Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is one of the most vulnerable incumbents this election, and he probably didn't help his chances to retain his seat in his debate Thursday night with his Democratic challenger, Rep. Tammy Duckworth. Kirk had been pretty low-key in their first debate, but he was decidedly more feisty on Thursday night, accusing Duckworth of lying about a workplace discrimination lawsuit and calling her record of serving veterans "very questionable." His biggest hit, however, was also his loudest thud.

Duckworth had just explained why she wanted to serve in the Senate "when the drums of war sound," to explain the costs and risks of war. "My family has served this nation in uniform going back to the Revolution," she said. "I am a Daughter of the American Revolution. I've bled for this nation." That's not hyperbole — Duckworth served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot in Iraq, and she lost both her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade took down her chopper in 2004. "I had forgotten your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington," Kirk said, apparently referring to the fact that Duckworth's mother is Thai of Chinese descent; Duckworth was also born in Thailand.

Kirk's comment was met with an awkward silence, then a moderator told Duckworth, "You're welcome to take some time to respond to that, too," and Duckworth laughed: "There's been members of my family serving on my father's side since the American Revolution.... I'm proud of both my father's side and my mother, who's an immigrant."

Kirk, who served as an intelligence officer in the Naval Reserve for 23 years until a serious stroke prompted his retirement in 2013, had been urged by the National Republican Senatorial Committee to "stay out of the media" as much as possible this election, the Chicago Tribune reports, and he has mostly made news so far for being the first Republican to unendorse Donald Trump after Trump attacked a Mexican-American judge. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway joined the many jeers of Kirk's gaffe, because revenge is a dish best served five months later. Peter Weber

Emilia Clarke has just revealed in a powerful essay that she has survived two life-threatening brain aneurysms since her work on Game of Thrones began.

The Daenerys Targaryen actress in an essay for The New Yorker on Thursday writes that in February 2011, two months before the first season's premiere, she suffered a type of stroke that kills one-third of patients, being rushed to the hospital after experiencing a "shooting, stabbing, constricting pain." Following a three-hour surgery, Clarke says she suffered from aphasia and couldn't even remember her name.

"In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug," she writes. "I asked the medical staff to let me die."

Clarke did recover and says she was back filming Game of Thrones within weeks, but she was "often so woozy, so weak" that "every minute of every day I thought I was going to die." After the show's third season, Clarke says she had to receive a second surgery for another smaller aneurysm in her brain, but it didn't go according to plan. "I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn't operate again," she says. The recovery from this more intrusive surgery was even more painful, she describes, saying she was "convinced that I wasn't going to live."

Her fear didn't go away after she was out of the hospital, and Clarke goes into detail about the pressure of trying to maintain her public persona while at the same time fearing she wouldn't be able to "cheat death" again. Once, she says she received a "horrific headache" at Comic-Con and thought, "This is it. My time is up."

Now, though, Clarke says she has "healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes" and has started a charity called SameYou to fund treatment for those who suffer from brain injuries and strokes. Read Clarke's emotional account at The New Yorker. Brendan Morrow

President Trump just unleashed an incredibly consequential foreign policy decision in a single tweet — but what else is new.

Just a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump decided that America would recognize Golan Heights as Israeli territory. Syria and Israel have fought over the 460-square mile plateau for more than half a century, yet Trump settled its fate, at least in American eyes, in one surprising Thursday tweet.

Golan was Syrian land until Israel seized it in 1967, sparking a constant fight between the neighbors. Most recently, Israel has accused the Iran-backed group Hezbollah of setting up a terrorist cell in the region, per the Times of Israel. Netanyahu was expected to push Trump to support Israel's control over the region when they met next week, and three GOP lawmakers pleaded with Trump to do the same last week.

The move is largely seen as a strategic boost to Netanyahu's struggling re-election campaign, The New York Times notes. Beyond meeting with Trump, Netanyahu is also scheduled to speak to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, which has recently been subject to increasing opposition from far-left Democrats. Kathryn Krawczyk

Facebook is in hot water once again.

The social media giant on Thursday acknowledged having stored hundreds of millions of user passwords in plain text when they should have been encrypted. This followed a report from journalist Brian Krebs on Facebook not encrypting passwords, which said this has been happening "in some cases going back to 2012."

Krebs quoted a Facebook source as saying "between 200 million and 600 million" users have been affected by this. In a blog post, Facebook didn't provide an exact number but said it would notify "hundreds of millions" of affected Facebook Lite users, as well as "tens of millions" of other Facebook users and "tens of thousands" of Instagram users.

These unencrypted passwords were searchable in a database that could be accessed by 20,000 Facebook employees, Krebs reports. Facebook says it discovered this during a security review in January but found "no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly accessed the passwords."

This is only the latest bit of bad press for the scandal-plagued Facebook, which The New York Times reported last week is under criminal investigation over deals made with other companies over its user's data. Facebook told the Times it is "cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously." After the company's Thursday revelations, the Times' Mike Isaac quoted a Facebook employee as saying, "working at Facebook is like living the Sideshow Bob stepping on rakes GIF." Brendan Morrow

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway would very much like everyone to stop paying so much attention to her husband's tweets calling her boss, President Trump, mentally unstable.

Conway spoke with Fox Business on Thursday after Trump went after her husband, George Conway, as a "stone cold loser," "husband from hell," and a "whack job." It's "unusual" and "new" for her husband not to support "the agenda of the president and my work there," she said, also saying it's "surprising" to see "grievances" aired in public. Still, "I appreciate the president defending what he thinks is unfairness," she said, later saying that Trump is "protective" of her and has "never" made her feel like she has to "choose between my marriage and my job."

She went on to say that she has "certainly" had "conversations" with her husband about not wanting him to tweet attacks on her boss, but she argued the media is "getting into a very dangerous area" by covering this story, in particular going after what she called "self-designated marriage experts." She also suggested her husband's tweets aren't really that important since he can't "act on" them and that reporters only care about him because of their marriage. "I don't know when the feminists are going to write the story about the unusual situation about a man getting power through his wife, but that's what we have here," she said.

Later, Conway said her husband "certainly" wants her to step down, but asked, "what message would that send to the feminists everywhere who pretend they're independent thinkers, and men don't make decisions for them? They can talk it, and I can walk it. I can live it." Brendan Morrow

You don't have to be baseball fan to catch some feelings from this goodbye.

On Thursday, MLB legend Ichiro Suzuki finished up a 29-year career on an indisputably high note. Sure, the 45-year-old outfielder and his Seattle Mariners earned a 5-4 win over the Oakland Athletics in Tokyo's Japan Opening Series. But the reaction from the 45,000-person crowd and Ichiro's teammates after he was pulled from the game during its eighth inning was far more historic.

Ichiro spent more than a decade with the Mariners before gracing a few more MLB teams and then returning to Seattle in 2018. He took a front office position last May, but came back to the field Wednesday for the first Mariners game of the season and appeared again on Thursday. It seemed pretty clear that Ichiro intended to play the last games of his career in his home country of Japan, and he made his retirement official after Thursday's game.

While Ichiro didn't earn any runs on Thursday, he leaves behind a career marked by 3,089 hits in the MLB. Combined with his 1,278 hits as a professional in Japan, Ichiro holds the record for the most professional hits of all time. Watch more of Ichiro's final on-field moments below. Kathryn Krawczyk

At least 55 people are dead after a ferry sank in Iraq's Tigris river, officials tell Al Jazeera.

The ferry was carrying more than 80 people celebrating the Kurdish new year when it sank due to a technical problem near Mosul on Thursday, a civil defense official tells The Associated Press. Those dead include 33 women, 12 children, and 10 men, an Iraqi health ministry spokesman added. At least 30 people had been rescued but search operations are ongoing.

The river had seen high, fast-moving waters recently after the nearby Mosul dam was opened, BBC notes. Water authorities told boat operators to stay off the river, meaning there weren't many boats around to aid the sinking vessel. Many of those onboard were women and children who could not swim, the civil defense official told AP.

Some sources have said there could've been up to 200 people onboard the ferry as it traveled to a tourist island, per Al Jazeera. Photos and videos showing people floating in the water appeared on social media following the incident. Kathryn Krawczyk