NEWS HEADLINES
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Trump briefed on military and covert options for Iran, sources say
The US president also imposes a 25% tariff on countries that "do business" with Tehran, while Iran's foreign minister says his country is "ready for war". read more
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'They just kept killing': Eyewitnesses describe deadly crackdown in Iran
The BBC has received eyewitness accounts of security forces attacking anti-government protesters across the country. read more
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Le Pen's political fate rests on appeal trial opening in France
The head of her far-right party, Jordan Bardella, warns banning her running for president would be "deeply worrying" for democracy. read more
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'We were tricked': How one woman lures foreign men to fight on Russia's front line
Recruits tell the BBC an ex-teacher who operates on Telegram misled them, saying they could avoid combat. read more
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Lyse Doucet: Iran's rulers face biggest challenge since 1979 revolution
The authorities are responding to protests with a ferocious security crackdown and near total internet shutdown. 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.

