At least the fee was waived

Son’s Death Has Iranian Family Asking Why

On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran. He was returning from acting class and a week shy of becoming a groom, his family said.

The details of his death remain unclear. He had been alone. Neighbors and relatives think that he got trapped in the crossfire. He wasn’t politically active and hadn’t taken part in the turmoil that has rocked Iran for over a week, they said.

At the crack of dawn, his father began searching at police stations, then hospitals and then the morgue.

Upon learning of his son’s death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee”—a fee for the bullet used by security forces—before taking the body back, relatives said.

Mr. Alipour told officials that his entire possessions wouldn’t amount to $3,000, arguing they should waive the fee because he is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. According to relatives, morgue officials finally agreed, but demanded that the family do no funeral or burial in Tehran. Kaveh Alipour’s body was quietly transported to the city of Rasht, where there is family.

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Southern Baptists Worry About Declining Numbers

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Southern Baptists are facing a membership decline that could shrink the nation’s largest Protestant denomination by nearly half in 40 years, its convention president said Tuesday.

The Rev. Johnny Hunt, a megachurch pastor from Woodstock, Ga., told convention members gathered in Louisville that Southern Baptists need to give more to worldwide missions and attract minorities.

“I really do believe we need a revival,” Hunt said in a 45-minute address to kick off the two-day convention.

The denomination is declining at a rate that could shrink its membership from 16.2 million to 8.7 million by 2050, Hunt said. Total membership of Southern Baptist churches was 16,228,438 last year, down nearly 38,400 from 2007, according to LifeWay, the convention’s research and publishing arm.

Hunt, himself a Native American from the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, said the denomination needs to work harder to court minorities.

“We need to really join with our brothers of ethnicity in this convention,” Hunt said.

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Minister’s home purchases questioned in state mortgage case

A Valley preacher with a worldwide ministry and his wife bought multiple upscale homes with deceptive loan applications, according to a state case accusing a mortgage firm of illegal practices.

Clint Rogers, head of Mesa-based Clint Rogers Ministries, and Angela Faith Rogers are not accused of any wrongdoing in the complaint filed by the Arizona Department of Financial Institutions, which seeks to shut down Scottsdale-based Global Mortgage. The mortgage company handled many of the couple’s purchases and is accused by the state of using illegal and improper procedures.

But the couple’s purchases of more than two dozen homes in Arizona over two years are documented in records turned over by the state to federal investigators charged with looking at mortgage improprieties.

Property records show that they bought homes that the sellers had purchased hours, days or weeks earlier for thousands of dollars less than what Clint and Angela Rogers had paid for them.

That generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for the sellers.

Of 26 homes bought by the minister and his wife, at least 23 went into foreclosure. All were sold for less than what banks lent to the couple, mostly through trustee sales.

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