《上級者向け》今日の英語ニュース☆2024.03.25☆時事英語・ニュース英語を極める

■今日の動画：PBS News Weekend March 24, 2024

[ １年前の今日のニュース ]

冒頭の動画をダウンロードして、専用プレーヤーで英語字幕を読みながら再生(あるいは、動画を見ながら聞き取れなかったところを字幕で確認)してください (再生画面はこんな感じです)。字幕は、すぐ下の「字幕ファイルの作り方」のようにすれば簡単に出来ます。

• 専用プレーヤーのダウンロードと使い方

• 動画のダウンロード方法

• 字幕ファイルの作り方

字幕には間違いや省略が含まれていますが (番組放送後２時間ほどでアップロードされる字幕なので、間違いがあっても仕方ないかもしれません)、慣れれば、間違いや省略に気付いて、補正しながら動画を見ることが出来るようになります。

下の有料部分で、実際に英語音声を聞いて訂正した字幕ファイルがダウンロードできます。「今日の注目語句」や「その他の語句」の説明もあります (「その他の語句」の説明は字幕ファイル内)。辞書の説明では分かりにくい場合、文脈の中でどういう意味で使われているか説明しています。自分で語句を調べるより圧倒的に時間の節約になると思いますし、調べても分からない表現の意味が分かるかもしれません。

■おすすめの辞書

• Wiktionary

• TheFreeDictionary

• 英辞郎 on the WEB

• このページ上部の検索欄に語句を入れて「でWGCを検索」をクリックすると、これまでの取り上げた語句説明が見られます

■今日の注目語句

[07:02] JOHN YANG: The Heritage Foundation actually has a whole project of things they want done if President Trump were to win a second term. And one of them is a law governing the U.S. mails. Tell us a little bit about that.
MARY ZIEGLER: So this law is called the Comstock Act. It was passed really as kind of an obscenity law in 1873. And it made it a crime to mail a variety of items that its framers believed encouraged people to have illicit sex, including originally items for procuring abortion. Now there's language in the statute that says items designed, intended or adapted for producing abortion. So conservative groups are arguing that the Comstock Act makes it a crime to mail any abortion-related item and they argue, as a result, number one, that the FDA doesn't have the authority to allow a telehealth abortion, but number two, that no one really has the authority to perform a legal abortion because every abortion in the United States takes place using some item in the U.S. mails, whether it's a surgical procedure or a medication procedure. So that question is front and center from Project 2025's mandate for leadership that you mentioned. And the argument is essentially that President Trump in his second term could start enforcing the statute against blue states on day one, against abortion doctors, against drug manufacturers, and potentially down the line, even against patients, because the Comstock Act notably makes it a crime, not just to mail items, but to receive items as well.
JOHN YANG: That law is still on the books. Why is it not being enforced in that way?
MARY ZIEGLER: Well, for a long time, it really hasn't been meaningfully enforced based on the best evidence we have in cases of abortion or contraception really since the 1930s. It's been enforced in cases involving pornography in the interim years, but not in cases involving abortion and contraception. And it's hard to say exactly why that is. I think in part we have a lot of federal court precedents saying that it's wrong to enforce the Comstock Act in all cases involving abortion, particularly in cases where a patient's health may be implicated or where a use is lawful. There also just for many years was Roe v. Wade, right? So it would arguably probably have been unconstitutional to enforce the Comstock Act in those ways. So now we have this kind of zombie law that most Americans don't even know is on the books that the Supreme Court in theory could transform into an abortion ban that Americans would never vote to enact.

[13:00] And so what we're seeing in the shelters is organic education activities taking place. So parents are coming together, there are teachers in the shelters and education is happening. It's not people sitting in rows with a white board in front of them and teachers teaching the times table or the alphabet. It's a place for structure and for some kind of escape, if you like, from the immediacy of the issues in front of you.

[20:59] The Congo has deployed as -- a much larger military budget than ever before. They spent about a billion dollars upwards a year on defense now. They've hired a variety of private security contractors, especially from Eastern Europe, to help them both train troops and fight on the front lines. And so the Congolese government has tried to throw the kitchen sink at this problem.

番組内に語句の説明があることがありますし、そうでない場合も辞書や検索で意味が分かることが多いと思います。

それでも分からない場合、下の有料部分に語句説明があります。辞書の定義では分かりにくい時は、文脈の中でどのような意味で使われているかを説明しています。説明はほとんどすべて英語で書いています。

■その他の語句

下の字幕ファイルの中には、次の表現についての説明 (あるいは説明へのリンク)もあります。説明はほとんどすべて英語です。

• education cluster

• organic/ what we're seeing in the shelters is organic education activities taking place. So parents are coming together, there are teachers in the shelters and education is happening

• times table

• shoot/ I think it's more accurate to think of the shoots of education coming up within the shelters as communities are trying to care for their children

• unexpended ordnance

• M23

• peak bloom

• arboretum

■ 英語のラジオ・テレビを視聴

いつも英語が聞こえる環境を作りましょう
・ラジオ (CNN・NPR・BBC)
・テレビ（NBC News ・ABC News・Sky News）
　　リンク先のライブ配信中の動画をクリック

■字幕ファイル

上の「字幕ファイルの作り方」のようにすれば、自分で作ることが出来ます (自分で作ればもちろん無料。その場合、もとの字幕の誤りはそのままになります)。

番組の音声をすべて実際に聞いて確認し、誤りを訂正した字幕が、有料になりますが、この下からダウンロードできます (note会員は購入後24時間以内は返金可・ゲスト購入も可)。字幕ファイルの中に語句説明もあります。

何らかの事情で有料は困るという方は、コメント欄か一番下の「クリエイターへの問い合わせ」で知らせてください。場合によっては、無料にします。