Humanlike fossils have emerged from the deep and twisting caverns of the Rising Star cave system in South Africa over the past decade — and what they have revealed has rocked the field of human origins. Now, new findings on the sex of individuals whose remains were discovered there are giving researchers a fresh but perplexing perspective on this oddball human relative. In 2015, scientists first described a tiny and puzzling species of hominin from an unusually rich cache of fossils found at a site known as Dinaledi Chamber within the cave system. Despite having a brain not much bigger than a chimp, researchers hypothesized that Homo naledi, as the species was named, deliberately buried its dead in the confines of the cave. This act represented a sophisticated practice once regarded as uniquely human. Members of the species may even have engraved symbols on the rock walls, they reported.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/24/science/homo-naledi-fossils-same-sex
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/25/world/video/kimchi-r-and-d-daesang-corey-lee-korea-spc-digvid-hnk
One day after adopting a resolution aimed at removing US military forces from the conflict with Iran, the Senate walked back its rebuke of President Donald Trump’s handling of the war, rejecting an attempt to advance a similar war powers measure. Wednesday’s late-night vote came after Trump expressed frustration with Senate Republicans who voted for an Iran war powers resolution on Tuesday, as well as Republicans who missed that vote, arguing that Congress had undermined his position at the negotiating table with Iran. GOP Sens. Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy, who had previously voted to rein in the president’s war powers on Iran, changed their votes; Paul voted present and Cassidy voted against advancing the resolution. GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski once again voted for the resolution, while Democratic Sen. John Fetterman again voted against it. The final tally was 47-50-1.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/senate-backtracks-iran-war-powers-vote
In the month since President Donald Trump put a decisive end to Sen. Bill Cassidy’s congressional career, the Louisiana senator has become one of the president’s sharpest critics in the halls of the US Capitol. But as they stood face to face in a Wednesday meeting at the Capitol, the two Republicans unleashed anger at each other in a shouting match in front of dozens of their Senate GOP colleagues. The testy back-and-forth began, according to Cassidy, as Trump demanded to know why members of his own party — including Cassidy — voted with Democrats a day earlier to rebuke the president’s military authority in Iran.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/trump-cassidy-senate-republicans