Add Hominem: A team of scientists has announced the discovery in a South African cave of the remains of a previously unknown species of human they have named “Homo naledi.”

Two years ago cavers found a chamber full of bones in the Rising Star Cave. The fossils have since been identified as a distinctly different line of early man with a brain about a third the size of humans. The word “naledi” means “star” in the local Sesotho language.

The age of the fossils has not been determined, but they are presumed to be in the range of two million years old. Researchers found the remains of everything from newborns to the elderly. Scientists were interested to learn that the Naledi carefully deposited their dead in a safe place, a practice previously been attributed only to modern humans.

World: As many as 90,000 people have been forced by flooding to evacuate their homes in the city of Joso in northeast Japan. The city is reported to have been hit by a wall of water after heavy rains burst the banks of the Kinugawa River.

Hillary Mail: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has sent an e-mail to supporters defending and justifying her use of private email while she was secretary of state. She writes, “My use of a personal email account was aboveboard and allowed under the State Department’s rules. Everyone I communicated with in government was aware of it. And nothing I ever sent or received was marked classified at the time.”

Again, Clinton does not deny sending classified material, only that it was not marked as classified.

The NY Times reports that some Democratic leaders worried about Clinton’s softening support are considering drafting another candidate to run if she can’t shake off the e-mail debate and get back on her feet.

The Campaign Trail: Republican candidate “Jeb!” Bush has irritated Republicans and Democrats with proposals for tax changes that would eliminate some sweet deductions for business and the wealthy while also cutting taxes across all income brackets and for corporations.

Republican critics say Bush would raise taxes for the rich and the Democrats say he’s lowering them. Partly what Bush is doing is attempting to tackle the issue of income inequality, something Donald Trump has hit head on. “The hedge fund people make a lot of money and they pay very little taxes,” Trump told Bloomberg News. “I want to lower taxes for the middle class.”

Gadget Beat: Apple introduced improvements yesterday to the iPhone 6, which is still the most profitable gizmo in the world. The 6S and 6S Plus, have a pressure-sensitive screen, better cameras, and a new color, “Rose Gold,” described in plain language by people who have seen it as “pink.”

The iPhone has about 400 million users around the world and you might wonder how they can possibly sell more. One word: upgrades.

BookBeat: Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz are hawking their new book that comes down hard on President Obama, saying he is soft on terrorism, weak on national defense, and hates America. They write in “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America” that, “The damage that Barack Obama has done to our ability to defend ourselves is appalling.” They say, “It is without historical precedent. He has set us on a path of decline so steep that reversing direction will not be easy.”

The former vice president under George W. Bush is unapologetic about being one of the hardliners who drove the US to war with Iraq under, at the very least, misperceptions, and left the country on the brink of one of the deepest recessions in history.

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