NEWS HEADLINES
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Trump waives several Russia sanctions as row with Zelensky intensifies
The US president temporarily ends many restrictions on Moscow recently passed by Congress over "national security" concerns. read more
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Oregon teacher fought school attacker before armed dad shot suspect 'multiple times'
The 16-year-old suspect previously attended the primary school and had targeted a special educational needs classroom, police say. read more
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Three men jailed for 158 years each for murdering Australian and US surfers in Mexico
Brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their friend Carter Rhoad were killed on a surfing trip in an apparent botched robbery. read more
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Brazil sees record fall in Amazon deforestation as key election looms
The Amazon rainforest is a crucial buffer against climate change - but deforestation had expanded under former president Jair Bolsonaro. read more
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Rare pink diamond goes on display in France 100 years after amateur heist
The French royal jewel will be on public display for the first time since it was found hidden in an apple after a 1926 theft. 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.

