Rescuers in Jersey said Sunday after an all-night search that there was no hope of survivors from an explosion that flattened a three-story apartment block. At least three people were confirmed killed in the accident early Saturday in the Channel island’s port capital St Helier, following a suspected gas leak. “We have three confirmed deaths and it’s fair to say we expect to find more,” police chief Robin Smith told a news conference, saying that around 12 residents remained unaccounted for. “It is with sadness that I am confirming that the search-and-rescue operation has been moved to a recovery operation,” he said.
The phase involved a “painstaking search of the debris” which could take weeks, Smith said, adding that a gas leak was the ‘likely” cause. Aided by sniffer dogs and experts from southern England, Jersey emergency workers had searched the rubble (瓦砾)overnight.
Fire chief Paul Brown confirmed that firefighters were called out to investigate the smell of gas on Friday evening, more than seven hours before the explosion. But in vain. He admitted that something had gone “horribly wrong”, considering the subsequent disaster, but insisted that Jersey islanders could still have confidence in his service. Jersey’s gas supplier, Island Energy, said it was working with the fire service to understand what happened.
Like many others in St Helier, Jersey’s Chief Minister Kristina Moore said she was awoken by the explosion. “Across the island you could hear this extraordinary sound,” she told the BBC. “It’s unthinkable news, so we’re all absolutely shocked and really worried about the people who are involved and about those whose lives have been lost.”
The incident caps a tragic week for Jersey, a British Crown dependency not part of the United Kingdom, whose economy relies on banking, tourism and fishing. “We must call on the collective strength of the island community,” Moore said.
1. What’s the possible cause of the accident?| A．The gas leak. | B．The gas supplier. |
| C．The recovery operation. | D．The unexpected explosion. |
| A．Rescuing the dead. | B．Searching the rubble. |
| C．Searching for the debris. | D．Working with fire service. |
| A．He had predicted the explosion hours before it. |
| B．The fire service was investigating the explosion. |
| C．People lost confidence in the island’s fire service. |
| D．The fire service was partly responsible for the accident. |
| A．Panicked and frightened. | B．Relieved and hopeful. |
| C．Astonished and concerned. | D．Fearful and sorrowful. |
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【推荐1】A walker seriously injured in a mountain-top lightning strike which killed two others is showing signs of improvement, the police have said. A major rescue operation was performed on Sunday following two strikes which hit the Brecon Beacons, South Wales. Two men died, while two others were taken to hospital.
A police spokeswoman said, “A man in a serious condition in hospital, following simultaneous (同时发生的) incidents in the Brecon Beacons, has now improved and he is recovering. Officers are continuing to get in touch with the next of relatives of the dead men and enquiries are ongoing. All men were believed to be from England.”
Mark Jones, of the Brecon Mountain Rescue Team, described the lightning strike as a freak accident, and something he had not been called out to in 30 years of service.
The walking group Ramblers Cymru said that while incidents involving thunder and lightning were rare, electrical storms should be taken seriously by walkers.
The organisation’s delivery officer, Elly Hannigan Popp, said, “We’d advise everyone to check the weather forecast before starting a walk. If you hear thunder, see lightning or if your hair stands on end, postpone activities even if the sky looks blue and clear. Lightning will strike as far as 10 miles away from any rainfall. Lightning can strike the same place repeatedly— especially tall, pointed, isolated objects.”
“If there is no shelter you should keep moving. And if you become the tallest object, crouch (蹲) in the open twice as far away from the nearest pointed object as it is tall. Make yourself as small as possible, stay on your toes and keep your heels together, as it will allow electricity to go up one foot, through the heels and back into the ground through the other.”
1. What can we learn about the victims of the incident?| A．Both of the injured men are recovering slowly, |
| B．The bodies of the two men haven’t been found. |
| C．The four men involved may be from the same country. |
| D．The police cannot contact the two dead men’s relatives. |
| A．Because the accident is very serious. |
| B．To announce where the victims come from. |
| C．Because the police are looking into the accident. |
| D．To tell the readers some facts of the incident. |
| A．Harm done by lightning. | B．Warnings from a delivery officer. |
| C．First aid in a lightning incident. | D．Safety tips on a lightning strike. |
【推荐2】It can be easy to brush off certain events as small matters that don’t require attention— but when the safety of dozens of airplane passengers was on the tine, this NASA engineer decided to speak up.
Rumaasha Maasha was preparing to fly from Huntsville to Colorado back in January when he spotted a liquid leak from his window seat on the wing.
“Normally, if it’s a wet day, you’ll see vortices (旋涡) off the wing. About 1,000 feet off the ground, I started seeing something white and thought, ‘maybe we’re just hitting some humidity (湿气).’ Well, after a while it was still doing it, and that’s when I knew something was up. I looked closer and immediately realized that we were losing fuel.” Maasha also knew that as the plane increased in altitude, the situation would got worse.
“I gestured the flight attendant to come over and fortunately she was very attentive,” he said. “She called the crew and the key thing is that she did this as we were still climbing out. Within a minute or two, they reduced speed and leveled off. The fuel leak diminished immediately when they slowed down.”
Much to the anger of the passengers, the plane returned to the Huntsville airport, but upon finding out the reason for the return—and the hero behind it—some of the passengers made friends with Maasha.
Maasha’s experience with NASA wasn’t the only thing that came in handy that day, the engineer first fell in love with aviation (航空) as a teenager growing up near an airport in Monrovia, Liberia. “Looking back, I guess I had the perfect sets of circumstances to recognize the issue that day,” he said. “Since I was a kid, I’ve always tried to sit in a window seat near the wing, and as I grew up, I am determined to run after my dream during my university years. That’s not the first time I’ve noticed something. I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
1. When did Maasha realize something went wrong?| A．Before the plane started to fly. |
| B．When the white thing continued to leak. |
| C．After he settled on his window seat. |
| D．When he first noticed the liquid. |
| A．Worsened. | B．Decreased. | C．Occurred. | D．Continued. |
| A．His birth place and home location. |
| B．His university years and honesty. |
| C．His childhood education and seat choice. |
| D．His working experience and personal interest. |
| A．A Childhood Dream Has Come True |
| B．Fluid Leaking Happened to a Jet |
| C．A NASA Engineer Saved Passengers |
| D．Passengers Feel Grateful to an Engineer |
【推荐3】It was the day before Thanksgiving and Kaleb Benham was wandering around outside his home in Noring California. His 90-pound pit bull, Buddy, was playing around nearby, doing what dogs do: getting into trouble. And this time, Buddy was getting into a whole lot of trouble.
The unmistakable sound that no one wants to hear alone in the woods caught Benham’s attention. It was the deep, strange roar of a black bear. Benham wheeled around to see the beast, which Benham figured weighed around 350 pounds, some 100 feet away. In an instant, the bear fastened on to Buddy’s head and started dragging him away.
Benham, a thin, fit 24-year-old, took off after them. “Honestly,” he told CBS13, “the only thing I could think of was ‘save my baby’.” Sprinting, he lowered his shoulder and plowed into the bear. But it only tightened its grip on Buddy. Benham grabbed the bear by the throat. Nothing. He tried getting its mouth open, but the jaw was locked tight. Benham resorted to street fighting—punching the bear over and over around its snout and eye. It worked. The bear dropped the dog and ran off into the woods.
Buddy was in bad shape. His face was bloodied and ripped up. His ears were dangling. He had a bite mark clear through his lip and one that barely missed an eye.
“My first thought was that I was going to lose him,” Benham said. He scooped up Buddy, put him into his car, and sped off to a nearby veterinarian. Buddy’s surgery took nearly four hours. Benham watched the procedure through a window. “I just stood there,” he said, watching as Buddy’s ears were stapled back on and skin flaps were stitched, and tubes were inserted into his head to drain fluid.
This was the second time Benham had rescued Buddy, says CBS13. The first was from a shelter a few years ago. “If it was your kid, what would you do?” he asked. Nodding toward Buddy, he added, “That’s my kid.”
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．A demanding surgery. | B．A regular routine. |
| C．A fearless pet dog. | D．A daring rescue. |
| A．To show the difficulty of the rescue. |
| B．To indicate the obesity of the bear. |
| C．To prove the excitement of Benham. |
| D．To describe the fear in Buddy’s heart. |
| A．Benham bumped into the beast with dropped shoulder. |
| B．Benham forced open the beast’s mouth with locked jaw. |
| C．Benham crushed the beast’s mouth and nose repeatedly. |
| D．Benham finally conquered the beast by grabbing its throat. |
| A．Complicated. | B．Close. |
| C．Romantic. | D．Healthy. |
【推荐1】Many people in America love Chinese food, but perhaps nobody can match David R Chan, Mr Chan, a 72-year-old former tax lawyer based in Los Angeles, claims to have dined at nearly 8, 000 Chinese restaurants across the US and counting. If you visit one Chinese restaurant per day, it would take more than 20 years to reach his current count-7, 812 restaurants.
Though he is the descendant (后裔) of grandparents who immigrated to California from China’s Guangdong province, Mr Chan did not eat Chinese food as a child. And when he first tried Chinese food, he was not impressed at all.
Chinese food was cooked in the US for the first time by Chinese immigrants who came dreaming of wealth during the California Gold Rush in the mid 19th century. “Early American-Chinese food tended to be localized, had to adapt for local ingredients and catered to Americans’ taste,” said Mr Chan.
But things started to change in the late 1960s. As a new law removed restrictions on immigration from Asia, the US began to receive an increasing number of immigrants from China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, bringing in not only modern Cantonese food but also a variety of regional cuisines from across China.
In the 1970s, he started to dine at Chinese restaurants listed on the local yellow pages.
“At the beginning, it was just a search for identity,” Mr Chan said. “My interest in the history of Chinese in the US led me to eat Chinese food and see what it was like to be Chinese in different parts of the country.” Through this, he learnt of the diversity of the cuisine. He had previously had no idea how varied it was, he said.
“The best place to find the most varied authentic Chinese foods in America is the SanGabriel Valley in LA, where many Chinese immigrants live,” he said. “But for dim sum, San Franciaco is the best bet.”
1. What did David R Chan do?| A．He was a food critic. | B．He was a media person. |
| C．He was a legal professional. | D．He was a businessman. |
| A．Restaurants were required by laws to bring in Chinese food. |
| B．Numerous Chinese people immigrated to the US with them. |
| C．Local Americans like all kinds of regional cuisines from China. |
| D．Guangdong Province was far away from the US. |
| A．It was really authentic. |
| B．It used ingredients from China. |
| C．It met Americans’ taste. |
| D．It was first cooked by Americans. |
| A．He enjoyed Chinese meals since young. |
| B．He used to find restaurant information online. |
| C．He began to try Chinese food to search for identity. |
| D．He thought the most delicious dim sum was in LA. |
【推荐2】China is embracing an era of sharing economy. After sharing bikes, sharing books are the next trend. The book-sharing program at Sanxiaokou Xinhua Bookstore in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, has been running for several months since its launch on July 16, 2017. Customers are encouraged to borrow up to two books, from all books available in this store, for free via an app, pay 99 yuan online as the deposit and return the books within 10 days.
A survey of 601 app users conducted by the company in late July found that more than 90 percent of the readers said they may want to keep some of the borrowed books permanently, but they don't want to visit the store again to complete the purchase. When another nine stores joined the book-sha-ring program in August, the ability to purchase the borrowed books was made available on the app.
Zhao Shiping, a manager of the Sanxiaokou store, said that the daily customer flow in the first week of the book-sharing program was about 7 ,000 while the figure for the same period last year was 5 ,000 to 6,000. So, book-sharing will reduce barriers for book purchasing and increase customer flow, which will increase the business value of the bookstore, its brand value and increase its value as a partner for companies outside the book sales sector.
In addition to bookstores, banks have also joined the trend of book-sharing. Two branches of China Everbright Bank introduced book loan service at the end of this July. The service is free for seven days and 0.1 yuan is charged after that and 0.5 yuan after 21 days. Readers can return borrowed books to any branch of the bank.
This book-sharing project, a cooperation between Everbright Bank and an app called Youshugongdu, which translates as “let’s read books together”, will be expanded to other outlets to turn each outlet into a small community library with 1,000 to 2,000 books.
1. How much should you pay for borrowing a book from the China Everbright Bank for two weeks?| A．¥0.1. | B．¥0.7. | C．¥1.4. | D．¥7. |
① Increasing the customer flow
② Bringing convenience to the bookstores
③ Reducing the barriers for book purchasing
④ Increasing the brand value of the bookstores
| A．①②③ | B．①②④ | C．①③④ | D．②③④ |
| A．Banks begins to sell books. |
| B．People tend to share books online. |
| C．A book-sharing program has been running in Hefei. |
| D．Bookstores and banks join book-sharing economy. |
| A．A teaching research paper. |
| B．A science fiction. |
| C．A technology guide. |
| D．A newspaper. |
【推荐3】A campaign in the United Kingdom that seeks to pressure publishers to stop labeling children's books according to gender is being given a push, with leading writers and at least one newspaper expressing support.
“We're asking children's publishers to take the ‘Boys’ and ‘Girls’ labels off books and allow children to choose freely what kinds interest them.” says the statement by the Let Books Be Books campaign. The organizers of the campaign say, “Such labels send out very limiting massages to children about what kinds of things are appropriate for girls or for boys.”
On Sunday, the movement got an important advance when the newspaper The Independent announced it would no longer comment on such books, or even blog about them. "Happily, as the literary editor of The Independent, there is something that I can do about this. So I promise now that the newspaper and this website will not be reviewing any book which is aimed at just girls, or just boys. Nor will The independent's books section. " wrote editor Katy Guest.
The Guardian reports that one of Britain's biggest bookstore chains, Waterstones, as well as U. K. Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman, and U. K. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy have also announced their support. "The campaign is attacking titles such as Usborne's Illustrated Classics for Boys, described by the publisher as a collection of action, adventure and daring-do stories suitable for boys, while its Illustrated Stories for Girls contains brand new stories about princesses and dolls, " The Guardian wrote.
But such a movement would also affect many popular and beloved books, such as the best selling The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's clear not everyone thinks removing"for boys" and"for girls"from book titles is such a good idea. Many of The Independent's readers are criticizing the newspaper's announcement that it is banning reviews of such books.
"This is just stupidity, " wrote one reader on The Independent's website. "The Independent has been an intelligent publication in my mind since I was a very young boy. So sad to see that change. "
1. What is The Let Books Be Books campaign?| A．It teaches kids about appropriateness. |
| B．It is against gendered children's books. |
| C．It is designed to offer help to writers and newspapers. |
| D．It advises publishers to help children choose books. |
| A．Stop reviewing books labeled with "Boys" or "Girls". |
| B．Publish more children's books on its website. |
| C．Provide more book reviews every Sundays. |
| D．Encourage children to review books. |
| A．They aren't suitable for children. | B．They shouldn't have similar titles. |
| C．They include too many adventure stories. | D．They should be open to kids of either gender. |
| A．To comment on some popular children's books. |
| B．To report the recent progress of a cultural campaign. |
| C．To discuss some big changes in the world's book market. |
| D．To explain the differences between books for boys and girls. |
