Individuals and groups

Individuals and groups whose story doesn't fit into any other category.

Shipwrecked sailor says he survived 66 days at sea with a lot of prayers

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Category: Individuals and groups
Created: Saturday, 04 April 2015 06:07
Published: Saturday, 04 April 2015 06:00
Written by Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post
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{josquote}Facebook posts paint Jordan as a free-spirited young man who shared his father’s Baha’i faith...{/josquote}

Louis Jordan’s Facebook page foreshadowed his fate. A year ago, the 37-year-old South Carolina man began posting photos of himself on his beloved 35-foot sailboat, Angel, which he had painstakingly restored. Over the coming months, he uploaded pictures of food he had jarred and fish he had caught for dinner. Jordan, it seemed, was preparing for a journey.

On Dec. 28, 2014, he posted a video to Facebook. It was grainy footage of a woman recounting a near-death experience.

Less than a month later, Jordan would be the one facing death at sea.

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Tsarnaev jury cuts across class, but not race

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Category: Individuals and groups
Created: Friday, 06 March 2015 02:10
Published: Friday, 06 March 2015 02:04
Written by Ann O'Neill and Sonia Moghe, CNN
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The jury chosen to decide the death penalty case against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev includes 18 people from across the socioeconomic spectrum, but the group is almost exclusively white.

{josquote}...[one juror] said his mother was born in Iran and converted from Islam to the Baha'i faith. {/josquote}

Race has been an issue raised by Tsarnaev's defense during four unsuccessful attempts to move the death penalty trial from Boston. His attorneys argued that the way the court issues jury summons led to picking a panel that's older and whiter than the community at large. But prosecutors argued that the jury had been picked properly. And now, the trial is set to begin Wednesday.

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Central Florida man finalist for trip to Mars

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Category: Individuals and groups
Created: Thursday, 05 March 2015 00:09
Published: Thursday, 05 March 2015 00:04
Written by Click Orlando
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George Hatcher 1 of 100 finalists for Mars One Foundation voyage

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. - George Hatcher welcomed a guest at his Merritt Island home last week with 5-month-old daughter Io, named for one of Jupiter's moons, tucked in a baby carrier on his chest.

Inside, the NASA engineer's wife, Lorenia, took the baby and their 2-year-old son, Rafael, offered a small stuffed lamb and a Thomas the Tank Engine train for inspection.

Hatcher stretched out with Rafael on the living room floor to work on an animal puzzle, then played a game of "tickling spiders" and swung his son high up with his legs, to squeals of delight.

{josquote}Hatcher is a member of the Baha'i Faith...{/josquote}

It's family time the 35-year-old father cherishes after a day at work at Kennedy Space Center. But he increasingly has reason to think about the day he might leave it all behind.

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The mystery of Marsha Mehran

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Category: Individuals and groups
Created: Tuesday, 13 January 2015 04:10
Published: Tuesday, 13 January 2015 03:59
Written by Cahal Milmo, The Independent
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Marsha in happier times

The best-selling young novelist who died a recluse in a rubbish-strewn cottage on Ireland’s west coast

From the moment of her arrival in Lecanvey, Marsha Mehran cut a solitary figure.

The few times she was seen were when she would sit, in the depths of winter, on a bench in the shadow of Ireland’s holiest mountain and open her laptop to catch the Wi-Fi from the village pub opposite.

The Dawson family, who run Staunton’s Pub in a crook of the meandering road that tracks the stark beauty of County Mayo’s Atlantic coast, repeatedly invited the striking young woman into the warmth.

Once or twice in four months, she accepted. But most of the time the 36-year-old politely declined, explaining that she needed to get back home. Visitors to her nearby rented house overlooking a rocky beach were greeted with a sign: “Do not disturb. I’m working.”

{josquote}Born in Tehran in 1977, Marsha was the daughter of an accountant, Mehran, and his wife, Shahin, a teacher, both members of Iran’s Baha’i faith...{/josquote}

As Therese Dawson, the landlady of the homely boozer in the shadow of the 2,500ft Croagh Patrick, put it: “I suppose she needed our Wi-Fi and she’d be out there in all weathers. Of course we invited her in. We told her she didn’t have to worry about buying anything. But I sensed from her that she preferred to be alone.”

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Ledoux, Urbain (1874-1941)

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Category: Individuals and groups
Created: Wednesday, 26 November 2014 17:09
Published: Wednesday, 26 November 2014 16:50
Written by "Encyclopedia of American Recessions and Depressions", edited by Daniel Leab
Hits: 1884
{amazon id='159884945X'}

A flamboyant self-promoter, many of whose charitable activities skirted the edge of legality and incurred the wrath of the authorities, he dramatically publicized the plight of the unemployed especially during the economic downturn of 1920–1921. Ledoux credited much of what he did for the down and out, in bad times and good, to his Baha'i faith (with its emphasis on good works and on ending extremes poverty and wealth). Ledoux was one of Baha'i's earliest practitioners in the United States and Canada

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