NEWS HEADLINES
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Canada announces 'dollar-for-dollar' retaliatory tariffs on US as high as 50%
The latest escalation in an ongoing trade war between the US and Canada will see new levies on goods from steel to furniture, fresh tuna and makeup. read more
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China hits out at 'illegal' new US sanctions on Iran and trading partners
The US has threatened to isolate nations that continue to do business with Tehran, which sells much of its oil to Beijing. read more
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CIA chief travels to Moscow for unannounced talks, US media reports
Flight tracking data confirms an American military aircraft travelled to Russia from the US via Latvia on Tuesday. read more
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Brain disease in dead NFL players 'higher than previously shown'
A new study says at least one in four ex-NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had a degenerative brain disease but the true figure could be much higher. read more
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Tornado tears through French village, leaving dozens hurt and homes ravaged
The south-western village of Pomas was hardest hit, with hundreds of homes damaged and fifteen people taken to hospital. read more
BIOGRAPHY
Stephen Jay Gould was born and raised in the community of Bayside, a neighborhood of the northeastern section of Queens in New York City. His father Leonard was a court stenographer, and his mother Eleanor was an artist whose parents were Jewish immigrants living and working in the city’s Garment District.[6] When Gould was five years old his father took him to the Hall of Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, where he first encountered Tyrannosaurus rex. “I had no idea there were such thingsāI was awestruck,” Gould once recalled.[7] It was in that moment that he decided to become a paleontologist.
Raised in a secular Jewish home, Gould did not formally practice religion and preferred to be called an agnostic. Biologist Jerry Coyne, who had Gould on his thesis committee, described him as a “diehard atheist if there ever was one.

