur, rapper and designer — than a typical designer collaboration. They agreed to a 10-year deal starting this month, with the option to renew after five years, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

At the five-year point, Gap is hoping Yeezy Gap will be generating $1 billion in annual sales. For context, Gap’s brand brought in $4.6 billion in global revenue last year.

Gap did not respond to a request for comment on the terms of the deal.

It comes as Gap Inc., which also owns Old Navy and Banana Republic, aims to refocus its namesake brand, which has seen sales plummet in the past few years.

West, who worked at a Gap in his teens, has expressed deep interest in the brand for years, declaring in a 2015 interview that he would “like to be the Steve Jobs of the Gap” and once dreamed of being its head creative director.

Yeezy merchandise on Farfetch recently included a $925 men’s graphic cardigan and a $241 women’s thermal sweater. At Gap, jeans and tops often cost less than $50 and are regularly discounted.

Gap will pay royalties and potential equity to Yeezy, which is solely owned by West, based on sales performance.

flail もがく, 悪戦苦闘する 
fortunes (複数形) 命運
(one’s) namesake (特により有名な) 同名の物、人
plummet 急に下落する 

6/30(火)の放送

Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops

著者:Eric Schmitt, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter. They believed at least one U.S. troop death was the result of the bounties, two of the officials said.

The crucial information that led the spies and commandos to focus on the bounties included the recovery of a large amount of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019, another official has said.

Armed with this information, military and intelligence officials have been reviewing U.S. and other coalition combat casualties over the past 18 months to determine whether any were victims of the plot. Four Americans were killed in combat in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked U.S. positions since a February agreement to end the long-running war in Afghanistan.

The details added to the picture of the classified intelligence assessment, which The New York Times reported Friday has been under discussion inside the Trump administration since at least March, and emerged as the White House confronted a growing chorus of criticism Sunday over its apparent failure to authorize a response to Russia.

Trump defended himself by denying the Times report that he had been briefed on the intelligence, expanding on a similar White House rebuttal a day earlier. But leading congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, according to officials, the administration has yet to authorize.

Appearing on the ABC program “This Week,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had not been briefed on the intelligence assessment and had asked for an immediate report to Congress. She accused Trump of wanting “to ignore” any charges against Russia.

“Russia has never gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they are taking it out on us, our troops,” she said of the Soviet Union’s bloody war there in the 1980s. “This is totally outrageous. You would think that the minute the president heard of it, he would want to know more instead of denying that he knew anything.”

intelligence 諜報機関、情報
  CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)
superiors 上官、上役 
bounties 懸賞金
  bounty hunter(懸賞金稼ぎ)
briefed 手短に必要な情報を与える [brief(短い)の動詞化]
  ブリーフ(短い下着)、ブリーフィング(要約を伝える会議)
Interrogations 尋問
  [語源:inter(あいだ)+rogate(質問する)→尋問する]
coalition 連合、連立
  three-party coalition 三党連立
intelligence assessment 諜報活動
  assessment(分析、査定)
rebuttal 反証(の提出)
  [語源:re(後ろに)+but(打つ)→反証する]

François Fillon, Ex-Presidential Hopeful in France, Is Convicted of Embezzlement

著者:Aurelien Breeden
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

PARIS — François Fillon, a former French prime minister, was found guilty Monday of embezzling public funds and sentenced to prison time in a scandal involving a no-show job for his wife that crippled his front-runner status in the 2017 presidential race.

Fillon, 66, who was prime minister from 2007 to 2012, was accused mainly of paying his wife hundreds of thousands of euros from the public payroll for little or no work as his aide when he served as a representative in the lower house of the French Parliament.

The case against Fillon threw the election into turmoil and opened a path to victory for President Emmanuel Macron, who at the time was a centrist outsider with little political experience.

Fillon was sentenced by a court in Paris to a five-year prison term, with three years suspended, and was ordered to pay a fine of 375,000 euros, or nearly $423,000. The court also barred him from holding public office for 10 years. Fillon’s wife, Penelope Fillon, 64, was found guilty of complicity and received a three-year suspended prison term and a fine of 375,000 euros.

Marc Joulaud, who replaced François Fillon as the representative for the rural Sarthe region of northwestern France from 2002 to 2005 and who also hired Penelope Fillon as an aide, was found guilty and sentenced to a three-year suspended prison term and a fine of 20,000 euros.

The court also ordered the Fillons and Joulaud to reimburse more than 1 million euros in total to the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament.

The case against François Fillon tapped into broader resentment of France’s elite political class, its cozy financial arrangements and its reluctance to enact strict ethical standards. Hiring close family members as parliamentary aides was not illegal at the time — and Fillon was not the only one to do so — but the practice was banned later in 2017.

Nathalie Gavarino, the presiding judge in the case, said as she read the court’s ruling that Fillon had let his “personal interest” in enriching himself prevail over the “common good.”

Lawyers for the couple said they planned to appeal the verdict, meaning the sentences and penalties will not go into effect immediately.

Embezzlement 横領
no-show job 職場に現れなくてもいい職
  no-show passenger(現れない搭乗者)
crippled ぶち壊した
turmoil 騒動、騒乱
barred 禁じる、閉め出す ※6/16, 24の復習です!
complicity 共犯
  [親戚:accomplice(共犯者)]
reimburse 弁済、弁償
  [語源:re(再び)+im(中に)+burse(財布の)]
  [親戚:purse(財布)]
tapped into 引き出した
  [tap(水道管)を指して中から液体を出すイメージ]
  *メイプルシロップのイメージ(Ending参照)
resentment 憤り
  [語源:re(再び)+sent(感じる)→思い出して怒る]
  [親戚:sense(感じる), sentiment(感傷)]
prevail 優勢する、勝る
  [語源:pre(前に)+vail(強くなる)→より強くなる]
  [親戚:valiant(勇敢な)]

7/1(水)の放送

Remdesivir, the First Coronavirus Drug, Gets a Price Tag

著者:Gina Kolata
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the coronavirus, will be distributed under an unusual agreement with the federal government that establishes nonnegotiable prices and prioritizes American patients, health officials announced Monday.

The arrangement may serve as a template for distribution of new treatments and vaccines as the pandemic swells, said Ernst Berndt, a retired health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

Remdesivir will be sold for $520 per vial, or $3,120 per treatment course, to hospitals for treatment of patients with private insurance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services and Gilead Sciences, the drug’s manufacturer.

The price will be set at $390 per vial, or $2,340 per treatment course, for patients on government-sponsored insurance and for those in other countries with national health care systems.

The drug will be sold only in the United States through September, meaning U.S. patients will receive almost the entirety of Gilead’s output, more than 500,000 treatment courses.

HHS and state health departments have been allocating the drug to hospitals nationwide based on need. After September, they will no longer have a role in determining where the drug is sent.

“This is a U.S.-first policy,” said Rena Conti, a health care economist at Boston University. “Access is guaranteed to the U.S., but worldwide demand could potentially outstrip supplies.”

“I am unaware of any other policy except perhaps in bioterrorism drugs where there might be country-specific supplies,” she added.

Remdesivir is so far the only treatment shown to speed recovery time in severely ill coronavirus patients. A large clinical trial, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, found that the drug modestly shortened recovery time by four days, on average, but did not reduce fatalities.

The drug’s eventual cost has always been uncertain. “There is no playbook for how to price a new medicine in a pandemic,” Daniel O’Day, chief executive of Gilead, said in a statement.

The new pricing is not exorbitant, many experts said. Other promising drugs now in late-stage testing are already on the market for other purposes, Conti noted, and cost several times more than remdesivir.

price tag 値札
distribute 分配・配布
swell 拡大する、増加する
vial 小瓶
entirety 全て
modestly 多少の
fatalities 死亡者数
playbook 脚本
exorbitant 法外な、とんでもない

India Bans Nearly 60 Chinese Apps, Including TikTok

著者:Maria Abi-Habib
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

India’s government banned nearly 60 Chinese mobile apps on Monday, including TikTok, citing national security concerns, after a deadly clash between their militaries this month raised tensions between the two countries to the highest level in decades.

The fighting two weeks ago, along the disputed border between the world’s two most populous countries, left 20 Indian soldiers dead and an unknown number of Chinese casualties.

While India has vowed to retaliate, it lags far behind China in military and economic power, leaving it with few options. But Chinese telecommunication and social networking companies have long eyed India’s giant market and its enormous potential. About 50% of India’s 1.3 billion citizens are online.

In addition to TikTok, the popular video-sharing social networking platform, the banned apps include WeChat, UC Browser, Shareit and Baidu Map.

Analysts say up to a third of TikTok’s global users are based in India.

The Chinese apps were “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India,” India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a statement Monday.

“The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defense of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the statement added.

The Chinese government did not immediately comment on the move, which was announced late at night in Beijing, nor did TikTok.

This month’s border brawl was the worst violence between the two nuclear-armed countries in more than 50 years. India blamed China for provoking the clash by intruding into territory it claims high in the Himalayan mountain range. China said the incident happened on its side of the border, and that Indian troops intruded.

The situation remains tense, with troop buildups on both sides of the border.

Cybersecurity analysts have warned in the past about the risks Chinese apps and telecom companies may pose, citing the country’s National Intelligence Law. The law holds Chinese companies legally responsible for providing access, cooperation or support for Chinese intelligence gathering.

clash 衝突、ぶつかる
tensions 緊張
populous 人口の多い
casualties 犠牲者、死傷者
vowed 誓った、誓約した
retaliate 報復する、仕返しする
surreptitiously 内密に、こっそり
provoke 怒らせる、挑発する
intrude 侵入する

7/2(木)の放送

New Security Law Gives China Sweeping Powers Over Hong Kong

著者:Chris Buckley, Keith Bradsher and Tiffany May
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

China unveiled a contentious new law for Hong Kong late Tuesday that grants authorities sweeping powers to crack down on opposition to Beijing at home and abroad with heavy prison sentences for vaguely defined political crimes.

The law’s swift approval in Beijing signaled the urgency that the Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, has given to expanding his control over Hong Kong to quash pro-democracy protests that evolved last year into an increasingly confrontational challenge to Chinese rule.

The Hong Kong government issued the text of the legislation at 11 p.m. Tuesday, after weeks of unusual secrecy surrounding the drafting of the law in Beijing. The law took effect immediately, even though the public was seeing it in full for the first time.

The text provided a far-reaching blueprint for authorities and courts to suppress the city’s protest movement and for China’s national security apparatus to pervade many layers of Hong Kong’s society.

Ambiguously worded offenses of separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries carry maximum penalties of life imprisonment. Inducing residents to hate the government in Beijing or Hong Kong is defined as a serious crime.

A new Committee for Safeguarding National Security will be authorized to operate in total secrecy and be shielded from legal challenges. Its officials will be given the task of scrutinizing schools, corporations, nongovernmental organizations, news companies, and foreigners living in Hong Kong and abroad.

“It’s meant to suppress and oppress, and to frighten and intimidate Hong Kongers,” Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy lawmaker, said. “And they just might succeed in that.”

At least two groups that have called for Hong Kong to become an independent state said they would stop operating in the city. Such groups remain in the minority in Hong Kong but have drawn government scrutiny. Activists are also worried that the law could target those who peacefully call for true autonomy for the territory, as opposed to independence.

Four senior members of Demosisto, a political organization in Hong Kong that has drawn disaffected young people, announced that they were quitting the group. They included Joshua Wong, a leader of the 2014 pro-democracy demonstrations known as the Umbrella Movement. The group later said it would disband.

unveil 公にする、明らかにする
grant 与える
crack down on 厳しく取り締まる
quash 鎮圧する
pervade 浸透する、一面に広がる
intimidate 脅迫する、おびえさせる

Minor League Baseball Season Is Canceled for the First Time

著者:James Wagner
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The announcement that 160 minor league baseball teams and tens of thousands of workers and players had long been expecting finally arrived Tuesday afternoon: The 2020 minor league baseball season will not happen.

It is the first time in the history of Minor League Baseball, which was founded in 1901, that a season has been canceled.

“These are unprecedented times for our country and our organization, as this is the first time in our history that we’ve had a summer without Minor League Baseball played,” Pat O’Conner, MiLB’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “While this is a sad day for many, this announcement removes the uncertainty surrounding the 2020 season and allows our teams to begin planning for an exciting 2021 season.”

Technically, the season’s fate was sealed when Major League Baseball informed MiLB that it would not be providing the players needed for the season because of the national emergency brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The MiLB Board of Trustees met earlier on Tuesday to finalize what had been apparent for months.

Many of the roughly 8,000 minor league players — those who are not part of their affiliated MLB team’s 60-man player pool for the 2020 season — will miss an entire year of their careers. Most major league teams have committed to paying their minor league players, many of whom earn less than $15,000 per season, $400 a week beyond June 30.

Playing a 2020 season was always a more daunting undertaking for Minor League Baseball than for MLB. Unlike franchises in the majors, minor league teams rely heavily on revenue from people in the stands — tickets, beer and hot dog sales and sponsorships tied to attendance.

Because they do not have widespread TV or streaming deals, it would not be feasible for MiLB to play games in empty stadiums, as MLB plans to do beginning July 23. Another complicating factor: Minor League Baseball plays in smaller towns across the country and would have had to negotiate many more state and local reopening guidelines.

unprecedented 前例のない、空前の
affiliated 加盟した、付属の、支部の
daunting 人の気力をくじく、非常に困難な
franchise スポーツチーム
feasible 実行可能な

7/3(金)の放送

Federal Officials Turn to a New Testing Strategy as Infections Surge

著者:Apoorva Mandavilli
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The Trump administration plans to adopt a decades-old testing strategy that will vastly increase the number of coronavirus tests performed in the United States and permit widespread tracking of the virus as it surges across the country.

The method, called pooled testing, signals a paradigm shift. Instead of carefully rationing tests to only those with symptoms, pooled testing would enable frequent surveillance of asymptomatic people. Mass identification of coronavirus infections could hasten the reopening of schools, offices and factories.

“We’re in intensive discussions about how we’re going to do it,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said. “We hope to get this off the ground as soon as possible.”

In a call with reporters Wednesday, Adm. Brett Giroir, deputy secretary of health and human services, said he expected the program to be up and running by the end of the summer.

Here’s how the technique works: A university, for example, takes samples from every one of its thousands of students by nasal swab, or perhaps saliva. Setting aside part of each individual’s sample, the lab combines the rest into a batch holding five to 10 samples each.

The pooled sample is tested for coronavirus infection. Barring an unexpected outbreak, just 1% or 2% of the students are likely to be infected.

But if a pool yields a positive result, the lab would retest the reserved parts of each individual sample that went into the pool, pinpointing the infected student.

By testing large numbers of people at a fraction of the cost, time and necessary ingredients, pooled surveillance could be widely adopted by workplaces, religious organizations, and schools and universities seeking to reopen.

Pooled surveillance has its limitations. The savings in time and expense thin out when the number of infected people rises above 10 per 100. Because so many pools then are likely to yield positive results, laboratories wind up testing huge numbers of individual samples.

The Food and Drug Administration has released guidelines for developers to adapt their tests to pooled samples. The agency is also asking manufacturers to permit labs to use the tests without being explicitly authorized by the FDA to do so.

surge     急増/(波のように)沸き立つ
pooled    集めた/溜まった
paradigm shift パラダイムシフト (時代や社会に
 おいて、「常識」と思われるものが革命的に転換すること)
nasal swab  鼻腔内綿棒  nasal = 鼻の swab = 綿棒
saliva    唾液/つば

College Democrats, Citing Racism, Force Change in Leadership

著者:Maggie Astor
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The president of the College Democrats of America resigned on Wednesday, and members of the executive board pledged not to run for reelection, after the board’s only Black member said he had experienced racism and classism from the organization’s leadership.

The Black board member, Matthew Nowling, who had been the group’s communications director, will serve as interim president until a new election is held.

In an open letter published Tuesday, 41 of the College Democrats’ 47 federations — representing 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico — had expressed solidarity with Nowling and said that if their demands were not met within two days, they would “cut all ties with the organization and denounce it in its current form.”

They called, among other things, for the immediate resignation of the president, Mikaela Guido; commitments from every board member that they would not run for reelection or accept any future leadership position within the College Democrats; and amendments to the organization’s governing documents. The executive board discussed the situation late into Tuesday night and agreed to all of the demands.

Just before Guido stepped down Wednesday afternoon, she appointed Nowling as vice president — meaning he would become interim president when she resigned — and he accepted. He called the events of the past few days “encouraging steps towards creating a more inclusive and accountable environment.”

Members said they saw this moment as the same sort of reckoning over racism that is taking place throughout the Democratic Party, and in society at large.

“We have a choice to make about what type of organization we want to be moving forward,” Michael Cerulli, president of the Connecticut College Democrats, said on Tuesday evening. “Are we going to be an organization that is intentionally inclusive, or are we going to be an organization that sticks to the old ways of doing things?”

The College Democrats, the official student branch of the Democratic Party, is the main vehicle for young people — a crucial constituency for Democratic candidates — to get involved in the party’s work.

pledged    誓った
classism    階級差別
interim     暫定的な/しばらく
cut(all)ties  (完全に)関係を断ち切る
constituency  選挙区

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