Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday awarded the nation's highest medal, the Hero of Russia, to the pilot who managed to smoothly land his disabled passenger plane in a cornfield after a flock of birds hit both engines and knocked them out. The experienced captain, 41-year-old Damir Yusupov, said Friday that a quick landing was his only chance and he was not afraid of handling it. Putin also awarded the Hero of Russia to the plane's second pilot, 23-year-old Georgy Murzin and bestowed other top awards on the plane's cabin crew.

The former convenience store employee was accused of gunning down a teenager that stole a beer from a Tennessee convenience store.

A man put to death in the US state of Tennessee on Thursday for murdering a woman and her daughter chose in his final hours to be electrocuted rather than executed by lethal injection, prison officials said. Stephen West, who was convicted in the two killings more than 30 years ago, waited until Wednesday to choose his method of execution -- one day after Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee refused his request for clemency. "After thorough consideration of Stephen West's request for clemency and a review of the case, the State of Tennessee's sentence will stand, and I will not be intervening," he said in a statement.

DOJ argued that Title VII does not protect transgender people

Kamala Harris grew up in the radical environs of Berkeley and spent her childhood at marches and protests with her parents. But she went to law school and became a prosecutor, an unexpected career choice that she has to explain — and defend — to Democratic voters as she seeks the presidency.

A woman cheated death when she fell nearly a mile to the ground after her parachute and emergency back-up apparently both failed to open.Witnesses who saw her plunge nearly 5000ft to the ground said it was a miracle she wasn’t killed.She hit a clump of trees, breaking her fall, and escaped with only fractured bones, including broken vertebrae.Police Quebec in Canada are investigating whether there was any criminal negligence.After jumping from the plane at a skydiving centre in Trois-Rivieres, the woman escaped with her life by hitting a wooded area.Denis Demers, who saw her fall, told Radio-Canada: "It’s a miracle. I don’t know how a person can survive a fall from an airplane like that."He said it appeared that neither the main parachute nor the emergency back-up had opened.Police told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the 30-year-old parachutist, who has not yet been identified, was an experienced skydiver.She was admitted to hospital but her life was not in danger, they said.Another witness, Oceane Duplessis, said she was getting ready to get on another plane when she saw the woman."We watched all the way to the end. We kept hoping something would happen," she said. "We were very worried. Very."According to Scienceabc.com, a person without a parachute will fall at a typical speed of 120mph – or 60 metres (196ft) a second.The skydive company, which is reported to be investigating, has been contacted for comment.

A 72-year-old man was seriously injured after attempting to break up a fight between his pet dog and a giant Goanna lizard.

Germany expects a No Deal Brexit and is not prepared to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, according to leaked details of an internal briefing paper for Angela Merkel’s government. The leaked paper is the first evidence that Germany may be preparing to let Britain walk away with No Deal rather than back down to Boris Johnson’s demand to drop the Irish backstop. The paper was prepared by civil servants for the German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, ahead of face-to-face talks with the chancellor of the exchequer, Sajid Javid, in Berlin on Friday.  In public, Mr Scholz has said Germany will do everything it can to secure a deal with the UK. But according to details leaked to the usually reliable Handelsblatt newspaper, the briefing paper calls for the European Union to stick to its previous line of refusing to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement. It warns that there is now a “high probability” of a No Deal Brexit on October 31, but says  the EU must not "lose its nerve". Preparations  by Germany and the rest of the EU-27 to manage the impact of No Deal are “largely complete”, and the European Commission is not planning any further emergency measures, it says. Mr Javid is the first senior minister from the Johnson government to hold face-to-face talks with his German counterpart Credit: TOLGA AKMEN/AFP The paper says it is “currently unforeseeable that Prime Minister Johnson will change his tough negotiating position” and predicts that he may use next weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz for a “big moment” to announce success or failure in negotiations. “Against this background, it is important from the EU perspective to stick to the previous line” of refusing to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, it  says, adding that even if the EU were to agree to drop the Irish backstop, it is not clear that Mr Johnson would be able to win approval for a revised withdrawal agreement in parliament. The UK has made repeated attempts to split the EU side, and “the EU-27’s unity  in adhering to the negotiated exit agreement” has been “decisive”, the paper says. Germany has already passed more than 50 laws and measures to deal with the impact of a No Deal Brexit, and the paper provides details of arrangements in the finance ministry’s area of tax and banking.  It cites a transitional agreement between the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and BaFin, the German financial regulator on cross-border financial services, and says German customes authorities are prepared for the increased workload expected under No Deal.

A man can be seen pulling Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s infant daughter out of the plane as smoke and flames billow from the Cessna.