 | | Homo naledi, a previously unidentified species of early human, was discovered in South Africa. John Hawks/University of Winsconsin-Madison, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images | Your Thursday Briefing By ADEEL HASSAN |
| Good morning. |
| Here's what you need to know: |
| • A new member of the pre-human family. |
| Scientists said today that hundreds of fossils found deep inside a cave in South Africa represent a previously unidentified species of the early human lineage — Homo naledi. |
| The discovery suggests that the species intentionally placed their dead in a remote chamber, in a type of ritual that was thought to be limited to modern humans. |
| • Targeting Wall Street executives. |
| The Justice Department issued new policies to prioritize the prosecution of individual employees — not just their companies — and pressure corporations to turn over evidence against their executives. |
| The rules are intended to counter criticism that Washington has punished few executives involved in the housing crisis, the financial meltdown and corporate scandals. |
| • More migrants for the U.S.? |
| Secretary of State John Kerry said he favors significantly increasing the number of refugees the country is willing to accept, possibly to as many as 100,000 next year from the current limit of 70,000. |
| And Germany's chancellor says her country expects to receive 800,000 migrants this year alone. Already this month, about 33,000 asylum seekers have arrived at Munich's main railway station. |
| • On Capitol Hill. |
| The Senate could vote as early as today on a measure that contains language opposing the Iran nuclear deal, though it doesn't have enough support to pass. |
| In Iran, the supreme leader ruled out any new negotiations with the U.S., beyond the nuclear agreement, and said that Israel wouldn't exist in 25 years. |
| • Activists in Washington. |
| Andy Parker, the father of the TV journalist Alison Parker, who was shot and killed on the air on Aug. 26, joins groups demanding legislation to reduce gun violence as part of the national #WhateverItTakes Day of Action. |
| And the actor and activist Richard Gere, who plays a homeless New Yorker in a film that opened Wednesday, joins a panel on homelessness. |
| • A call for more debates. |
| Two senior officials of the Democratic National Committee are seeking more presidential debates for their party. |
| The current schedule has been criticized by Martin O'Malley, a candidate and former governor of Maryland, as too restrictive, and by other Democrats as too favorable to Hillary Rodham Clinton. |
| MARKETS |
| • Wall Street futures are positive this morning after stocks recorded wide swings on Wednesday. European and Asian shares are mostly down. |
| • Apple stock slid a little more than the rest of Wall Street after the company introduced new iPhones and other gadgets. Our reporter shares some first impressions. |
| • The governor of New York is expected today to call for an across-the-board increase in the state's minimum hourly wage to $15. |
| • The Bloomberg terminals Wall Streeters rely on for instant data and communications are facing some upstarts. |
| Money.Net, a rival built by a former Bloomberg executive, is gaining momentum and stealing away customers, and a start-up backed by large investment banks, Symphony, says it has an alternative to the terminals' chat program that traders and investors use. |
| NOTEWORTHY |
| • Honors at the White House. |
| President Obama will award a National Medal of Arts or National Humanities Medal to 18 Americans today. |
| Among the recipients are the authors Stephen King and Larry McMurtry, the actress Sally Field and the chef Alice Waters. |
| • Women's day. |
| The top seed at the U.S. Open, Serena Williams, plays the unseeded Roberta Vinci of Italy in the semifinals tonight. The No. 2 seed, Simona Halep of Romania, faces Flavia Pennetta of Italy in the second match (7 p.m. Eastern, ESPN). |
| Two Swiss men, Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, advanced on Wednesday to Friday's semifinals. |
| And James Blake, a retired top-10 tennis player, was pushed to the ground and handcuffed by officers who mistook him for a suspect in a fraud case. |
| • Remembering Flight 93. |
| A new visitors center and museum opens today at the Flight 93 National Memorial in western Pennsylvania, one day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. |
| People among the 40 crew members and passengers on the hijacked flight forced the plane into the ground as terrorists aimed it toward Washington. |
| • It's kickoff time. |
| The New England Patriots, the most recent Super Bowl champions, host the Pittsburgh Steelers in the N.F.L.'s season opener (8:30 p.m. Eastern, NBC). |
| Roger Goodell, whose four-game suspension of the Patriots' Tom Brady was dismissed by a federal judge last week, will not attend opening night for the first time since he became the league commissioner. |
| • Primed for an Oscar? |
| The Toronto Film Festival opens tonight with the world premiere of "Demolition," with a cast of past Oscar nominees like Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts, and the Oscar winner Chris Cooper. |
| But the tragicomic tale of an investment banker struggling to rebuild his life won't get any nominations this year. It's waiting to open on the spring film calendar, rather than joining the glut of releases this fall. |
| • What's in vogue. |
| It's Day 1 of New York Fashion Week, which has been reinvented to appeal to an audience bigger than fashionistas, with more emphasis on the creative. |
| BACK STORY |
| Researchers have never quite figured out what use our ancestors meant for Stonehenge, the ancient circle of sandstone and bluestone near Wiltshire, England. |
| Some say it was built more than 3,000 years ago as a burial site, others point to astronomical purposes because of its alignment with the summer solstice axis. |
| Others ascribe it healing properties or religious associations. |
| This week, archaeologists have a much more immense, probably older and equally mysterious line of neolithic rocks to ponder. |
| A research team revealed evidence of a line of about 100 boulders not far from Stonehenge on Monday. |
| Don't put it on your bucket list just yet. Unlike Stonehenge, you can't see these rocks — they're buried about three feet underground. The stones were rediscovered, literally under scientists' noses, through electromagnetic radar imagery. |
| They line Durrington Walls, a large henge — or man-made earthen formation of a ditch and a ring — a bit more than a stone's throw from Stonehenge. |
| The researchers speculate that the 15-foot boulders were deliberately knocked on their sides and buried. |
| For you bucket-listers, keep in mind that Stonehenge doesn't impress all visitors, landing a place on at least one list of "biggest bucket-list busts." |
| Victoria Shannon contributed reporting. |
| Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. |
| What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes.com. |
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