AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

El Niño’s storm-killer winds and climate’s warming waters in fight over future of Hurricane Isaias

A supersized El Niño’s decapitating winds and the Gulf of Mexico’s toasty, storm-fueling waters are battling over the future strength of Hurricane Isaias. And the storm’s tilt and eye show who’s winning.

All Atlantic hurricane season there has been “this battle between shear and just the overall conducive conditions,” said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

El Niño — the natural temporary warming of parts of the Pacific that warps weather worldwide — dominated. Its wind patterns smothered almost any wisp of a storm from strengthening in the Atlantic, while boosting what will soon be record high levels in the Pacific, Klotzbach said.

It’s called wind shear and it pushes the tops and middle of storms around, making them lopsided and keeping them from making a complete circular eyewall, which is when storms can really power up, Klotzbach and University at Albany’s Kristen Corbosiero said.

The other ingredients for a storm to turbocharge a storm are pushing back. There is plenty of fuel in warm water and moisture. The Gulf of Mexico is about 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal. The 86 degree waters (30 degrees Celsius) are 100 to 500 times more likely to be that extra hot because of climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas, said climate scientist Kristina Dahl, vice president of the nonprofit Climate Central, which calculates the boost global warming causes to extreme weather.

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Christa Pike is walking with help and eating after failed execution attempt, her attorneys say

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Christa Pike has begun walking and eating again at a hospital a week after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her with lethal drugs, her attorneys said Thursday.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital as the state sought to giver her a lethal injection eight days ago for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. The drug didn’t kill her, and her arms were left burned and blistered, according to her lawyers. For the first few days of her hospitalization, Pike was unconscious and on a ventilator.

Her first steps on Wednesday were “limited” and she required some assistance as she walked on Thursday, her lawyers said in a statement. She is also regaining mobility in her arms, and she was able to eat for the first time.

But the lawyers warned uncertainty remains about her physical recovery and her legal standing after the attempt to carry out her death sentence.

The failed execution on Sept. 30 has renewed scrutiny of how states carry out the death penalty. Texas on Wednesday carried out the first execution in the U.S. since the Tennessee attempt.

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Saudi authorities say 3 were killed in attacks on Riyadh airport claimed by Houthi rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — Three Saudi citizens were killed, including a pilot with the national airline, and several other people “of different nationalities” were wounded in attacks targeting Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and a Saudia Airlines aircraft, the kingdom’s civil aviation authority said Friday.

Thursday’s attack marked the deadliest in Saudi Arabia since the kingdom and allied forces in neighboring Yemen launched a major military offensive last weekend against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

It was also a significant escalation in the latest front in the Iran war, which has kept oil prices and markets jumpy.

The first attack on Thursday afternoon targeted airport facilities, while the second struck the aircraft, the Saudi statement said. It did not identify those responsible, though the Houthis claimed to have targeted the airport with a ballistic missile.

Among the dead was Capt. Hamoud Ali Alkalthami, the Saudia Group said in a statement. It appeared to be the first confirmed attack on the Saudi national carrier since the new offensive began. A separate Saudia Group statement said one of its aircraft was damaged while it was on the ground, with no passengers on board.

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Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in international justice

OSLO, Norway (AP) — The South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, who is currently an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her efforts to promote peace and international law.

Pillay’s work “is a source of hope and inspiration to all those who seek to bring about a more peaceful world,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in announcing her win in Oslo, Norway.

Her win is sure to be seen as a high-profile rebuke to U.S. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a U.N. commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Both leaders also have been highly critical of the institutions where Pillay has worked.

While her work has been global in scope, criticism often has been fiercely local, notably in places like Israel and in apartheid-era South Africa as she and peers took on some of the world’s most painful and sensitive legal issues and most vulnerable populations.

Pillay, 85, received the news while attending the Nuremberg Forum, a gathering to discuss international law in Nuremburg, Germany, where she received a standing ovation.

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The long-deployed USS Lincoln returns home to San Diego Bay

CORONADO, Calif. (AP) — After more than 10 months at sea, thousands of sailors Thursday poured out of the the USS Lincoln on San Diego Bay to thunderous cheers, streaming tears and emotional hugs, marking a homecoming that included new dads who met babies born while they were away on a historic deployment supporting the Iran war.

The reunion followed an emotional rollercoaster for families who described crying and losing sleep after hearing reports of supply shortages and deteriorating mental health among the crew during the deployment that spent a record 265 days of uninterrupted time at sea. Many said they only could communicate with family via the occasional email or rare WhatsApp calls.

Abel Ramirez, 20, was glad to have that all behind him. He walked off the carrier with a big grin, overjoyed that his first deployment was over.

“It feels amazing,” he said while headed out to search for his parents who traveled from Texas. “There was a certain point when I never thought I would come off.”

Cassity Garduque, 14, waved as her mom in her sailor uniform frantically waved back from the top deck after the ship docked at the pier.

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Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed

WASHINGTON (AP) — The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

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A US charity plans to use AI to monitor its Gaza classrooms for ‘hateful’ speech

A U.S. charity in Gaza is worried that teachers at its schools might stray from a curriculum it says promotes peace and tolerance, so it plans to record classroom conversations and use artificial intelligence to flag speech deemed “hateful” or “inciting.”

The plans laid out by the founder of the Gaza Children Village in a webinar last month have elicited ethical, safety and privacy concerns from some Palestinian and advocacy groups and at least one of the charity’s partners.

There is no indication the charity intends to share its classrooms’ recordings with anybody else, but fears about the potential misuse of surveillance technology are heightened in Gaza after three years of war. The Israeli military has used AI to sift through intercepted communications and find suspicious speech, including to identify targets for strikes.

Palestinian rights groups have been critical of the charity’s education agenda more broadly, saying it is unaccountable to local and U.N. agencies that have long managed Gaza’s schools. Who controls education in Gaza is one of many unresolved questions about its postwar governance.

It is unclear when the classroom monitoring is supposed to begin, what specific language will be flagged, and whether teachers, students and their families have been told about the plans.

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The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program, alleging fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration announced Thursday it was suspending Microsoft and several other firms from a program allowing foreign workers to apply for green cards, as it also lashed out at universities that bring international students to the U.S. on exchange programs.

The announcement by Vice President JD Vance marks the latest swing from the Trump administration at employers and universities that welcome foreign students and workers into the country.

Such programs have frequently been targeted by some Trump supporters who argue they undercut American students and workers. Supporters say they allow the U.S. to attract the best talent from around the world and fill important hiring gaps.

Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like H-1B visas — which Vance accused Microsoft of abusing — essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In the wide-ranging announcement, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing firms.

The announcement came hours before Trump awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he granted some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.

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World shares are mostly higher and crude prices fall after an unsettled day on Wall St

Shares were mostly higher Friday in Europe and Asia, while oil prices fell back from recent gains.

U.S. futures edged higher.

In early European trading, the German DAX rose 0.7% to 24,975.62, while the CAC 40 in Paris surged 0.8% to 7,789.91. Britain’s FTSE 100 picked up 0.7% to 10,515.43.

The future for the S&P 500 was up 0.4%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.1%.

In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 closed nearly unchanged at 69,030.92.

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Trump says US will not resume military strikes on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will not order a resumption of military strikes on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the United States.

Trump, while stumping for Republicans this week, has hinted that he was confident that an endgame to the war could come in the days before or after the election, while also hinting that he remained open to resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.

For weeks, Trump has been threatening that a post-midterm election escalation in the seven-month-old war remains a viable option, despite his initial promises to Americans of a military campaign that would last a matter of weeks.

But Trump in a social media post on Thursday said the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”

Trump added that his team has been “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”