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1. New home sales fell in June for the seventh time in the past eight months, but the drop was less than expected.That's raising faint hopes that the nation's severe housing recession could be approaching a bottom.

2. A Qantas jumbo jet made an emergency landing in the Philippines after a rapid descent over the South China Sea. It's not clear what caused a hole the size of a small car in the plane's underside, but investigators¹ say it doesn't appear to be terrorism related. No one was hurt.

3. Ships are again moving up the Mississippi River from the Gulf² of Mexico. It comes two days after a barge³ collided with a tanker⁴ causing more than 400,000 gallons of oil to spill into the waterway.

4. And charges have been filed in connection with this bench-clearing brawl⁵. A minor⁶ league pitcher⁷ was arrested last night for allegedly throwing a ball that hit a fan during this fight. More than a dozen players and the team's managers were ejected following the incident that lasted about ten minutes.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1.Qantas

Qantas Airways⁸ Limited is the national airline of Australia. The name was originally "QANTAS", an acronym⁹ for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services". Nicknamed "The Flying Kangaroo", the airline is based in Sydney, with its main hub at Sydney Airport, and is Australia's largest airline. It is the world's second oldest continuously operating airline and the oldest in the English speaking world.

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2.jumbo jet also jumbo [countable]n.
a very large plane for carrying passengers

3.barge [countable]n.
a large low boat with a flat bottom, used for carrying goods on a canal or river

4.tanker [countable]n.
a vehicle or ship specially¹⁰ built to carry large quantities of gas or liquid, especially oil

5.spill past tense and past participle spilt especially British English or spilled especially American English
[intransitive always + adverb/preposition]v.
if people or things spill out of somewhere, they move or fall out in large numbers [= pour]
spill out/into/onto etc

6.waterway [countable]n.
a river or canal that boats travel on

7.bench-clearing brawl

A bench-clearing brawl, sometimes known as a basebrawl, is a form of ritualistic fighting that occurs in sports, most notably¹¹ baseball and ice hockey, in which both teams leave their dugouts, bullpens, or benches and charge the playing area in order to fight one another.

8.pitcher [countable]n.
the player in baseball who throws the ball

9.eject [transitive]v. to make someone leave a place or building by using force