3 . It was late, about 10:15 p. m. Janice Esposito got off the train at Bellport, New York, went to her car and started driving home. She was so familiar with the route that she almost drove automatically. However, when Esposito's car had just crossed the railroad tracks—bam!, it hit another vehicle and was pushed back onto the tracks. Injured but mostly shocked by the crash and by the airbags that popped up, she was stuck in the vehicle.

As it happened, Pete DiPinto was just about to go to sleep when he heard a sharp noise. As a volunteer firefighter, he fetched a flashlight and rushed out without hesitation. “Any firefighter would have done what I did,” he said. “We're always on duty.”

After making sure that the driver was all right, DiPinto discovered Esposito's car straddling the railway tracks. And then he heard the bell ring, which signaled a train's arrival.

DiPinto rushed to Esposito's car and broke the window on the driver's side. Esposito looked up at him, with her eyes glazing over. “I don't know where 1 am,” she said.

“I have to get you off right now!” DiPinto yelled. The train was running toward them at a high speed. The driver's door cannot be opened due to the collision (硬撞), so DiPinto quickly ran to the other side and managed to open the door. He pulled her toward him across the passenger seat until finally got her out to safety. Several seconds later, the train crashed into the vehicle. “It was like a Hollywood movie,” DiPinto told reporters the next day.

“Last night,” said Gregory Miglino Jr, Chief of the Department in South Country Ambulance, “the hero arrived in pajamas (睡衣裤), not in a fire truck.”

4 . Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, battled for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape route—through the boot(行李箱).

Mr. Johnson’s car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney Marsin, Kent after skidding on ice and hitting a bank. “Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly,” Mr. Johnson said. “I couldn’t force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in.”

Mr. Johnson, a sweet salesman of Sitting Home, Kent, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn and hammering on the roof and boot. Then he began his struggle to escape.

Later he said, “It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered desperately with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came.”

It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the sweet samples from the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench(扳子) and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I moved the boot lid, the water and mud poured in. I forced the lid down into the mud and scrambled clear as the car filled up.”

His hands and arms cut and bruised(擦伤), Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Huddled in a blanket, he said, “That thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible, police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.

A couple，whom we shall call John and Mary, had a nice home and two lovely children. One day, John and Mary decided to go on a trip to another city, so they found a kind woman to look after the children and left.

Several days later, they returned home a little earlier than they had planned. As they drove back to their hometown, John and Mary noticed smoke and went to see what it was. They found a house was on fire.“Oh,well, it isn't our house. Let's go home,”Mary said.

But John drove closer and screamed in surprise，“That's Jordan's home. He works in a factory. He wouldn’t be off work yet. Maybe there is something we can do to help.”

“It has nothing to do with us,”cried Mary. “You have your good clothes on,so let's not get any closer.”

John didn't listen to Mary. He drove up and stopped. They were both shocked to see the whole house was on fire. A woman was crying in the yard, “The children! Get the children!”

John seized her by the shoulder and shouted to her, “Don't cry! Tell me where the children are!” “In the basement(地下室)，”cried the woman,“down the hall and to the left.”

John used water to get his clothes wet and put a wet towel on his head before rushing to the basement. The house was full of smoke and fire, and it was very difficult for him to find the children. But he made it. He held one under each arm. As he left，he could hear some more crying. He took the two kids out of the house and into the fresh air，and then asked the women how many more children were still down there.

Thewoman told him there were two more.

As he took them out,he felt something strangely familiar about the little bodies.

7 . “Fire! Fire! ” What terrible words to hear when I _______ in a strange house in the middle of the night! It was a large, _______ house — the sort that burns easily — and my room was on the top floor. I jumped out of bed, opened the door and stepped out into the passage. It was full of _______.

I began to _______, but as I was still only half awake, instead of going towards the stairs I went in the opposite direction. The smoke grew thicker and I found it hard to _______. The floor became _______ under my feet. I ran into another room and tried to reach the window for fresh air. Suddenly, one of my feet got caught in something _______ and I fell down. The thing I had fallen over felt like a package of clothes, and I picked it up to protect my _______ from the smoke and heat. Just then the floor broke under me and I fell through to the floor below with pieces of _______ wood all around me.

__________, there was a doorway in front, so I put the package over my face and ran. My feet were terribly burned, but I __________. As I reached the cold air outside, my package of clothes gave a __________. I nearly dropped it in my surprise. Then I saw there were many people in the street. A woman screamed (尖叫) as she saw me and came running __________.

“My baby! My baby! ”she cried. Those people cheered loudly __________ she took the smoke­blackened package out of my arms. I almost failed to see who she was — my boss's wife. I had __________ her baby, and I became a hero!

8 . Notre-Dame, the cathedral (大教堂) that serves as one of Paris’ most beloved monuments, is on fire. According to The New York Times the fire began around 6: 30 p.m. local time when tourists urgently rushed out of the building. Andre Finot, a spokesman for the cathedral, told The Times that the cause of the fire was still unknown and that no one had been hurt while damage to the building appeared catastrophic(灾难性的).

CNN reports that over 400 firefighters have been sent to fight the fire, but that they may be unable to save the cathedral. Built in the 12th century, Notre-Dame houses several relics important to Catholics (天主教徒). NBC News reports that relics from Saint Genevieve and Saint Denis may be lost, together with a relic believed to be from Jesus Christ’s crown of thorns, but it states that the authorities now believe that the cathedral has been saved from “total destruction”.

Notre-Dame is visited by a reported 30,000 people a day and 13 million people per year. Its destruction represents a global cultural loss. “This is just horrible,” Mohamed Megdoul, 33, a film producer and witness to the fire told The Times, speaking in tears. “A thousand years of history is being wiped away. This belonged to the whole world, and now it’s disappearing.”

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his sadness on Twitter. Other politicians, including Melania Trump, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, also shared their sadness on Twitter.

10 . A snowboarder was feeling lucky to be alive yesterday after a helicopter rescue(直升机营救).

Ben Akintola, 30, was snowboarding in the French Alps under a clear blue sky in the afternoon when a large amount of snow fell down the side of the mountain. He didn’t have time to escape(逃脱) and it hit him with full force and knocked him senseless.

He woke in the night in total darkness. He was lying on an icy rock. Amazingly, he still had a mobile phone signal(信号), so he called a friend a thousand kilometers away in Britain. His friend called the French rescue services.

“I was waiting for what seemed like hours on that rock. I was beginning to give up hope when I heard the sound of a helicopter. It was circling around in the darkness, looking for me. I was trying my best to wave my mobile around. Fortunately the helicopter pilot saw the light.”

“I was overjoyed when the helicopter headed my way. It stayed above me and began lowering a rope.”

Ben was in hospital last night but he was not being treated for any serious injuries. He’s looking forward to going home today.

The French rescue services said: “We were very pleased that we were able to save Ben. The risk of snow slide off-piste(非滑雪场地的) is much higher at this time of year. All snowboarders and skiers should stay on the ski runs and not go off-piste. Ben was very lucky.”