Fluency News 30

Hello, everyone!

Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa nova série de podcasts, o Fluency News! Aqui, você vai treinar a sua escuta e ficar por dentro do que está acontecendo no mundo, sempre com as três principais notícias da semana, tudo em inglês! Ao longo do episódio, nós também adicionamos explicações em português das coisas que achamos que precisam de mais atenção, assim você não perde nenhum detalhe!

Nesta semana, falamos sobre o início do julgamento de Derek Chauvin, acusado da morte de George Floyd, cobrimos o pedido de desculpas apresentado pela empresa Amazon, e o aumento de casos de coronavírus na Índia. Por fim, também falamos sobre os avanços de uma vacina para combater o vírus da AIDS.

Temos uma página de dicas de inglês no Instagram, vá conferir! @fluencytvingles

Toda semana temos um novo episódio do Fluency News, não deixe de escutar! See you!

Este episódio foi escrito por Lívia Pond.

Transcrição do episódio:

What is up, everyone! I’m Scott Lowe and welcome to the 30th episode of Fluency News! Can you believe that? This podcast series is made for you to test and improve your listening and comprehension skills, by challenging yourself to listen to news stories, all in English.

If you’ve been here since the beginning, I’m sure you’ll have noticed your progress, and how much better you can understand these episodes. And if this is your first time here, welcome! Let me tell you how this works. We’re going to go over some of the most important stories of the week, and then, after each, I’ll explain any new or interesting expressions, words and structures in Portuguese, to make sure you understand everything, and to expand your vocabulary.

Se você está escutando este podcast por uma plataforma de streaming, como Spotify, Deezer ou Apple Podcasts, deixa eu te lembrar que você pode acessar o nosso portal de conteúdo para ver todas as nossas fontes, e encontrar a transcrição completa deste episódio. Fluencytv.com

Alright, how about we get started? Let’s just jump into it!

In our first story of the day, we’re going to see how the trial over George Floyd’s death has been going. If you don’t remember or don’t know about this, let me give you a quick rundown of what happened.

Last year, 46-year-old Black man George Floyd was killed while in police custody, after a 911 call of suspicion that he had used a fake 20-dollar bill to pay for cigarettes. The defendant, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on Floyd’s neck for at least 8 minutes and 15 seconds. Floyd lost consciousness and died while three men held him down. His death sparked protests in the U.S and around the world against racism and police brutality.

Derek Chauvin’s trial began on March 29th and it is being streamed live. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, which means causing death without intent. The maximum sentence is 40 years.

A third-degree murder charge was also recently added. Experts say the new charge is easier to prove in court, but carries a lesser penalty. According to Minnesota state law, the maximum penalty for third-degree murder is 25 years. If you’re curious about the differences between first, second, and third degree murders, we’ve added a link in the description for an article that explains it all.

It is rare that police officers in the US are charged, let alone convicted, for use of lethal force. This is partly because they can often successfully argue they feared for their lives. The jurors in the trial will decide if Chauvin should serve time or be acquitted.

The trial began with the video of the arrest, which shows Floyd’s death.

Jerry Blackwell, a prosecutor with the attorney general’s office, described Chauvin, who is white, as engaging in excessive force during the arrest and prevention of others from assisting Floyd, who was Black, as he lay dying.

Blackwell said Minneapolis’s chief of police would testify that Chauvin’s conduct did not agree with the training he was provided as a member of the police force.

The former police officer pleaded not guilty to all charges against him.

Defence lawyer Eric Nelson said Chauvin’s conduct was in line with police training and depicted the circumstances of the arrest as a high-risk endeavour for Chauvin and the three other officers on the scene: J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, who will stand trial separately.

“Use of force is not attractive, but it is a necessary component of policing,” Nelson said.

The trial is expected to last a month, as the witnesses from both sides number in the hundreds.

Na frase “it is being streamed live”, nós temos uma estrutura interessante! Essa frase é um exemplo da voz passiva no presente. A voz passiva é usada quando o que é importante é a ação, e não quem a realizou. Normalmente, usamos a voz passiva no passado, para falar de ações que já aconteceram, mas esse não é o caso aqui. Aqui, ela está sendo usada no presente, mas o uso e função permanecem os mesmos. O que importa aqui é que o julgamento está sendo transmitido ao vivo, e não QUEM está transmitindo o julgamento.

On April 2nd Amazon issued an apology after evidence emerged that the company’s drivers have had to urinate in bottles, since bathroom breaks were challenging to achieve.

The controversy started after Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin referenced workers having to urinate in water bottles in a tweet. The official Amazon twitter account replied, saying that there was no truth to the statement, adding, “if that were true, no one would work for us”.

Several news outlets quoted numerous Amazon employees who confirmed that they had been left with little option but to urinate in plastic bottles while working. They also described relentless working practices, both in its fulfilment centres and as delivery drivers.

Amazon’s apology and retraction added: “We know that drivers can and do have trouble finding restrooms because of traffic or sometimes rural routes, and this has been especially the case during Covid when many public restrooms have been closed.”

It said the problem was “a long-standing, industry-wide issue” and said that they “would like to solve it”.

Você notou que na resposta da Amazon para o primeiro tweet estava escrito “if that WERE true”? Essa estrutura é chamada de “second conditional”. Ela é usada para falar de coisas imaginárias, não baseadas na verdade. Ela é formada usando “IF” e verbo no Simple Past, e seguida pela possível consequência, usando “would” e verbo. Nessa estrutura, nós usamos o passado do verbo “to be” sempre na forma WERE. Então I, he, she e it, que normalmente seriam acompanhados da forma WAS, são acompanhados por WERE. If I were, ou, como aqui, if that were true.

Alright, let’s go to our last story of the day, before we see some good news! India’s daily covid cases breached 100,000.

On Monday, April 5th, India became the second country after the United States to record more than 100,000 coronavirus new cases in one day.

The country’s daily infections have risen since hitting a multi-month low in early February, when authorities eased most restrictions and people largely stopped wearing masks and following social distancing.

With 103,558 new infections, India has now reported 12.6 million cases, the highest after the United States and Brazil, data from the health ministry showed. Deaths jumped by 478, still one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, raising the total to 165,101.

More infectious variants of the virus may have played a role in the second surge, some epidemiologists say.

“The new variant, or variants of concern, probably explains a lot of it, rather than simplistic explanation of behaviour,” said Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

India has found hundreds of cases of the virus variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

Speaking of the new variants, a small trial showed that the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine fully protected people from the variant widely circulating in South Africa.

The companies announced the positive news in a press release, saying that though researchers will need more data to confirm the result, it is a way to feel optimistic about how the vaccines are performing with real-world conditions and in real-world settings.

“The bottom line message is that vaccines work very well in the real-world setting,” top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said in a White House COVID-19 press briefing Friday, April 2. “They work against variants, although we need further data to confirm that. They are durable for at least six months and they work in adolescents. Very, very good reason for everyone to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available to you.”

No começo dessa história, eu falei que authorities eased most restrictions. Você sabe qual é o uso, o significado desse “ease”? “Ease” significa facilidade. Mas isso não faz sentido na frase, certo? É que em alguns casos, como aqui, “ease” pode ser um verbo, que significa “aliviar”, “abrandar”. Então, na nossa história, significa que as autoridades abrandaram as restrições, o que pode ter levado ao aumento de casos na Índia.

Alright, how about we see some great news? A novel vaccine approach for the prevention of HIV has shown promise in Phase I trials, reported IAVI and Scripps Research.

The vaccine was able to target the desired immune cells and could become the first stage of a multi-step vaccine strategy to combat HIV and various other viral diseases.

The vaccine showed success in stimulating production of rare immune cells needed to start the process of generating antibodies against the fast-mutating virus; the targeted response was detected in 97 percent of participants who received the vaccine.

One of the lead investigators on the trial, Dr Julie McElrath, senior vice president and director of Fred Hutch’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division, said the trial was “a landmark study in the HIV vaccine field,” adding that they had demonstrated “success in the first step of a pathway to induce broad neutralising antibodies against HIV-1.”

How awesome is that? HIV affects more than 38 million people globally, and there’s finally some progress in a way of stopping the fast-mutating virus!

And that is it for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed your time here, improving your skills, challenging yourself and getting informed, all at once.

E se você quer evoluir o seu inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão, japonês ou mandarim, aprendendo com os professores da FluencyTV, inscreva-se na nossa lista de espera.

Assim, quando a gente abrir uma nova turma, você vai ter uma chance ainda melhor de conseguir uma vaga! É só se inscrever clicando no link na descrição deste episódio.

É super-rápido e assim você não arrisca perder a próxima turma e ficar meses esperando uma nova chance!!

There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, and we’ll be waiting for you. Peace out.

Fontes:

The trial over George Floyd’s death begins
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/5/teens-child-witnesses-relive-trauma-of-floyds-death-in-court
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/29/prosecutor-chauvins-knee-on-floyd-was-grinding-and-crushing
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/31/it-wasnt-right-witness-confronts-policeman-over-floyd-death
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/1/floyds-girlfriend-testifies-about-drug-use-their-first-kiss
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/4/a-bad-dream-george-floyd-trial-revives-painful-memories
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56270334

Difference between first, second and third degree murders:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-1st-2nd-and-3rd-degree-murder-Why-do-the-distinctions-exist

Amazon offers rare apology, says it will look for solutions to drivers peeing in bottles
https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-offers-rare-apology-says-will-look-solutions-drivers-peeing-bottles/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56628745

India’s daily virus cases breach 100,000; mutants, behaviour blamed
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-india/indias-new-daily-covid-19-cases-surpass-100000-for-first-time-idUSKBN2BS06T?utm_medium=Social
https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2021/apr/02/mahakumbh-shoots-up-covid-superspreader-concerns-as-5-crore-pilgrims-set-to-congregate-2284980.html

Real-world data shows vaccines kicking butt—including against scary variant
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/real-world-data-shows-vaccines-kicking-butt-including-against-scary-variant/

Novel HIV vaccine approach shows promise in “landmark” first-in-human trial

Novel HIV vaccine approach shows promise in “landmark” first-in-human trial

https://www.thehappybroadcast.com/post/647358987595087872/hiv-affects-more-than-38-million-people-globally