Voicy Journal

Voicy News Brief with articles from The New York Times ニュース原稿 8/8-8/14

Voicy News Brief with articles from The New York Times ニュース原稿 8/8-8/14

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。

8/8(土)の放送

Trump Reinstates Tariff on Canadian Aluminum

著者:Ana Swanson and Ian Austen
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company


WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was reimposing a 10% tariff on Canadian aluminum to help struggling American producers, a step that is likely to incite retaliation and worsen ties with Canada just one month after the countries’ new trade deal went into effect.

Speaking at a Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio, Trump said that he had signed a proclamation earlier Thursday that would reimpose the levy on Canada, accusing the country of “taking advantage of us as usual.”

“To be a strong nation, America must be a manufacturing nation and not be led by a bunch of fools,” the president said. “That means protecting our national industrial base.”

Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico and the European Union in early 2018, prompting those countries to respond with their own tariffs on American goods. The levies on imports from Canada and Mexico were not lifted until the following year, when the countries reached an agreement as part of the negotiations toward a new North American trade deal.

But the United States retained the right to reinstate them if it observed a spike in metal imports, which Trump cited Thursday.

“My administration agreed to lift those tariffs in return for a promise from the Canadian government that its aluminum industry would not flood our country with exports and kill all our aluminum jobs, which is exactly what they did,” Trump said Thursday. “Canadian aluminum producers have broken that commitment.”

On Thursday evening, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s response via Twitter. “In response to the American tariffs announced today, Canada will impose countermeasures that will include dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs,” he wrote. “We will always stand up for our aluminum workers. We did so in 2018 and we will stand up for them again now.”

The deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, issued a pointed statement, as well. “In the time of a global pandemic and an economic crisis,” Freeland said, “the last thing Canadian and American workers need is new tariffs that will raise costs for manufacturers and consumers, impede the free flow of trade, and hurt provincial and state economies.”

She also rejected Trump’s national security justification for the measure. “Canadian aluminum strengthens U.S. national security and has done so for decades through unparalleled cooperation between our two countries,” she said in the statement.

reinstate 〜を元に戻す
reimpose (負担や義務などを)新たに(再び)課する
incite 煽り立てる、扇動する
proclamation 宣言、声明
levy 微税、課税
countermeasure 対抗策
impede (〜を)妨げる、邪魔をする

NBCUniversal Pushes Out Chair of NBC Entertainment

著者:Edmund Lee
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company


NBCUniversal, the media giant owned by cable operator Comcast, has pushed out the leader of its network entertainment group amid a pending investigation into claims of workplace harassment.

The company said Thursday that Paul Telegdy, chair of NBC Entertainment, would be leaving the company. Telegdy, a longtime television executive, was about to be investigated by outside counsel hired by NBCUniversal after accusations from several Hollywood stars, including actress Gabrielle Union, that he fostered a toxic work environment.

Union was a judge on the NBC prime-time hit “America’s Got Talent.” She was ousted from the show in 2019 after she alleged instances of racist and otherwise offensive behavior on the set. In June, Union filed a harassment complaint with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing against NBCUniversal and the show’s producers.

Telegdy, a former BBC executive, was made sole chair of NBC Entertainment in October after a series of executive departures, putting him in charge of NBC’s prime-time lineup. Earlier, he was responsible for the network’s reality programming and oversaw franchises like “The Voice” and “American Ninja Warrior,” in addition to “America’s Got Talent.”

Telegdy’s departure comes as Hollywood and the broader media industry has started to face a reckoning over entrenched racism and gender discrimination on studio lots and in network boardrooms. The leadership of NBCUniversal and Comcast is composed mostly of white men, as at many other media conglomerates.

After Union lodged complaints against the network, Telegdy warned her agent that she “should be careful of who she called racist,” according to her filing with the state agency. The Hollywood Reporter chronicled several instances of Telegdy’s alleged behavior in a July 31 article that prompted NBCUniversal to conduct its investigation.

A spokesman for NBCUniversal said that “more information about the investigation will be forthcoming.”

Separately, the company announced Thursday a sweeping change to its leadership ranks across its NBC properties and cable networks.

The company consolidated its various networks by breaking down each unit. Each channel will no longer be led by individual executives and will now be overseen by Frances Berwick, who will be responsible for the business of NBC Entertainment and the cable entertainment networks, including NBC broadcast, Oxygen, USA and Syfy. Berwick had previously led the company’s lifestyle division, a group that included E! and Bravo.

be ousted from 〜除名される、追放される
reckoning 報い、罰
entrench 定着した、確立された(7/7参照)
conglomerate 集合体、複合企業
lodge (苦情などを)申し立てる
consolidate 集約する、確立する

8/9(日)の放送

Facebook Gaming Finally Clears Hurdle, Arriving in App Store

著者:Seth Schiesel
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company


For six months, Facebook tried to get Apple to approve its new Facebook Gaming app so it could be available in Apple’s App Store. Each time, Apple said no.

This week, Facebook said it had acceded to Apple’s demands to change its Gaming app so that it could be distributed to iPhone and iPad users starting Friday. To comply with Apple’s rules, which prohibit apps if their “main purpose” is distributing software such as games, the social network said it had entirely removed playable games from its new app.

Facebook said Apple had essentially used its power over the App Store to force its hand, turning the Gaming app into an inferior experience for iPhone and iPad owners. In addition to playable games, the original version of the app allows users to watch and create live gameplay streams and participate in gaming communities — functions that will still operate in the Apple version.

The frustration with Apple extends to Facebook’s highest echelons. In a statement, Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, said, “Unfortunately, we had to remove gameplay functionality entirely in order to get Apple’s approval on the stand-alone Facebook Gaming app.” She added that Facebook would continue to build communities for those who played games on Facebook, “whether Apple allows it in a stand-alone app or not.”

Games are the largest source of revenue for Apple on the App Store, and many tech executives have concluded that Apple blocks game services that could compete with its own products and sales.

While Facebook runs the world’s largest social network and owns many popular apps such as Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, Apple controls their distribution through its App Store. That makes Facebook dependent on Apple to reach many of its users.

Facebook announced its Gaming app in April, saying people could use it to watch livestreams of games and play simple games like Words With Friends and Thug Life. Google’s Play store for Android devices approved it that month.

But Apple rejected at least five versions of Facebook Gaming this year.

On Friday, when Facebook releases the app for iPhone and iPad users, it also intends to distribute a cheeky image of the “Play” aspect of the app crossed out in red, with an asterisk reading, “Edited on iPhone.”

Hurdle 障害物、ハードル
Accede 同意する、応じる
Inferior 下級の、劣った
Echelons 梯(てい)形陣
Stand-alone 独立した
Cheeky 生意気な、ずうずうしい

Air India Jet With More Than 180 Passengers Skids and Cracks in Half

著者:Jeffrey Gettleman
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

NEW DELHI — An Indian jetliner trying to land during a torrential downpour in southern India on Friday night skidded off a slick runway, crashed into a wall, tumbled into a valley and split in half, killing at least 11 people and injuring scores.

The Air India Express Boeing 737 was a special repatriation flight carrying more than 180 passengers from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Kozhikode, a city along India’s southwestern coast in Kerala state. Many aboard were Indians who had been stranded in the Persian Gulf during the coronavirus pandemic and had been waiting for months to return home.

Indian media showed injured passengers lying on their backs in the hallways of a hospital. According to news reports, as many as 120 people had been injured.

Air India Express said in a bulletin posted on its Twitter account that 17 people were killed, including the two pilots. The captain of the flight was described by Indian news media as a decorated former military officer who had served as a test pilot for the Indian Air Force.

All week in Kerala the monsoon rains have been pouring down. At least 15 people were killed by a landslide in the state earlier Friday.

“There is no doubt that extreme weather conditions contributed to this,” Shashi Tharoor, a prominent member of Parliament from Kerala, said in a televised interview.

Aviation experts said it was hard to slow a plane on a wet and slick runway. According to a statement by Air India Express, the plane “overshot” the runway, which was on a flat hilltop, with deep gorges on either side.

Indian media showed images of the jetliner’s fuselage cracked in half, but there appeared to be no fire. The plane’s nose had been badly smashed, and wet chunks of debris lay scattered over a grassy field.

Air India Express said there were 184 passengers, including 10 infants, aboard, along with four cabin crew members and two pilots.

The plane skidded off the runway around 7:40 p.m. Huge crowds surrounded the wreckage as injured passengers were pulled out, their eyes dazed, their faces wet. The rain continued to pelt down.

“Considering the severity of the accident, the loss of life was limited,” M.B. Rajesh, a former member of Parliament from Kerala, told the NDTV news channel. “That is a relief.”

Torrential 急流のような、急流の作用で生じた
Downpour どしゃぶり
Skid スリップ
Slick つるつる滑る
Repatriation 本国送還
Landslide 土砂崩れ
Overshoot 通り越す
Fuselage 飛行機の胴体
Debris 破片、瓦礫
Pelt 投げつける、浴びせかける

8/10(月)の放送

Hong Kong Officials Condemn and Mock Trump Administration Sanctions

著者:Paul Mozur
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

Hong Kong and Chinese officials by turns condemned and mocked a Friday move by the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, and 10 other senior officials for their roles in a prolonged crackdown on political dissent in the city.

The Hong Kong government and several of the officials targeted dismissed the impact of the penalties while also condemning them as “blatant and barbaric interference” in China’s domestic political situation. The head of China’s liaison office to Hong Kong, Luo Huining, said on Chinese media that the U.S.’ efforts were a waste because he had no holdings in the United States, adding that he could send $100 to President Donald Trump to give him something to freeze.

The condemnations and dismissals come as relations between the United States and China have deteriorated to a historical low point, and follow on the heels of a move on Thursday by the Trump administration to penalize two of the most successful apps to come out of China, TikTok and WeChat. Analysts say there is little hope relations will improve in the short term, with the U.S. election looming and many Trump administration officials determined to reset the relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

The new sanctions are the first against officials in Hong Kong and mainland China over the city’s harsh suppression of pro-democracy protests, and are yet another indication that the United States has begun to treat Hong Kong as simply another Chinese city. Last month, Trump also signed an executive order punishing China for its crackdown on Hong Kong, after Beijing imposed a national security law on the city in June that granted sweeping powers to security agencies and penalized some forms of political speech.

On Friday Treasury Department officials said that Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, was being penalized because she was “directly responsible” for enacting policies from Beijing to crush dissent in the city. Addressing the prospect of sanctions last month, Lam said she would laugh off any penalties and said she had no assets in the U.S.

In a sarcastic response posted on Facebook on Saturday, Lam questioned why, in publishing her personal details, the United States had gotten her address wrong, adding that she had no desire to return to the United States.

dissent 意見の相違、反対
crackdown (7/27 復習) 取り締まり
blatant 露骨な
barbaric 野蛮な
liaison 連絡(音声:リエゾン)
holdings 所有財産
on the heels of …のすぐ後に続いて、引き続き
executive order 大統領令
sarcastic 皮肉な

Job Growth Slowed in July, Signaling a Loss of Economic Momentum

著者:Nelson D. Schwartz and Gillian Friedman
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

The U.S. economy slowed in July as the pace of hiring eased from the robust rate of the previous two months, a victim of waning momentum and the resurgence of the coronavirus in many parts of the country.

Employers added 1.8 million jobs, well below the 4.8 million jump in payrolls in June, the Labor Department reported, after virus-related restrictions caused some businesses to close for a second time. The unemployment rate fell to 10.2%.

Hours after the report underscored the slowing recovery, talks between administration officials and congressional Democrats on how to pump more aid into the economy were on the verge of collapse. On Friday night, President Donald Trump threatened to bypass Congress and act on his own — though his power to do so was unclear.

Prominent among the unresolved issues were a revival of the government’s $600-a-week supplement to unemployment aid, a lifeline for millions of jobless workers until it expired at the end of last month, and a possible extension of an eviction moratorium covering many of the nation’s tenants.

Even with July’s gains, fewer than half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April have been restored. And economists warn that the rest of the lost ground will be a challenge to regain.

“The easy hiring that was done in May and June has been exhausted,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. “With many companies not running at full capacity, it becomes harder to get that incremental worker back in.”

Overall, the job market reflects the crosswinds buffeting the economy less than 100 days before the presidential election. Retailers continue to file for bankruptcy, while airlines and hotels operate at a small fraction of capacity. Some companies are calling back laid-off employees, even as other employers continue to shed workers.

The longer the crisis goes on, the greater the toll for businesses, especially smaller ones.

“We’re going to start to see a lot of small businesses fall by the wayside, a lot of people who are unemployed become chronically unemployed,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvard University economist who has written extensively on financial and economic crises. “We’re in very, very dangerous territory.”

robust (経済など) 健全な
wane 弱くなる、衰える
underscore 強調する、力説する
bypass 迂回する
eviction 追いたて
lost ground 失われたもの
incremental ますます増加する
crosswind 横風
buffet (動) 激しく打つ、(風などが)激しく揺さぶる
chronically 慢性的に

8/11(火)の放送

This Company Boasted to Trump About Its COVID-19 Vaccine. Experts Are Skeptical.

著者:David Gelles and Heather Murphy
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

As the deadly new virus spread globally, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, a small biotech company in Pennsylvania, rushed to develop a vaccine. After announcing promising early results, Inovio’s stock soared more than 1,000%.

That was 2009, when H1N1, better known as swine flu, was stoking fears of a devastating pandemic. In the years since, Inovio has announced encouraging news about its work on vaccines. The upbeat declarations have caused the company’s stock price to leap, enriching investors and senior executives.

There’s only one catch: Inovio has never actually brought a vaccine to market.

Now, with a new pandemic raging, Inovio is working on a new vaccine: for the novel coronavirus. A flurry of positive news releases about its funding and preliminary results have sent Inovio’s shares up by as much as 963%.

But some scientists and financial analysts question the viability of Inovio’s technology. While there are some early signs of promise with the company’s vaccine, Inovio has released only bare-bones data from the first phase of clinical trials.

Shareholders have sued Inovio, claiming it has exaggerated its progress on a coronavirus vaccine to inflate its stock price.

Developing vaccines is hard. The fact that a company like Inovio has never brought a vaccine to market is not necessarily an indictment of its underlying approach to creating vaccines.

Inovio’s specialty is attempting to develop DNA-based vaccines, which use a virus’s own genes to provoke an immune response. But the company’s decade of attempts have not borne fruit. In fact, no DNA-based vaccine has ever made it to market.

Still, Inovio’s stock market value has gone from less than $500 million at the start of the year to more than $3 billion today.

Some investors, though, have grown skeptical.

On March 9, Andrew Left of Citron Capital, which is shorting Inovio’s stock and stands to profit if it declines, began publicly questioning Inovio’s approach to devising a coronavirus vaccine and accusing it of engaging in “serial stock promotion.” Days later, shareholders sued Inovio in federal court in Pennsylvania. In April, another group of shareholders filed a separate suit in the same court.

In April, Inovio began trials of its potential vaccine, testing it on 36 people. Inovio said its vaccine generated an immune response, but the company did not disclose any data about the magnitude of that response. Scientists said that made it impossible to gauge whether the vaccine would protect anyone.

Skeptical 懐疑的
 [語源:skeptic(古代ギリシヤの懐疑論者)
promising 将来有望な
 ☝️成功を約束するような
stoking 火を焚く、燃料をくべる
 [語源:stoke(火に燃料をくべたりかき混ぜる)]
 [親戚:stick(v. 刺す、留める)]
upbeat 楽天的な
viability 実行可能性
 [語源:vie(生命)+able(〜できる)→生存可能]
bare-bones 骨子、要点
 ☝️bare(剥き出しの)+bone(骨)→骨だけ
indictment 告発(7/23) 
provoke 引き起こす、挑発する
 [語源:pro(前に)+voke(呼ぶ)→挑戦する]
borne fruit 実る
 ☝️bear(生み出す)+fruit(実)→実る
shorting (v.) ショートしている
 ☝️株をショ―トしていると、値が下がると設けられる
gauge (v.) 評価する、測定する
 ☝️ゲ―ジ(目盛り)が満タンになるのゲージの動詞形

Salmonella Cases Linked to Onions Increase to Nearly 900

著者:Christina Morales
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

A salmonella outbreak linked to onions has expanded to 43 states and Canada, prompting a recall from a producer in California and various grocery chains, health officials said.

As of Sunday, there had been 640 reported salmonella cases, including 85 hospitalizations, tied to the outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration said. Many of the reported cases were in the Western states of Utah (90); Oregon (85); California (76); and Montana (52). There have also been 41 cases reported in Illinois.

The Public Health Agency of Canada reported 239 cases with 29 hospitalizations as of Friday. No deaths have been reported in Canada or the United States.

The FDA identified the likely source of the outbreak as red onions from Thomson International, a produce supplier in Bakersfield, California. Last week, the producer recalled red, yellow, white and sweet onions shipped since May 1 because of the risk of contamination. The FDA has started an investigation at the company.

The onions were distributed to wholesalers, restaurants and retail stores across the country and in Canada, Thomson said last week. The producer declined to comment on Sunday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that consumers throw away any onions or foods made with onions supplied by Thomson, or any related products that have been recalled. Health experts say to throw away onions or products containing them if consumers are unsure of who supplied the onions.

The illness, named salmonellosis, can persist for four to seven days, the CDC said. Children, older adults and people with weaker immune systems are most at risk of developing severe illness.

Symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps. Those who are severely ill may also experience a high fever, headaches, a rash or bloody stool.

It is likely that a substantial number of cases will be reported over the next few weeks because of the lag between when a person eats onions and gets sick, and when that person is tested and has an agency report the illness, said Martin Wiedmann, a food safety professor at Cornell University.

Thomson’s onions were distributed in mesh sacks and cartons under the names TII Premium, El Competitor, Hartley, Onions 52, Imperial Fresh, Utah Onions and Food Lion, the producer said. The FDA said the onions were also distributed under the names Thomson Premium, TLC Thomson International, Tender Loving Care, Majestic and Kroger.

prompting 駆り立てて〜させる (8/5の復習)
 [語源:pro(前に)+mere(運ぶ)]
hospitalizations 入院
 ☝️hospital(病院)+ize(〜化する)+tion(名詞化)
produce 農産物
 ☝️アクセントはPRO-duce (動詞;「生産する」と逆)
 ☝️↔︎工業生産物はproduct
wholesalers 卸売業者
 [語源:whole(全体、たくさん)+sale(売る)]
retail 小売り
 [語源:re(後に)+tail(切る)→細かく切る]
 [親戚:tailor(仕立て屋)]
persist 持続する (7/22の復習)
 [語源:per(前に向かって)+sist(立つ)]
 [親戚:in(一点に)sist(立つ)→主張する]
diarrhea 下痢(8/3かおりさんの復習)
cramps 痙攣(8/3かおりさんの復習)
 ☝️足をつる、などもget a cramp
substantial 相当な
 ☝️substance(物質、実態)となるほどの
sacks 大きな袋
 ☝️sack (v. クビにする)→荷物をまとめた袋を渡す

8/12(水)の放送

Chicago Police Arrest More Than 100 People After Looting Batters Downtown

著者:Julie Bosman, Christine Hauser and Johnny Diaz
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

CHICAGO — All summer, demonstrators have marched through Chicago to protest police misconduct. In many neighborhoods, gun violence has been unrelenting, soaring to levels not seen in decades. The coronavirus pandemic is resurging, now sickening hundreds of people each day.

Then on Monday, hundreds of people, spurred by a police shooting and by calls on social media to take action in the gleaming heart of the city, converged overnight on the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s most famous shopping district. They broke windows, looted stores and clashed with police, a chaotic and confusing scene that prompted city officials to briefly raise bridges downtown and halt nearby public transit to stem the unrest. Two people were shot and at least 13 police officers were injured.

The events instantly played into the broader political dynamics of this season, in which President Donald Trump has regularly portrayed Chicago as a poorly governed hotbed of violent crime. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, expressed fury over the violence and ordered limited access to downtown starting Monday evening.

But with a debate still fresh over federal agents sent to Portland, Oregon, Lightfoot made it clear that she did not want military troops brought in, despite a call for help from the National Guard from at least one Republican leader in the Illinois House.

“No, we do not need federal troops in Chicago, period, full stop,” Lightfoot said. She drew a distinction between the unrest overnight and what she described as a “righteous uprising” after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody in May.

“We are waking up in shock this morning,” Lightfoot said at a news conference. “What occurred downtown and in surrounding communities was abject criminal behavior, pure and simple.”

More than 400 officers responded to the unrest downtown and arrested more than 100 people on charges of disorderly conduct, looting and battery against the police.

A special team of investigators was looking through surveillance video to try to arrest more people who had taken part in the looting.

City officials imposed new restrictions on the downtown area that would go into effect on Monday evening, keeping access mostly limited to residents, employees and people with essential business in the area.

looting 略奪
unrelenting 弱まることのない
converge 合流する、集結する
unrest 混乱、騒動
fury 激しい怒り
abject 卑劣な
take part in 〜に参加する、〜に加わる

CEOs Pledge to Hire 100,000 Low-Income and Minority New Yorkers

著者:David Gelles
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK — A coalition of 27 major companies including Mastercard, Goldman Sachs and Verizon has pledged to hire 100,000 low-income and Black, Latino and Asian workers in New York City over the next 10 years, part of a broader push by corporate America to expand economic opportunities to marginalized communities.

The companies are funding the creation of a nonprofit organization, the New York Jobs CEO Council, which they say will work with universities, the city government and other nonprofit groups to prepare a new generation of New Yorkers for high-paying jobs at some of the country’s biggest companies.

Details are scant, but the initiative has attracted the support of many of the most powerful chief executives in the country, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Google.

“We started with the CEOs for a very specific reason,” said Gail O. Mellow, who will run the new council and most recently served as president of LaGuardia Community College. “We wanted that buy in.”

Those involved with the new group say it will work to develop programs intended to prepare low-income and minority students for jobs at the companies.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said the hope was that announcing the initiative at an early stage would inspire other companies to join. “The CEOs have agreed to attack the problem, specifically, deliberately and publicly,” he said in an interview. “This is so critical to the basic health of America.”

The New York Times Co. is among those that have signed on to the effort.

Dimon added that even for entry-level jobs at JPMorgan Chase, people needed to possess a range of technological and professional skills.

“Even to be a teller at a bank you have to learn a lot of systems and compliance and regulations,” he said.

By creating more apprenticeships and curriculums, Dimon said, the program will give more low-income and minority New Yorkers a chance at the middle class.

“That first job brings dignity,” he said. “It’s that first rung in the ladder.”

pledge 誓約、約束
marginalized 疎外された
scant 不十分な、乏しい
buy in 同意する、賛同する
deliberately 意図的に
dignity 威厳・尊厳

8/13(木)の放送

‘Can’t Do It’: Chief Resigns Amid Seattle’s Divide Over Policing

著者:Mike Baker
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

SEATTLE — As Seattle embarked on one of the most ambitious police restructuring plans in the country in recent weeks, its chief, Carmen Best, said she felt not only left out of the process but the target of vindictive salary cuts.

On Monday night, as she announced her resignation, Best said she had been left in tears by an email from a new Black recruit. The officer said he had been ecstatic to join a department led by Best, the first Black woman to lead the city’s police force. But under an effort to drastically reduce the police department budget, the man — among many Best hired to help diversify the force — will most likely lose his job.

“That, for me, I’m done — can’t do it,” Best said Tuesday.

As cities across the country grapple with how to revamp policing to address persistent racism, Seattle has embarked on one of the most ambitious police restructuring plans in the nation, gaining a veto-proof majority among progressives on the City Council who are determined to heed the weeks of protests that shut down part of the city this spring.

In Minneapolis, where the death of George Floyd in police custody sparked nationwide outrage, city leaders have moved to disband the police department entirely and create a new public safety structure from the ground up. But that proposal has stalled.

In Oakland, California, despite broad public support for police funding cuts that could reach 50%, the City Council last month rejected some of the proposed changes and punted to a task force that will study the issue. Other cities with earnest goals for defunding or restructuring have been locked in debates over the size of cuts or the methods for reform.

But in Seattle, a majority of the City Council in recent weeks has endorsed the idea of a 50% budget cut, and members have explored some specific cuts to get close to that target when next year’s budget is finalized in November.

The council also took an initial step Monday, voting to approve a plan that would eliminate about 100 officers from the force, along with other changes to the department.

restructuring 再編成
feel left out 疎外感を感じる
leave A in tears Aを泣かせる
from the ground up 初めから、一から
(初めから終わりまで)完全に

In Victory for Qualcomm, Appeals Court Throws Out Antitrust Ruling

著者:Don Clark
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court threw out an antitrust verdict against Qualcomm on Tuesday, overturning a ruling that had threatened the chipmaker’s business model.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reversed a 2019 ruling by a federal judge who found that Qualcomm had abused its monopoly position in wireless chips and overcharged mobile phone makers for its patents. The Federal Trade Commission had sued Qualcomm in 2017 over the issue.

Disagreements about Qualcomm prompted a split between the FTC and other government agencies, including the Department of Justice, which contended that the District Court ruling could undermine Qualcomm’s position in technologies, like 5G, that are essential for national security.

Both the appeals court ruling and a patent licensing deal with China’s Huawei last month are boons to Qualcomm’s business. The company’s shares were up 2.2% at the end of trading Tuesday.

Qualcomm, based in San Diego, is the biggest supplier of wireless modem chips but gets most of its profit from charging handset makers royalties to use its cellular patents.

The company has long faced regulatory scrutiny in Asia and Europe for its business practices, as well as a fierce legal battle with Apple that was settled in 2019. The FTC had argued that Qualcomm’s near-exclusive position in two kinds of chips allowed it to charge excessive royalty rates for its patents. The agency also said phone makers that objected faced the threat that Qualcomm could cut off shipments of chips they needed.

The District Court judge, Lucy Koh, sided with the FTC in May 2019, issuing a 233-page decision that could have forced Qualcomm to renegotiate its licensing contracts with phone makers and license its technology to rival chipmakers.

But the appeals court panel was not persuaded. In a 56-page ruling, the judges concluded that Qualcomm had no duty under antitrust law to license its competitors. They also ruled that Qualcomm’s policy of not supplying chips to any handset maker that had not licensed its patents did not work like an illegal surcharge on chips sold by competitors.

overturn (判決などを)くつがえす
undermine (名声を)傷つける、徐々に衰えさせる
boon 恩恵、利益
surcharge 課徴金、追加料金

8/14(金)の放送

North Korean Hacking Group Attacks Israeli Defense Industry

著者:Ronen Bergman and Nicole Perlroth
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel claimed Wednesday that it had thwarted a cyberattack by a North Korea-linked hacking group on its classified defense industry.

The Defense Ministry said the attack was deflected “in real time” and that there was no “harm or disruption” to its computer systems.

However, security researchers at ClearSky, the international cybersecurity firm that first exposed the attack, said the North Korean hackers penetrated the computer systems and were likely to have stolen a large amount of classified data. Israeli officials fear the data could be shared with North Korea’s ally, Iran.

The episode adds Israel to the list of countries and companies that have been targeted by North Korea’s hacking unit, known to private security analysts as the Lazarus Group. American and Israeli officials have said the Lazarus Group, also known as Hidden Cobra, is backed by Pyongyang.

U.S. federal prosecutors unmasked North Korean members of the Lazarus Group in a 2018 criminal complaint, which said the group was working on behalf of Lab 110, a North Korean military intelligence unit.

The complaint accused the group of playing a role in North Korea’s devastating 2017 ransomware attack, known as “WannaCry,” which paralyzed 300,000 computers across 150 countries; the 2016 cyber-theft of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank; and the crippling 2014 cyberattack at Sony Pictures Entertainment that resulted in the leak of executive emails and destroyed more than two-thirds of the studio’s computer servers.Though the group’s track record is mixed, North Korea’s growing army of more than 6,000 hackers has grown only more sophisticated and emboldened with time, according to American and British officials tracking the group.

In a report last April, officials at the departments of State, Homeland Security and Treasury and the FBI accused North Korea of increasingly using digital means to evade sanctions and generate income for its nuclear weapons program. The report also accused North Korea of shopping out its hackers to other cybercriminals and countries in what is known as “hacking for hire.”

The North Korean attack on Israeli’s defense industry began with a LinkedIn message in June, ClearSky researchers said. North Korean hackers posing as a Boeing headhunter sent a message to a senior engineer at an Israeli government-owned company that manufactures weapons for the Israeli military and intelligence.

thwarted 阻止する/妨害する
deflect 回避する/そらす
ransomware ランサムウェア (身代金を払わなければ解除できないマルウェア)
(☝️7/30 の “ransom”(身代金)+ softwareの”ware” =“ransomware”)
emboldened 大胆になった
headhunter  ヘッドハンター/スカウト

Biden and Harris Pledge a Strong Challenge to Trump and a Path Out of Crisis

著者:Katie Glueck and Thomas Kaplan
(c) 2020 The New York Times Company

WILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris made their debut as running mates in a high school gymnasium Wednesday, pledging to lead the country out of the coronavirus crisis amid an onslaught of attacks from President Donald Trump as the two national tickets went head to head for the first time, less than three months before Election Day.

They sketched out a vision of recovery from the public health and economic catastrophes the nation is confronting — crises that, they argued, Trump has made worse at every turn with an extraordinarily divisive presidency.

“We need more than a victory on Nov. 3,” Harris said. “We need a mandate that proves that the past few years do not represent who we are or who we aspire to be.”

Harris, a Californian who once served as attorney general of the state, made clear that part of her campaign role would be demonstrating her skills as a prosecutor to build a case against Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, methodically detailing what she cast as their failures in combating the coronavirus, reopening the economy and creating conditions under which schools could reopen safely this fall.

Other contours of Harris’ role in the campaign also started coming into focus Wednesday. A Biden adviser described Harris as well-positioned to connect with Black and Latino voters across the country as well as with suburban women, saying that the campaign expected her presence on the ticket to drive turnout in Arizona, Florida and Texas in particular, as well as in communities of color nationally.

People familiar with Harris’ plans said they expected her to be a major presence on the virtual fundraising circuit, and she and Biden, the former vice president, held a grassroots fundraiser Wednesday night. There, Biden announced that in the past 24 hours, the campaign had raised $26 million, with 150,000 first-time contributors, according to a pool report.

Trump, who has unleashed sexist attacks on Harris, called her “a very risky pick” at a news conference as he referred to “horrible things” she had said about Biden during the primary campaign, suggesting those words would haunt the ticket.

Trump also defended his administration’s response to the virus, citing the number of tests that have been administered and bragging about the government’s efforts to ramp up production of ventilators to help gravely ill patients.

running mates 大統領候補と副大統領候補の二人のこと
 (⚠️単数の場合は副大統領候補だけのこと)
gymnasium  体育館
onslaught  猛撃
(election) ticket 選挙の候補者名簿
 ☝️選挙の候補者を一つの団体としてまとめたい時に使う
head to head   直面/接戦
sketch out 描く/説明する
methodically 徹底的に/きちんと
contours 輪郭
grassroots 草の根/一般大衆の

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