Your @junk already consumes all splitted elements. There is no boundary on @junk that would prevent it to do otherwise.

(@junk, $ads) = (split(/\s+/, $rec));
# the same here
(@foo, $bar) = @baz;

# only this way it works
($first,$second,@remaining) = @all
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P.S. If you are using split then you are already using regular expressions.