The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, with the Nobel committee lauding the “grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki” for its work to “achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

The 2024 Peace Prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.

Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the prize should be awarded for “the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Since 1901, 104 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded, mostly to individuals but also to organizations that have been seen to advance peace efforts.

Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it also was a recognition of “the hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”

In the Middle East, persistently spiraling levels of violence over the past year have killed tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children and women. The war, sparked by a bloody raid into Israel by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 that left about 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, has spilled out into the wider region.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says more than half are women and children. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed, with thousands more injured and around 1 million displaced since mid-September, when the Israeli military dramatically expanded its offensive against Hezbollah.

The war in Ukraine, sparked by Russia’s invasion, is heading toward its third winter with a staggering loss of human life on both sides.

The U.N. has confirmed more than 11,000 Ukrainian civilian dead, but that doesn’t take into account as many as 25,000 Ukrainians believed to have died during the Russian capture of the city of Mariupol or unreported deaths in the occupied territories.

Western officials have estimated Russian military casualties around 600,000, with perhaps 150,000 dead, and public reports put Russian civilian dead around 150, mostly in the border region of Belgorod.

Ukrainian military deaths were last announced in February at 31,000 and the president has said there are six wounded for every soldier killed.

On the African continent, Sudan has been devastated by a 17-month war that that has so far killed more than 20,000 peopleand forced more than 8 million people from their homes, while roughly another 2 million were already displaced within the country before hostilities broke out.

The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Nobel season ends Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, formally known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

PITTSBURGH, Pa. (KDKA) — The northern lights are expected to be visible again throughout parts of the United States on Friday night. 

When the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, are visible, the best way to see them is to find a dark spot away from bright lights, allow time to enable your eyes adjust to the darkness and look toward the north.  

The northern lights show up best in photos.

Here’s how to use night mode on your phone’s camera to try to capture photos of the colorful auroras.   

How do I turn on night mode on an iPhone? 

If you are using an iPhone, Apple says the default settings will have night mode turn on automatically “when the camera detects a low-light environment.”

When night mode is active, an icon will turn yellow in the top left corner of your screen.

A number will show up next to that icon showing you how long it will take for the photo to take. 

You can adjust how long the exposure will last by tapping the arrow that shows up above the viewfinder.

How do I turn on night mode on an Android phone? 

Starting night mode on an Android device will depend on the type of device you have. 

On a Samsung Galaxy device, a yellow moon icon will pop up in the bottom right of your screen. On a Pixel device, you can tap Night Light, then tap Capture and hold your phone still for a few seconds. In the Google Camera app, you can turn Night mode on by tapping settings and turning the mode on or off. 

Will the northern lights be visible where I live?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued its “Aurora Forecast” for Friday with numerous parts of the United States in the range of potentially being able to see the bright auroras of the northern lights. 

The map of the aurora forecast shows that northern parts of the country have a better chance of seeing the auroras. 

A view line that shows “the southern extent of where aurora might be seen on the northern horizon” stretches from Washington, D.C. across the Midwest and through Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York. 

The northern lights were on display on Thursday night 

The northern lights were visible all throughout the country on Thursday night.

Photos of the northern lights were captured in places like Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. 

The colorful auroras had green, purple, red and pink hues scattered throughout the skies. 

What causes the northern lights? 

When a geomagnetic storm occurs, solar wind is sent toward Earth. 

Charged protons and electrons follow Earth’s magnetic field and enter the atmosphere where the magnetic fields are the weakest: the poles. 

The electrons smash into all the different molecules that make up our atmosphere, creating a dazzling display of colors in the sky.