NEWS HEADLINES
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Palestinians told to leave homes in village where Israeli settlers besieged houses
The mayor of Qusra says Israeli troops have been telling families to leave their houses, using some as barracks. read more
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UK defends seizing shadow fleet tanker after Putin threat
The UK government says it is "disrupting and deterring shadow fleet vessels" in accordance with the law. read more
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Putin can no longer claim victory in Ukraine, Nobel Peace Prize winner tells BBC
In an exclusive interview with the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg, Dmitry Muratov says the Kremlin leader can only "destroy Ukraine, not conquer it", with the war now in its fifth year. read more
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Ebola outbreak on track to be deadliest ever, WHO chief says
The outbreak, declared on 15 May, has caused more than 2,000 deaths, with thousands more reported cases. read more
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Person fined after using foghorn to wake sleeping polar bear
Under local regulations in the region, "it is forbidden to needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear". 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 things—I 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.

