Two Russian pilots safely landed an airliner carrying 241 people in a cornfield outside Moscow after striking a flock of birds, prompting the Kremlin to hail them as heroes who will receive top state awards. The Ural Airlines Airbus 321 was on a flight from Moscow to Crimea, and came down in a field southeast of Moscow with its landing gear up after hitting a passing flock of gulls, disrupting both engines which caught fire. Officials said 74 people, including 19 children, were treated for injuries, including six who were hospitalized. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the 234 passengers and seven crew members are alive thanks to "the heroic pilots for saving people's lives and landing the plane." State television said the incident was being dubbed the “miracle over Ramensk”, the name of the district near Moscow where the plane came down around one kilometer (0.62 miles) from Moscow's Zhukovsky International Airport. Some are drawing comparisons with U.S. Airways Flight 1549 which struck a flock of geese after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport in 2009. The pilots ditched that Airbus 320 in the Hudson River saving all on board. Russia's Investigative Committee and the Interstate Aviation Committee will investigate the accident.

Gibraltar on Thursday allowed a detained Iranian supertanker to leave the British overseas territory despite a last-minute U.S. attempt to seize the vessel, potentially defusing tensions between London and Tehran as a British-flagged tanker remains held by the Islamic Republic. It could pave the way for a possible swap for a British-flagged tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf. The Grace 1 was seized by commandos in darkness off peninsula on July 4. Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo decided to lift the detention order after formal written assurances from Tehran that the ship will not discharge its 2.1 million barrels of oil in Syria.The seizure of the Grace 1 triggered a dispute with Tehran, which accused Britain of piracy. Two weeks later, on July 19, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized the British-flagged Stena Impero in the Gulf. The two tankers have become pawns in the standoff between Iran and the West, their fate tangled up in the diplomatic differences between the EU’s big powers and the United States. The U.S. has been asking its allies to take part in a naval mission to protect shipping in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, although European nations have been reluctant.

Israel's foreign ministry will bar a visit by two of its sharpest critics in the U.S. Congress, Democrats Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who planned to tour the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. President Donald Trump had earlier urged Israel on Thursday not to allow the visit by Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress and members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing. The pair have voiced support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Under Israeli law, backers of the BDS movement can be denied entry to Israel. An Israeli official said earlier on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior members of his cabinet held consultations on Wednesday on a “final decision” about the visit. Denying entry to elected U.S. officials could further strain relations between Netanyahu, who has highlighted his close ties with Trump in his current re-election campaign, and the Democratic leadership in Congress.

Hong Kong braced on Thursday for more mass demonstrations through the weekend, as China again warned against foreign interference in the city’s escalating crisis - and as mainland paramilitary forces conducted exercises just across the border, in what was widely seen as a warning to protesters in Hong Kong. Ten weeks of increasingly violent confrontations between police and protesters have plunged Hong Kong into its worst crisis since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997, and police tactics have been toughening. Western governments, including the United States, have stepped up calls for restraint, following ugly and chaotic scenes at the city’s airport this week, which forced the cancellation of nearly 1,000 flights. The airport, one of the world’s busiest, was returning to normal but under tight security after thousands of protesters had jammed its halls on Monday and Tuesday nights, part of a protest movement Beijing has likened to terrorism. The protests represent the biggest populist challenge for Chinese President Xi Jinping since he came to power in 2012 and show no immediate signs of abating.

Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy found that he had several broken bones in his neck, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The autopsy was conducted Sunday, the day after the financier and convicted sex offender was found dead, hanging by a sheet inside his cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center. Epstein's hyoid bone was broken. Experts said this can happen in a hanging, but is more common when someone is strangled to death. Epstein was facing sex trafficking charges. His death, which authorities say was an apparent suicide, triggered conspiracy theories. Multiple women accused Epstein of coercing them into having sex with his rich and powerful friends, and some people believe he was killed to prevent him from revealing secrets.

At least six police officers were shot in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon after a gunman opened fire as police served a warrant as part of a narcotics investigation. The male suspect was apprehended early Thursday after an hours-long standoff, police say. There were two police officers inside with the suspect during the standoff, but authorities said SWAT officers were able to get them out. The injured officers were treated and released from area hospitals. An additional officer was treated for injuries sustained in a car accident that occurred during the incident. The suspect was identified as 34-year-old Maurice Hill, according to law enforcement authorities and the suspect's lawyer. Prosecutors said Thursday that a number of charges are pending against the convicted felon, who should not have been in posession of any weapons.

U.S. stocks suffered their worst plunge of 2019 on Wednesday after the yield for long-term U.S. bonds fell below that of short-term bonds, a strong warning sign of a looming recession. It was the first such "inverted yield curve" since just before the Great Recession more than a decade ago. Such inversions, which indicate dwindling investor confidence in the economy, have come before every recession in the last half century. "Investors are tripping over themselves to get out of the way," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq all lost roughly 3 percent on Wednesday. Futures for the main U.S. stock indexes gave back early overni