The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and the Pentagon’s Plan to Livestream an Execution

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracey Mumford. Today's Friday, October 9th. Here's what we're covering. The region of our community has decided to reward the Nobel Peace Prize for 2026 to Navajo for her efforts to promote peace and international love. This morning, the Nobel Committee announced the winner of the 2026 Peace Prize is Navi Pillai, a human rights lawyer from South Africa. Pillai fought against apartheid in her home country, and the Committee also cited her work on international courts as a key part of the decision. She helped investigate the genocide in Rwanda in the 90s, and last year, she led a United Nations Commission investigating the war in Gaza that found Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians, a report that Israeli government announced. The Norwegian Development Committee wants to remind the world that the rule of law underpins the system we have set up to ensure peace and resolve conflicts non-violent. Peace requires justice. The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the world's most prestigious honors. Last year, the prize was given to the Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Karina Machado for her efforts to advance democracy in the face of authoritarianism in her country. She then gave her medal to President Trump after he repeatedly said he thought he should have won it. The Nobel Institute then issued a statement that the award could not be transferred. Last night, there were debates in three states, Georgia, Maine, and Michigan, for tight midterms races that could determine control of the Senate. I mean, we are in a crisis here because she would not stand up, and her Republican colleagues would not stand up to Donald Trump. Across all three states, Democrats worked to tie their Republican opponents to President Trump, whose popularity continues to sink. Are you saying that we need to eliminate all tariffs for Canada? The moderator's questions also had Republicans on the defensive, as they asked about issues that are top of mind for voters this election season. High gas prices, tariffs, the war in Iran, that left the GOP Senate candidates to either defend unpopular White House policies, or explain why they've now pivoted on issues they once supported. That is absolutely outrageous. And you owe me an apology. No, you owe me a apology. The other theme across the night was heated personal attacks. In Maine, Senator Susan Collins demanded that her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, apologize for accusing her and her husband of profiting from the war in Iran. And in Georgia. That's the problem, Mike. It's not just that you've hired half the third Reich to staff your Congressional office, and you have promoted neo-Nazi content online. Senator John Asif called out Republican Mike Collins for having hired aides who've shared white nationalist and anti-Semitic views online. On stage, Collins did not directly deny that, but said he condemns racism and anti-Semitism. And in the Michigan debate, every single exchange included an attack. You go after my mom? I'm not going after your mom. What if your mom was working at? I was going off to that organization that was indicted for funneling money to El Qaeda. At one point, Republican Mike Rogers insinuated that Democrat Abdul El Syed's mother had ties to terrorism and suggested that he was bought off by Hamas and Hezbollah. There is no evidence that El Syed, who would be the country's first Muslim Senator if he wins, has support from terror groups. Things were so heated that partway through the moderator returned from an ad break to tell viewers that Rogers and El Syed had continued to go at it even when the cameras stopped rolling. He added, "In 30 years of doing debates, I've never seen it continue during the commercial." Now, two updates on the Trump administration. First, authorities say that in New York City yesterday, an ICE agent shot an injured a man who was in a car while a five-year-old boy was in the backseat. The city's police commissioner said at least one agent fired seven rounds into the car, hitting the man in the neck. The child, who believed to be the man's son, was uninjured. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said the shooting happened while agents were trying to arrest an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record. But the department did not say why an agent fired at the car or if he was aware that a child was inside. Officials in New York were quick to speak out about the shooting. The city's mayors, or in Mamdani, called it an outrage and said he spent two hours on the phone with President Trump and the Homeland Security Secretary trying unsuccessfully to negotiate the release of the man who was shot. New York's governor, Kathy Hocal, said she also spoke with administration officials and urged them to halt ICE operations in the state. Since Trump retook office, federal immigration agents have shot at at least two dozen people across the country, many of whom were also inside a car. And. So he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers as it should be. And we'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things. The Pentagon has announced that it plans to live stream the public execution of an army officer who was convicted of a mass shooting at Fort Hood. Major Nadal Malik Hassan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others in Texas in 2009, in the deadliest ever shooting at an American military base. He said he carried out the attack to wage jihad for what he called the illegal and immoral U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Hassan will be executed by firing squad, a rarity in the U.S. There are a few countries in the world that hold public executions, those that do include Iran, North Korea, and Afghanistan. The practice of filming and releasing video of it is more common with terror groups like the Islamic State, which became infamous for posting gruesome footage of executions. If Hassan is executed as planned, on December 3rd, it would be the first state sanctioned public execution in the U.S. in more than 90 years. Along the Gulf Coast, people are stocking up on bottled water and boarding up windows as they prepare for what could be the first hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in two years. The storm named Isaise strengthened into a hurricane on Wednesday and has continued to intensify. Forecasters have said it could make landfall in southern Alabama or the Florida Panhandle later today or early tomorrow, bringing high winds and potentially a lot of rain. The last time a hurricane hit the U.S. was in 2024 with Milton, coming on the heels of Helene, which left a long trail of destruction all the way up into the Appalachian Mountains. Overall, this year has been a quiet one for hurricanes in the Atlantic. Isaise is the first of the season, coming weeks after the traditional peak. The reason for that is El Nino, which has been amping up hurricane season in the Pacific, but keeping it tame in the Atlantic. One specialist at the National Hurricane Center said before this, "We hadn't made it through September without a hurricane since basically the 70s. For the latest on the path of Isaise and where it's expected to hit, you can check the Times App or NY Times.com." And finally, with the Peace Prize now out, that rounds out a whole week of no bells. The prizes are given out in six categories every year with the prize committee calling up the recipients to share the news. There's still one more to go. Economics will be announced Monday, but in case you missed it so far, here's your roundup. This year's prize for physiology or medicine went to a group whose discoveries in neuroscience may one day lead to a treatment for blindness. We have been consistently making new discoveries. That's my real wish that this may continue, and it will. The Nobel in Physics went to a researcher who pioneered a telescope that embedded deep in the ice at the South Pole to detect particles coming from the far reaches of the universe. Chemistry went to a pair who solved a longstanding molecular mystery that's led to pharmaceutical advances and offered clues about the origins of life. And how are you feeling right now and how did you receive the news? Are you just eating crackers and drinking a cup of tea? Nothing really dramatic, yeah. The Nobel Prize in Literature went to the poet Ann Carson, who is best known for remixing ancient Greek texts in a modern way, and who took a call from the Nobel team yesterday mid-snack. You didn't expect this. It wasn't expected for heaven's sake. According to her agent, Carson's exact reaction when she learned she'd won was. Yikes! The poet was in Iceland at the time, and in true poet fashion, when she was asked what she was doing, she only said that she was listening to the wind. Those are the headlines. If you'd like to play the Friday news quiz, stick around. It is just after these credits. And real quick, if you are not a time subscriber yet, you can get a full month of free access to all of the journalism we publish when you download the Times app now. This show is made by Will Jarvis, Margaret Kadifa, Jake Lucas, Jan Stewart, and me, Tracey Mumford, original theme by Dan Powell, special thanks to Isabella Anderson, Sam Dolnick, Miles McKinley, Zoe Murphy, and Chris Wood. Now time for the quiz. Every week we ask you a few questions about stories the times has been covering. And you get them all. Here we go. Alaskans live a tough life. We need somebody who's going to fight for us. In Alaska, the midterms are heating up, and one hot button topic has become a defining campaign issue there. Every Alaskan I have ever known, no matter how young, no matter how old, deeply understand the importance of making sure our kids and grandkids and all the generations after us have the same kind of abundance that we had. At the center of this is an industry that's very Alaska, and a course of candidates running for House, Senate, Governor have been sounding the alarm, saying outsiders have profited from this industry while local businesses flounder. Your question, what are the candidates in Alaska all talking about? The answer? My agenda for Alaska will always be fish, family, and freedom. Try to give you a hint with that flounder, but it's fishing. There's been growing anger in Alaska in recent years over what's known as deep sea trawling, where fishermen, many of whom are not from the state, use giant nets to pull billions of pounds of fish from the sea. Local fishermen and indigenous groups say they're now barely able to get by anymore. And political candidates are pitching a wide range of potential fixes, like banning out-of-state boats or trying to crack down on Russian and Chinese fishing fleets off the coast. The stakes are high, not just for Alaska, but for the entire U.S., about 60% of all wild sea food harvested in the country comes from Alaska. And that's everything from high-end salmon to McDonald's filet of fish. Next question, we are sticking with the ocean theme here, but we're headed to the very opposite corner of the country, down to the Florida Keys. Taurus, on board the tropical destiny, had just finished exploring a wreck off Kilargo when they noticed something big floating in the water. Recently, the Times has been reporting on one particular thing that voters, divers, and fishermen have been hauling in. It was a big square block. The unusual catch has gotten the tongue-in-cheek nickname "square-grouper," like the fish. While it is definitely not actually any type of fish, it is rectangular and potentially hugely valuable, though picking it up could land you in trouble. Your question, what is "square-grouper"? The answer, bricks of cocaine. South Florida has long been a drug smuggling hotspot, and for decades the plastic-wrapped bundles have fallen off of smuggler's boats or been dumped by traffickers who got spooked. Recently, global cocaine consumption has been on the rise, and one local sheriff told the Times that packages of cocaine, which can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, surface along the Florida coastline nearly every week. Now, before anyone gets any ideas, recently a whole ring of people was sentenced to prison for distributing cocaine they found at sea. And last question. This past weekend in Philadelphia, hundreds of people gathered with baited breath to watch an unconventional competition. The contestants had nicknames like "the angle." And they were trying to outdo each other in front of a panel of judges. There were multiple rounds, including one called "tight squeeze" and another called "under duress." Your question, what activity were they competing in? The answer, parallel parking, with the contestants being judged on how close they could get to the curb, and how many times they bumped other cars in the process. The winner took home a trophy made from a piece of street curb and a grand prize of $76. The cost of a parking fine in the city. This was not a one-time stunt. There have been similar parallel parking competitions in Pittsburgh and Austin and Portland Oregon. So, how about LA, 2028, huh? Summer Olympics? Park it for the gold. That's it for this week's news quiz. If you want to tell us how you did, our email is the headlines at nytimes.com. I'm Tracey Mumford, have a good weekend and we will see you on Monday.