NY Times Now - Feb 26, 2016

Your Friday morning briefing

Teaming up on Trump

With the stakes high for a narrowed field of candidates, Marco Rubio turned the tables on Donald J. Trump in the Republican debate on Thursday, attacking the front-runner from the start about his hiring of hundreds of foreign workers at his Florida resort.

Ted Cruz joined in, calling Mr. Trump a closet liberal. In return, Mr. Trump taunted them both. Who won? Many said Mr. Rubio did, but added that the victory might have come too late.

We have fact checks, highlights, five takeaways and a full transcript.

Democrats in South Carolina vote in their primary on Saturday.

Factory shooting in Kansas

A gunman killed three people on Thursday at the manufacturing plant in Hesston where he worked, before law-enforcement officials shot and killed him. He wounded more than a dozen others, the authorities said.

The man had driven through at least two towns while firing a gun out of his car window, the police said. The name of the gunman was not released, and no motive for the shootings was given.

Next steps for Iran

Iranians are at the polls today, electing a Parliament and a clerical council that is technically in charge of naming the country's next supreme leader. It is Iran's first election since it signed a landmark nuclear accord last summer.

Some see the vote as a referendum on the nuclear deal. The results may indicate whether Iran is moving in a more moderate direction, though many advocates of reform were barred from running.

Who will wear soccer's crown?

Voting has begun in Zurich for the president of FIFA, world soccer's governing body. It looks like it's a two-man race to replace the disgraced Sepp Blatter.

Voters have already approved proposals to make the scandal-plagued organization more transparent.

At the White House

President Obama wants more intelligence experts to see information intercepted by the National Security Agency.

The idea is to let more people gain direct access to unprocessed information, increasing the chances that they will recognize nuggets of value.

Antonin Scalia, frequent flier

When he died, Antonin Scalia was the longest-tenured justice serving on the Supreme Court, but another point sets him apart.

Among the court's members, he was the most frequent traveler, to spots around the globe, on trips paid for by private sponsors. Some argue that such travel could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, particularly when the sponsors are known for conservative or liberal views.

Business

The world's top finance officials are in Shanghai for a Group of 20 meeting to discuss how to respond to the darkening global economic landscape.

A study shows that the smallest college endowments (under $25 million) outperformed the biggest endowments, averaging a five-year annualized return of 10.6 percent to the $1 billion-plus category's 10.4 percent.

The Times Magazine's "Work Issue: Reimagining the Office" looks at what Google learned when it tried to build the perfect team.

The U.S. Commerce Department will announce its revised estimate of economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2015. The figure is expected to be revised downward to 0.5 percent.

U.S. stock indexes rose 1 percent on Thursday. Here's a snapshot of world markets.

At the movies

Among today's nationwide releases: "Triple" has Kate Winslet playing a Russian-Israeli mob wife; "Gods of Egypt" stars Gerard Butler; and Hugh Jackman is a ski-jumping coach in "Eddie the Eagle."

We share our Oscar predictions and get you ready with our Oscar ballot and a quiz, ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday (red carpet: 7 p.m. Eastern; ceremony: 8:30, ABC).

On Broadway

"Hughie," which opened Thrusday night, stars the Oscar winner Forest Whitaker as a small-time gambler and big-time drinker confronting his personal demons, in a revival of the Eugene O'Neill play. It's an NYT critics' pick.

And test your knowledge, with help from Mr. Whitaker, of 1920s New York lingo.

Nostalgia on the schedule

Fuller House,the sequel series to Full House "in which the original cast members Candace Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber, now grown up, play three parenting adults" comes to Netflix today.

It's part of Netflix's aim to have more family-friendly programming.

The company's movie release of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny" a sequel to the Oscar-winning Ang Lee film" will stream and hit theaters today.

Fresh music

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis release This Unruly Mess I've Made today. Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt and The 1975 also have new albums.

Today's recipe

Do you have 20 minutes? That's about how long you'd need to prepare cumin-charged lamb burgers, a take on a Chinese dish.

Back Story

This week we told you about how English colonists adapted a Native American gift of popcorn in 1630 to create the first puffed cereal.

Today is another milestone in breakfast history. John Harvey Kellogg, the American doctor who further developed dry cereal, was born on this day in 1852.

With his brother, Will Keith Kellogg, Dr. Kellogg ran the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, which combined aspects of a hotel, a hospital and a spa, and where wealthy patients took in a regimen of exercise, fresh air and strict diet, with wheat as a centerpiece.

One day in 1894, the two overcooked the wheat, but went ahead and put it through the rollers they used to make dough. Voilà ! Grain flakes were born.

They prepared the accidental toasted flakes for patients, and the cereal was a hit. Granose Flakes went on sale in 1896. It was rebranded Corn Flakes a decade later and gave birth to the cereal giant Kellogg.

It also led to another cereal powerhouse. A sanitarium patient, C. W. Post, loved the flakes so much that he began a rival company, Post, in Battle Creek, Mich., in 1895.

Battle Creek, west of Detroit, became a cereal capital and helped reshape Americans' morning diets.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning.