$ perl -MO=Deparse 707299.pl
...
foreach $link (@links) {
    chomp $link;
    $response = check_link("$link");
    $part = $response;
    $part =~ s/\r//g;
    $part =~ s/\n//g;
    print "1 Empty run\n";
}
continue {               <------ Added by Switch.
    last;                <------ Causes "for @links" to
}                        <------ exit after first pass.