PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

Densus 88 dan Teroris Suguhkan Aksi Peperangan Jarak Dekat

BANDUNG, Sako-Indonesia.com - Drama pertempuran antara Densus 88 dan sekelompok orang terduga teroris di Kampung Batu Rengat, Desa Cigondewah Hilir, Kecamatan Margaasih, Kabupaten Bandung, Rabu (8/5/2013) berlangsung sengit.

Dua kubu tersebut menyuguhkan aksi pertempuran jarak dekat. Densus 88 terlihat sudah mendekati rumah berwarna merah yang terletak di tengah sawah. Namun, kepungan pasukan Densus belum juga menunjukkan tanda-tanda terduga teroris itu menyerah.

Selain itu, beberapa orang anggota Densus 88 bersenjata lengkap juga terlihat mendekati rumah tersebut dengan cara menyelinap dari samping rumah. Tembak-tembakan pun terus berlangsung. Terduga teroris yang dikabarkan menyandera dua anak itu pun tampak belum mau menyerah meski telah diteriaki oleh petugas menggunakan pengeras suara.

SELAMA DI RUTAN PONDOK BAMBU RATU ATUT BERTAMBAH GEMUK

saco-indonesia.com, Gubernur Banten Atut Chosiyah dalam keadaan sehat bahkan bertambah gemuk selama dalam menjalani proses hukum di Rumah Tahanan (Rutan) Pondok Bambu Jakarta Timur. Hal tersebut telah diungkap oleh Kepala Biro (Karo) Hukum Pemprov Banten, Samsir usai menjenguk Ratu Atut.

"Kondisi fisik beliau sehat dan terlihat tegar, bahkan telah bertambah gemuk," kata Samsir di Banten.

Samsir juga mengaku, pertemuannya selama satu jam dengan Atut di Aula Rutan juga tanpa didampingi oleh petugas dari KPK, tidak seperti pertemuan-pertemuan sebelumnya. Saat bertemu, Atut dengan menggunakan kemeja dan celana lengkap dengan rompi warna orange, rompi yang telah menandakan bahwa Atut tahanan KPK.

"Bapak-bapak saja yang membayangkan kalau bertemu beliau bakal sedih, apalagi saya yang sering bertemu," ungkapnya.

Samsir juga mengungkapkan dirinya saat bertemu Atut tidak membawa oleh-oleh apapun, kecuali sejumlah berkas tebal yang hendak ditandatangani oleh Atut. "Kan acaranya dinas, staf bertemu gubernur, jadi tidak membawa oleh-oleh, bawa berkas saja berat," katanya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

6 Alasan mengejutkan kenapa rambut tiba-tiba rontok

Rambut merupakan mahkota baik itu bagi pria maupun wanita. Bahkan keindahan rambut juga mampu untuk menunjang kesempurnaan penampilan seseorang. Oleh karena itu merupakan kewajiban bagi Anda untuk menjaga kesehatan dan keindahan rambut.

Namun sayangnya, kerap kali ada beberapa faktor yang dapat menyebabkan rambut rontok. Berikut adalah beberapa faktor mengejutkan yang dapat menyebabkan rambut rontok.

Menopause
Ketidakseimbangan hormon yang telah terjadi semasa menopause mampu menyebabkan kerontokan rambut. Selain itu stres emosional dan kelelahan juga mampu menyebabkan rambut rontok secara tiba-tiba. Cara terbaik untuk dapat mengatasi keadaan ini adalah dengan menjaga keseimbangan hormon estrogen.

Alopecia areata
Kondisi media yang dapat menyebabkan rambut rontok ini telah ditandai dengan munculnya bintik-bintik di kepala. Salah satu penyebab penyakit ini terjadi karena adanya gangguan sistem imunitas di dalam tubuh manusia.

Penurunan berat badan secara drastis
Berat badan yang turun secara drastis juga dapat menyebabkan rambut rontok. Hal ini dikarenakan tubuh kehilangan nutrisi dan vitamin yang dibutuhkan untuk menjaga kesehatan rambut secara tiba-tiba.

Penyakit tiroid
Ketidakseimbangan hormon tiroid di dalam tubuh dapat menjadi penyebab utama dari rambut rontok. Baik penurunan (hypothyroidism) atau peningkatan (hipertiroidisme) mampu menyebabkan rambut rontok secara berlebihan.

Stres
Stres yang berlebihan juga dapat menyebabkan rambut menjadi rontok. Namun kabar baiknya, rambut rontok yang disebabkan karena stres mampu diobati dalam jangka waktu sekitar 6-12 bulan.

Demam tinggi
Demam tinggi juga merupakan salah satu penyebab rambut Anda menjadi rontok. Selain itu, masih ada penyakit lain yang mampu menyebabkan rambut jadi rontok. Oleh karena itu segeralah berkonsultasi dengan dokter apabila Anda menemukan bahwa rambut Anda rontok secara tiba-tiba.

Selain karena faktor di atas, rambut rontok mampu dicegah dengan selalu mengonsumsi makanan sehat seperti kacang hijau, kacang-kacangan, hingga ikan salmon.

RISALAH NABAWI TOUR

Profil

Risalah adalah tugas yang dipikulkan kepada Nabi Muhammad shalallahu alaihi was salam untuk menyampaikan wahyu yang diterimanya kepada umat muslim, selain itu Risalah yang dibawa Nabi Muhammad shalallahu alaihi was salam juga memiliki keistimewaan dari segi peruntukan. Jika, nabi-nabi sebelumnya membawa risalah khusus untuk ummat tertentu, maka risalah kenabian Muhammad shalallahu alaihi was salam diperuntukkan bagi seluruh ummat hingga hari kiamat. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala telah mengamanahkan beban risalah ini hanya kepada Nabi Muhammad shalallahu alaihi was salam. Dan diantara risalah yang Allah turunkan adalah rukun-rukun Iman dan Islam, termasuk didalamnya adalah menunaikan ibadah Haji dan Umroh.

Penertian Haji Dan Umroh

Pengertian Umroh bahasa artinya berkunjung, sedangkan secara istilah adalah berkunjung ke ka’bah dengan melaksanakan ketentuan-ketentuan yang berkaitan dengan umrah dalam rangka mendekatkan diri pada Allah.

Umrah disebut juga haji kecil, karena beberapa ketentuannya hampir sama dengan haji misalnya tentang syarat-syarat, rukun, atau larangan-larangannya. Apalagi perintah umrah disejajarkan dengan perintah haji. Allah berfirman :

Dan sempurnakanlah ibadah haji dan umrah karena Allah (Al-Baqoroh:196).

tetapi pelaksanaan umrah lebih sederhana dibandingkan dengan pelaksanaan haji. Umrah dapat dilaksanan sewaktu-waktu sepanjang tahun, baik di dalam bulan haji atau sebelum maupun sesudahnya.

       Bisa melaksanakan ibadah Umroh ke tanah suci adalah impian setiap muslim. Tentu, tidak akan ada hamba Allah yang menolak menikmati kesempatan beribadah di negeri para nabi, menapaki jejak Rosulullah untuk bersujud di hadapan ka’bah secara langsung. Sayangnya, tidak semua orang bisa mendapatkan kesempatan ini dikarenakan jarak yang memisahkan, untuk berumroh, seorang muslim harus merogoh saku lebih dalam untuk memperoleh kesempatan ini.

Dalam hal yang paling mandasar dibutuhkan oleh setiap Jama’ah yang menjalankan ibadah umroh adalah kenyamanan dan keamanan dalam menjalankan rutinitas ibadah umroh itu sendiri dari keberangkatan sampai akhirnya kembali lagi kerumah masing-masing.

Begitu juga dengan makna disetiap ritual Umroh itu sendiri mempunyai artian yang berbeda-beda. Didalamnya berlangsung sebuah peristiwa sosial, yang tidak hanya menghubungkan manusia dengan Allah SWT,melainkan juga tentang manusia berhubungan dengan manusia lainnya. Mempererat tali silaturahim diantara Jama’ah memiliki banyak manfaat bagi kita semua, salah satunya mendapat Ridho dari Allah SWT dan meningkatkan rasa kebersamaan dan rasa kekeluargaan,

Orang yang hendak pergi menunaikan ibadah Umroh biasanya menggunakan jasa KBIH atau perusahaan penyelenggara ibadah Umroh untuk menyiapkan segala kebutuhan seperti visa umroh, tiket pesawat, akomodasi, memandu seluruh kegiatan ibadah umroh selama ditanah suci.

Dengan demikian, jamaah tinggal mempersiapkan diri untuk berangkat ketanah suci dan melaksanakan ibadah umroh supaya meraih keutamaan dan pahala dari Allah SWT. Supaya tujuan ibadah umroh terpenuhi,

Penting bagi Jama’ah untuk mencari KBIH atau perusahaan penyelenggara ibadah umroh yang baik, jujur, bertanggung jawab, bisa dipercaya dan mengakomodasi segala kebutuhan selama berlangsungnya ibadah Umroh tersebut.

Perusahaan penyelenggara ibadah umroh diharapkan dapat memenuhi harapan para Jama’ah yaitu memperoleh ibadah yang khusu, aman, nyaman, dapat memahami segala macam bentuk dan makna

dari ibadah Umroh itu sendiri dan sesuai dengan apa yang di syariatkan oleh Rosulullah shallallahu 'alaihi wasallam. Salah memilih KBIH atau perusahaan penyelenggara umroh akan berdampak buruk bagi kesejahtraan Jama’ah, sehingga tentunya akan mempengaruhi kelancaran dan kualitas ibadah.

RISALAH WISATA NABAWI yang berdiri sejak tahun 2012 memberikan solusi tepat bagi para Jama’ah dengan menawarkan pelayanan yang prima, tanggap dan optimal untuk membantu para Jama’ah dalam menjalankan ibadah Umroh. Bagi kami, tiada hari tanpa menolong sesama, keberhasilan, kekhusu’an dan kepuasan para jama’ah selama menjalankan ibadah umroh adalah kebanggan tersendiri bagi kami sebagai penyelenggara ibadah Umroh. Alhamdulillah selama kami telah membantu para Jama’ah dari berbagai daerah di Indonesia khususnya daerah jawa barat dalam menjalankan ibadah umroh.

Sebelum keberangkatan, kami berbagi pengetahuan akan hal-hal yang dasar dalam ibadah Umroh dan berbagai macam persiapan sebelum meninggalkan Tanah Air. Mengadakan Manasik Umroh yang rutin kami lakukan menjadi sangat penting bagi Jama’ah, khususnya bagi para Jama’ah yang baru pertama kali menjalankan ibadah umroh

RISALAH WISATA NABAWI didukung oleh asatizd lulusan Timur Tengah yang sangat berpengalaman dalam memberikan pengetahuan akan ibadah serta menanamkan nilai-nilah dari ibadah sesuai dengan RISALAH Rosulullah shallallahu 'alaihi wasallam selama atau pasca Umroh. Muthawif yang handal dalam bidangnya, tanggap, cekatan. team yang muda, ramah, sopan, enerjik, bersahabat akan memudahkan Jama’ah mendapatkan pelayanan yang maksimal sebelum dan sesudah menjalankan ibadah Umroh,

RISALAH WISATA NABAWI menawarkan berbagai jenis paket Umroh. Mulai dari paket regular, paket keluarga, peket super hemat, sampai paket Umroh plus liburan yaitu Jama’ah akan diajak berlibur sebelum atau sesudah ibadah selesai. Liburan yang ditawarkan ketempat-tempat bersejarah di Arab Saudi dan wisata kebeberapa Negara timur tengah lainnya.

 
 
Makna Risalah Versi Risalah Nabawi Tour

    Ridho Illahi yang selalu kami kejar dan Ramah dalam berinteraksi
    Ibadah yang sesuai dengan Sunnah Rosulullah shallallahu alaihi wasallam.
    Sopan dalam berbicara, Santun dalam berbuat, bersahabat dengan semua eleman masyarakat dan Silaturahim selalu kami jaga
    Amanah selama menjalankan tugas.
    Layanan yang maksimal bagi para Jama’ah dari proses pemberangkatan sampai kembali ke Tanah Air,
    Aman dalam perjalanan dengan asuransi terpercaya.
    Hikmah disetiap langkahnya. Perjalanan yang penuh Hikmah dan Pelajaran disetiap proses kegiatan Umroh akan memberikan makna tersendiri bagi para Jamaah.

Sumber : http://www.myrisalah.com

Baca Artikel Lainnya : HUKUM BERDOA DI DEPAN MAKAM RASULULLAH

ARMADA TRANSJAKARTA AKAN BERTAMBAH LAGI

saco-indonesia.com, Pemerintah Provinsi (Pemprov) DKI Jakarta akan mendapat 10 armada bus Transjakarta bantuan dari Mayapada Group. Pembelian 10 bus ini diperkirakan akan telah menghabiskan dana lebih kurang Rp 12 miliar.

"Kami mau bertemu dulu dengan Pak Basuki, karena kami juga tidak tahu spesifikasi busnya (Transjakarta)," kata Ketua Mayapada Group, Tahir, di Balai Kota DKI Jakarta, Jumat (24/1).

Bantuan ini juga baru pertama kali mereka lakukan. "Gubernur yang sebelumnya (Fauzi Bowo) saya tidak bantu, hanya zaman Pak Jokowi saja," katanya.

Selain telah memberikan bantuan 10 bus Transjakarta, menurut Tahir, pihaknya juga akan berniat untuk membantu korban banjir di DKI. Bantuan tersebut telah dikumpul dari enam perusahaan, Mayapada Group, PT Intiland Development, PT Hanson International, PT Saligading Bersama, Modern Group dan PT Sioengs Group.

"Bantuan juga berupa uang sejumlah Rp 6 miliar untuk banjir," tandasnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

Even as a high school student, Dave Goldberg was urging female classmates to speak up. As a young dot-com executive, he had one girlfriend after another, but fell hard for a driven friend named Sheryl Sandberg, pining after her for years. After they wed, Mr. Goldberg pushed her to negotiate hard for high compensation and arranged his schedule so that he could be home with their children when she was traveling for work.

Mr. Goldberg, who died unexpectedly on Friday, was a genial, 47-year-old Silicon Valley entrepreneur who built his latest company, SurveyMonkey, from a modest enterprise to one recently valued by investors at $2 billion. But he was also perhaps the signature male feminist of his era: the first major chief executive in memory to spur his wife to become as successful in business as he was, and an essential figure in “Lean In,” Ms. Sandberg’s blockbuster guide to female achievement.

Over the weekend, even strangers were shocked at his death, both because of his relatively young age and because they knew of him as the living, breathing, car-pooling center of a new philosophy of two-career marriage.

“They were very much the role models for what this next generation wants to grapple with,” said Debora L. Spar, the president of Barnard College. In a 2011 commencement speech there, Ms. Sandberg told the graduates that whom they married would be their most important career decision.

In the play “The Heidi Chronicles,” revived on Broadway this spring, a male character who is the founder of a media company says that “I don’t want to come home to an A-plus,” explaining that his ambitions require him to marry an unthreatening helpmeet. Mr. Goldberg grew up to hold the opposite view, starting with his upbringing in progressive Minneapolis circles where “there was woman power in every aspect of our lives,” Jeffrey Dachis, a childhood friend, said in an interview.

The Goldberg parents read “The Feminine Mystique” together — in fact, Mr. Goldberg’s father introduced it to his wife, according to Ms. Sandberg’s book. In 1976, Paula Goldberg helped found a nonprofit to aid children with disabilities. Her husband, Mel, a law professor who taught at night, made the family breakfast at home.

Later, when Dave Goldberg was in high school and his prom date, Jill Chessen, stayed silent in a politics class, he chastised her afterward. He said, “You need to speak up,” Ms. Chessen recalled in an interview. “They need to hear your voice.”

Years later, when Karin Gilford, an early employee at Launch Media, Mr. Goldberg’s digital music company, became a mother, he knew exactly what to do. He kept giving her challenging assignments, she recalled, but also let her work from home one day a week. After Yahoo acquired Launch, Mr. Goldberg became known for distributing roses to all the women in the office on Valentine’s Day.

Ms. Sandberg, who often describes herself as bossy-in-a-good-way, enchanted him when they became friendly in the mid-1990s. He “was smitten with her,” Ms. Chessen remembered. Ms. Sandberg was dating someone else, but Mr. Goldberg still hung around, even helping her and her then-boyfriend move, recalled Bob Roback, a friend and co-founder of Launch. When they finally married in 2004, friends remember thinking how similar the two were, and that the qualities that might have made Ms. Sandberg intimidating to some men drew Mr. Goldberg to her even more.

Over the next decade, Mr. Goldberg and Ms. Sandberg pioneered new ways of capturing information online, had a son and then a daughter, became immensely wealthy, and hashed out their who-does-what-in-this-marriage issues. Mr. Goldberg’s commute from the Bay Area to Los Angeles became a strain, so he relocated, later joking that he “lost the coin flip” of where they would live. He paid the bills, she planned the birthday parties, and both often left their offices at 5:30 so they could eat dinner with their children before resuming work afterward.

Friends in Silicon Valley say they were careful to conduct their careers separately, politely refusing when outsiders would ask one about the other’s work: Ms. Sandberg’s role building Facebook into an information and advertising powerhouse, and Mr. Goldberg at SurveyMonkey, which made polling faster and cheaper. But privately, their work was intertwined. He often began statements to his team with the phrase “Well, Sheryl said” sharing her business advice. He counseled her, too, starting with her salary negotiations with Mark Zuckerberg.

“I wanted Mark to really feel he stretched to get Sheryl, because she was worth it,” Mr. Goldberg explained in a 2013 “60 Minutes” interview, his Minnesota accent and his smile intact as he offered a rare peek of the intersection of marriage and money at the top of corporate life.

While his wife grew increasingly outspoken about women’s advancement, Mr. Goldberg quietly advised the men in the office on family and partnership matters, an associate said. Six out of 16 members of SurveyMonkey’s management team are female, an almost unheard-of ratio among Silicon Valley “unicorns,” or companies valued at over $1 billion.

When Mellody Hobson, a friend and finance executive, wrote a chapter of “Lean In” about women of color for the college edition of the book, Mr. Goldberg gave her feedback on the draft, a clue to his deep involvement. He joked with Ms. Hobson that she was too long-winded, like Ms. Sandberg, but aside from that, he said he loved the chapter, she said in an interview.

By then, Mr. Goldberg was a figure of fascination who inspired a “where can I get one of those?” reaction among many of the women who had read the best seller “Lean In.” Some lamented that Ms. Sandberg’s advice hinged too much on marrying a Dave Goldberg, who was humble enough to plan around his wife, attentive enough to worry about which shoes his young daughter would wear, and rich enough to help pay for the help that made the family’s balancing act manageable.

Now that he is gone, and Ms. Sandberg goes from being half of a celebrated partnership to perhaps the business world’s most prominent single mother, the pages of “Lean In” carry a new sting of loss.

“We are never at 50-50 at any given moment — perfect equality is hard to define or sustain — but we allow the pendulum to swing back and forth between us,” she wrote in 2013, adding that they were looking forward to raising teenagers together.

“Fortunately, I have Dave to figure it out with me,” she wrote.

Dan Walker, 92, Dies; Illinois Governor and Later a U.S. Prisoner

As governor, Mr. Walker alienated Republicans and his fellow Democrats, particularly the Democratic powerhouse Richard J. Daley, the mayor of Chicago.

Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake

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KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.

Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.

“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”

Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.

Jayne Meadows, Actress and Steve Allen’s Wife and Co-Star, Dies at 95

Ms. Meadows was the older sister of Audrey Meadows, who played Alice Kramden on “The Honeymooners.”

Review: ‘Frontline’ Looks at Missteps During the Ebola Outbreak

y NEIL GENZLINGER

Frontline

Frontline An installment of this PBS program looks at the effects of Ebola on Liberia and other countries, as well as the origins of the outbreak.

The program traces the outbreak to its origin, thought to be a tree full of bats in Guinea.

Baltimore Residents Away From Turmoil Consider Their Role

BALTIMORE — In the afternoons, the streets of Locust Point are clean and nearly silent. In front of the rowhouses, potted plants rest next to steps of brick or concrete. There is a shopping center nearby with restaurants, and a grocery store filled with fresh foods.

And the National Guard and the police are largely absent. So, too, residents say, are worries about what happened a few miles away on April 27 when, in a space of hours, parts of this city became riot zones.

“They’re not our reality,” Ashley Fowler, 30, said on Monday at the restaurant where she works. “They’re not what we’re living right now. We live in, not to be racist, white America.”

As Baltimore considers its way forward after the violent unrest brought by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who died of injuries he suffered while in police custody, residents in its predominantly white neighborhoods acknowledge that they are sometimes struggling to understand what beyond Mr. Gray’s death spurred the turmoil here. For many, the poverty and troubled schools of gritty West Baltimore are distant troubles, glimpsed only when they pass through the area on their way somewhere else.

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And so neighborhoods of Baltimore are facing altogether different reckonings after Mr. Gray’s death. In mostly black communities like Sandtown-Winchester, where some of the most destructive rioting played out last week, residents are hoping businesses will reopen and that the police will change their strategies. But in mostly white areas like Canton and Locust Point, some residents wonder what role, if any, they should play in reimagining stretches of Baltimore where they do not live.

“Most of the people are kind of at a loss as to what they’re supposed to do,” said Dr. Richard Lamb, a dentist who has practiced in the same Locust Point office for nearly 39 years. “I listen to the news reports. I listen to the clergymen. I listen to the facts of the rampant unemployment and the lack of opportunities in the area. Listen, I pay my taxes. Exactly what can I do?”

And in Canton, where the restaurants have clever names like Nacho Mama’s and Holy Crepe Bakery and Café, Sara Bahr said solutions seemed out of reach for a proudly liberal city.

“I can only imagine how frustrated they must be,” said Ms. Bahr, 36, a nurse who was out with her 3-year-old daughter, Sally. “I just wish I knew how to solve poverty. I don’t know what to do to make it better.”

The day of unrest and the overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations that followed led to hundreds of arrests, often for violations of the curfew imposed on the city for five consecutive nights while National Guard soldiers patrolled the streets. Although there were isolated instances of trouble in Canton, the neighborhood association said on its website, many parts of southeast Baltimore were physically untouched by the tumult.

Tensions in the city bubbled anew on Monday after reports that the police had wounded a black man in Northwest Baltimore. The authorities denied those reports and sent officers to talk with the crowds that gathered while other officers clutching shields blocked traffic at Pennsylvania and West North Avenues.

Lt. Col. Melvin Russell, a community police officer, said officers had stopped a man suspected of carrying a handgun and that “one of those rounds was spent.”

Colonel Russell said officers had not opened fire, “so we couldn’t have shot him.”

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The colonel said the man had not been injured but was taken to a hospital as a precaution. Nearby, many people stood in disbelief, despite the efforts by the authorities to quash reports they described as “unfounded.”

Monday’s episode was a brief moment in a larger drama that has yielded anger and confusion. Although many people said they were familiar with accounts of the police harassing or intimidating residents, many in Canton and Locust Point said they had never experienced it themselves. When they watched the unrest, which many protesters said was fueled by feelings that they lived only on Baltimore’s margins, even those like Ms. Bahr who were pained by what they saw said they could scarcely comprehend the emotions associated with it.

But others, like Lambi Vasilakopoulos, who runs a casual restaurant in Canton, said they were incensed by what unfolded last week.

“What happened wasn’t called for. Protests are one thing; looting is another thing,” he said, adding, “We’re very frustrated because we’re the ones who are going to pay for this.”

There were pockets of optimism, though, that Baltimore would enter a period of reconciliation.

“I’m just hoping for peace,” Natalie Boies, 53, said in front of the Locust Point home where she has lived for 50 years. “Learn to love each other; be patient with each other; find justice; and care.”

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

“It cannot be fixed,” he said. “It’s going to get worse. Why? Because people don’t obey the laws. They don’t want to obey them.”

But there were few fears that the violence that plagued West Baltimore last week would play out on these relaxed streets. The authorities, Ms. Fowler said, would make sure of that.

“They kept us safe here,” she said. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable when I was in my house three blocks away from here. I knew I was going to be O.K. because I knew they weren’t going to let anyone come and loot our properties or our businesses or burn our cars.”

G.O.P. Hopefuls Now Aiming to Woo the Middle Class

WASHINGTON — The last three men to win the Republican nomination have been the prosperous son of a president (George W. Bush), a senator who could not recall how many homes his family owned (John McCain of Arizona; it was seven) and a private equity executive worth an estimated $200 million (Mitt Romney).

The candidates hoping to be the party’s nominee in 2016 are trying to create a very different set of associations. On Sunday, Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, joined the presidential field.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida praises his parents, a bartender and a Kmart stock clerk, as he urges audiences not to forget “the workers in our hotel kitchens, the landscaping crews in our neighborhoods, the late-night janitorial staff that clean our offices.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a preacher’s son, posts on Twitter about his ham-and-cheese sandwiches and boasts of his coupon-clipping frugality. His $1 Kohl’s sweater has become a campaign celebrity in its own right.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky laments the existence of “two Americas,” borrowing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase to describe economically and racially troubled communities like Ferguson, Mo., and Detroit.

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“Some say, ‘But Democrats care more about the poor,’ ” Mr. Paul likes to say. “If that’s true, why is black unemployment still twice white unemployment? Why has household income declined by $3,500 over the past six years?”

We are in the midst of the Empathy Primary — the rhetorical battleground shaping the Republican presidential field of 2016.

Harmed by the perception that they favor the wealthy at the expense of middle-of-the-road Americans, the party’s contenders are each trying their hardest to get across what the elder George Bush once inelegantly told recession-battered voters in 1992: “Message: I care.”

Their ability to do so — less bluntly, more sincerely — could prove decisive in an election year when power, privilege and family connections will loom large for both parties.

Questions of understanding and compassion cost Republicans in the last election. Mr. Romney, who memorably dismissed the “47 percent” of Americans as freeloaders, lost to President Obama by 63 percentage points among voters who cast their ballots for the candidate who “cares about people like me,” according to exit polls.

And a Pew poll from February showed that people still believe Republicans are indifferent to working Americans: 54 percent said the Republican Party does not care about the middle class.

That taint of callousness explains why Senator Ted Cruz of Texas declared last week that Republicans “are and should be the party of the 47 percent” — and why another son of a president, Jeb Bush, has made economic opportunity the centerpiece of his message.

With his pedigree and considerable wealth — since he left the Florida governor’s office almost a decade ago he has earned millions of dollars sitting on corporate boards and advising banks — Mr. Bush probably has the most complicated task making the argument to voters that he understands their concerns.

On a visit last week to Puerto Rico, Mr. Bush sounded every bit the populist, railing against “elites” who have stifled economic growth and innovation. In the kind of economy he envisions leading, he said: “We wouldn’t have the middle being squeezed. People in poverty would have a chance to rise up. And the social strains that exist — because the haves and have-nots is the big debate in our country today — would subside.”

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Who Is Running for President (and Who’s Not)?

Republicans’ emphasis on poorer and working-class Americans now represents a shift from the party’s longstanding focus on business owners and “job creators” as the drivers of economic opportunity.

This is intentional, Republican operatives said.

In the last presidential election, Republicans rushed to defend business owners against what they saw as hostility by Democrats to successful, wealthy entrepreneurs.

“Part of what you had was a reaction to the Democrats’ dehumanization of business owners: ‘Oh, you think you started your plumbing company? No you didn’t,’ ” said Grover Norquist, the conservative activist and president of Americans for Tax Reform.

But now, Mr. Norquist said, Republicans should move past that. “Focus on the people in the room who know someone who couldn’t get a job, or a promotion, or a raise because taxes are too high or regulations eat up companies’ time,” he said. “The rich guy can take care of himself.”

Democrats argue that the public will ultimately see through such an approach because Republican positions like opposing a minimum-wage increase and giving private banks a larger role in student loans would hurt working Americans.

“If Republican candidates are just repeating the same tired policies, I’m not sure that smiling while saying it is going to be enough,” said Guy Cecil, a Democratic strategist who is joining a “super PAC” working on behalf of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Republicans have already attacked Mrs. Clinton over the wealth and power she and her husband have accumulated, caricaturing her as an out-of-touch multimillionaire who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars per speech and has not driven a car since 1996.

Mr. Walker hit this theme recently on Fox News, pointing to Mrs. Clinton’s lucrative book deals and her multiple residences. “This is not someone who is connected with everyday Americans,” he said. His own net worth, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is less than a half-million dollars; Mr. Walker also owes tens of thousands of dollars on his credit cards.

But showing off a cheap sweater or boasting of a bootstraps family background not only helps draw a contrast with Mrs. Clinton’s latter-day affluence, it is also an implicit argument against Mr. Bush.

Mr. Walker, who featured a 1998 Saturn with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer in a 2010 campaign ad during his first run for governor, likes to talk about flipping burgers at McDonald’s as a young person. His mother, he has said, grew up on a farm with no indoor plumbing until she was in high school.

Mr. Rubio, among the least wealthy members of the Senate, with an estimated net worth of around a half-million dollars, uses his working-class upbringing as evidence of the “exceptionalism” of America, “where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege.”

Mr. Cruz alludes to his family’s dysfunction — his parents, he says, were heavy drinkers — and recounts his father’s tale of fleeing Cuba with $100 sewn into his underwear.

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey notes that his father paid his way through college working nights at an ice cream plant.

But sometimes the attempts at projecting authenticity can seem forced. Mr. Christie recently found himself on the defensive after telling a New Hampshire audience, “I don’t consider myself a wealthy man.” Tax returns showed that he and his wife, a longtime Wall Street executive, earned nearly $700,000 in 2013.

The story of success against the odds is a political classic, even if it is one the Republican Party has not been able to tell for a long time. Ronald Reagan liked to say that while he had not been born on the wrong side of the tracks, he could always hear the whistle. Richard Nixon was fond of reminding voters how he was born in a house his father had built.

“Probably the idea that is most attractive to an average voter, and an idea that both Republicans and Democrats try to craft into their messages, is this idea that you can rise from nothing,” said Charles C. W. Cooke, a writer for National Review.

There is a certain delight Republicans take in turning that message to their advantage now.

“That’s what Obama did with Hillary,” Mr. Cooke said. “He acknowledged it openly: ‘This is ridiculous. Look at me, this one-term senator with dark skin and all of America’s unsolved racial problems, running against the wife of the last Democratic president.”

Rolf Smedvig, Trumpeter in the Empire Brass, Dies at 62

A former member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Smedvig helped found the wide-ranging Empire Brass quintet.

Betsy von Furstenberg, Baroness and Versatile Actress, Dies at 83

Ms. von Furstenberg made her debut in the movies and on the Broadway stage in the early 1950s as a teenager and later reinvented herself as a television actress, writer and philanthropist.

Ben E. King, Soulful Singer of ‘Stand by Me,’ Dies at 76

Mr. King sang for the Drifters and found success as a solo performer with hits like “Spanish Harlem.”

William Pfaff, Critic of American Foreign Policy, Dies at 86

Mr. Pfaff was an international affairs columnist and author who found Washington’s intervention in world affairs often misguided.

Dave Goldberg, Head of Web Survey Company and Half of a Silicon Valley Power Couple, Dies at 47

By VINDU GOEL and QUENTIN HARDY

Mr. Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was married to Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted

David Goldman/Associated Press

National Guard soldiers boarding a truck in Baltimore on Sunday.

Baltimore residents prepared to resume the more familiar rhythms of their lives as days passed without new bouts of widespread rioting and as the National Guard began to pull its troops from the city.

In Baltimore, National Guard Pullout Begins as Citywide Curfew Is Lifted | PAKET UMROH BULAN JANUARI 2016

The Uphill Battle to Better Regulate Formaldehyde

WASHINGTON — A decade after emergency trailers meant to shelter Hurricane Katrina victims instead caused burning eyes, sore throats and other more serious ailments, the Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of regulating the culprit: formaldehyde, a chemical that can be found in commonplace things like clothes and furniture.

But an unusual assortment of players, including furniture makers, the Chinese government, Republicans from states with a large base of furniture manufacturing and even some Democrats who championed early regulatory efforts, have questioned the E.P.A. proposal. The sustained opposition has held sway, as the agency is now preparing to ease key testing requirements before it releases the landmark federal health standard.

The E.P.A.’s five-year effort to adopt this rule offers another example of how industry opposition can delay and hamper attempts by the federal government to issue regulations, even to control substances known to be harmful to human health.

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Document: The Formaldehyde Fight

Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen that can also cause respiratory ailments like asthma, but the potential of long-term exposure to cause cancers like myeloid leukemia is less well understood.

The E.P.A.’s decision would be the first time that the federal government has regulated formaldehyde inside most American homes.

“The stakes are high for public health,” said Tom Neltner, senior adviser for regulatory affairs at the National Center for Healthy Housing, who has closely monitored the debate over the rules. “What we can’t have here is an outcome that fails to confront the health threat we all know exists.”

The proposal would not ban formaldehyde — commonly used as an ingredient in wood glue in furniture and flooring — but it would impose rules that prevent dangerous levels of the chemical’s vapors from those products, and would set testing standards to ensure that products sold in the United States comply with those limits. The debate has sharpened in the face of growing concern about the safety of formaldehyde-treated flooring imported from Asia, especially China.

What is certain is that a lot of money is at stake: American companies sell billions of dollars’ worth of wood products each year that contain formaldehyde, and some argue that the proposed regulation would impose unfair costs and restrictions.

Determined to block the agency’s rule as proposed, these industry players have turned to the White House, members of Congress and top E.P.A. officials, pressing them to roll back the testing requirements in particular, calling them redundant and too expensive.

“There are potentially over a million manufacturing jobs that will be impacted if the proposed rule is finalized without changes,” wrote Bill Perdue, the chief lobbyist at the American Home Furnishings Alliance, a leading critic of the testing requirements in the proposed regulation, in one letter to the E.P.A.

Industry opposition helped create an odd alignment of forces working to thwart the rule. The White House moved to strike out key aspects of the proposal. Subsequent appeals for more changes were voiced by players as varied as Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, and Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, as well as furniture industry lobbyists.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 helped ignite the public debate over formaldehyde, after the deadly storm destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of homes along the Gulf of Mexico, forcing families into temporary trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The displaced storm victims quickly began reporting respiratory problems, burning eyes and other issues, and tests then confirmed high levels of formaldehyde fumes leaking into the air inside the trailers, which in many cases had been hastily constructed.

Public health advocates petitioned the E.P.A. to issue limits on formaldehyde in building materials and furniture used in homes, given that limits already existed for exposure in workplaces. But three years after the storm, only California had issued such limits.

Industry groups like the American Chemistry Council have repeatedly challenged the science linking formaldehyde to cancer, a position championed by David Vitter, the Republican senator from Louisiana, who is a major recipient of chemical industry campaign contributions, and whom environmental groups have mockingly nicknamed “Senator Formaldehyde.”

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Typical

laminate

flooring

CLEAR FINISH LAYER

Often made of melamine resin

PATTERN LAYER

Paper printed to resemble wood,

or a thin wood veneer

GLUE

Layers may be bound using

formaldehyde-based glues

CORE LAYER

Fiberboard or other

composite, formed using

formaldehyde-based adhesives

BASE LAYER

Moisture-resistant vapor barrier

What is formaldehyde?

Formaldehyde is a common chemical used in many industrial and household products as an adhesive, bonding agent or preservative. It is classified as a volatile organic compound. The term volatile means that, at room temperature, formaldehyde will vaporize, or become a gas. Products made with formaldehyde tend to release this gas into the air. If breathed in large quantities, it may cause health problems.

WHERE IT IS COMMONLY FOUND

POTENTIAL HEALTH RISKS

Pressed-wood and composite wood products

Wallpaper and paints

Spray foam insulation used in construction

Commercial wood floor finishes

Crease-resistant fabrics

In cigarette smoke, or in the fumes from combustion of other materials, including wood, oil and gasoline.

Exposure to formaldehyde in sufficient amounts may cause eye, throat or skin irritation, allergic reactions, and respiratory problems like coughing, wheezing or asthma.

Long-term exposure to high levels has been associated with cancer in humans and laboratory animals.

Exposure to formaldehyde may affect some people more severely than others.

Sources: Consumer Product Safety Commission; Minnesota Department of Health

 

By The New York Times

By 2010, public health advocates and some industry groups secured bipartisan support in Congress for legislation that ordered the E.P.A. to issue federal rules that largely mirrored California’s restrictions. At the time, concerns were rising over the growing number of lower-priced furniture imports from Asia that might include contaminated products, while also hurting sales of American-made products.

Maneuvering began almost immediately after the E.P.A. prepared draft rules to formally enact the new standards.

White House records show at least five meetings in mid-2012 with industry executives — kitchen cabinet makers, chemical manufacturers, furniture trade associations and their lobbyists, like Brock R. Landry, of the Venable law firm. These parties, along with Senator Vitter’s office, appealed to top administration officials, asking them to intervene to roll back the E.P.A. proposal.

The White House Office of Management and Budget, which reviews major federal regulations before they are adopted, apparently agreed. After the White House review, the E.P.A. “redlined” many of the estimates of the monetary benefits that would be gained by reductions in related health ailments, like asthma and fertility issues, documents reviewed by The New York Times show.

As a result, the estimated benefit of the proposed rule dropped to $48 million a year, from as much as $278 million a year. The much-reduced amount deeply weakened the agency’s justification for the sometimes costly new testing that would be required under the new rules, a federal official involved in the effort said.

“It’s a redlining blood bath,” said Lisa Heinzerling, a Georgetown University Law School professor and a former E.P.A. official, using the Washington phrase to describe when language is stricken from a proposed rule. “Almost the entire discussion of these potential benefits was excised.”

Senator Vitter’s staff was pleased.

“That’s a huge difference,” said Luke Bolar, a spokesman for Mr. Vitter, of the reduced estimated financial benefits, saying the change was “clearly highlighting more mismanagement” at the E.P.A.

The review’s outcome galvanized opponents in the furniture industry. They then targeted a provision that mandated new testing of laminated wood, a cheaper alternative to hardwood. (The California standard on which the law was based did not require such testing.)

But E.P.A. scientists had concluded that these laminate products — millions of which are sold annually in the United States — posed a particular risk. They said that when thin layers of wood, also known as laminate or veneer, are added to furniture or flooring in the final stages of manufacturing, the resulting product can generate dangerous levels of fumes from often-used formaldehyde-based glues.

Industry executives, outraged by what they considered an unnecessary and financially burdensome level of testing, turned every lever within reach to get the requirement removed. It would be particularly onerous, they argued, for small manufacturers that would have to repeatedly interrupt their work to do expensive new testing. The E.P.A. estimated that the expanded requirements for laminate products would cost the furniture industry tens of millions of dollars annually, while the industry said that the proposed rule over all would cost its 7,000 American manufacturing facilities over $200 million each year.

“A lot of people don’t seem to appreciate what a lot of these requirements do to a small operation,” said Dick Titus, executive vice president of the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association, whose members are predominantly small businesses. “A 10-person shop, for example, just really isn’t equipped to handle that type of thing.”

Photo

 

Big industry players also weighed in. Executives from companies including La-Z-Boy, Hooker Furniture and Ashley Furniture all flew to Washington for a series of meetings with the offices of lawmakers including House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, and about a dozen other lawmakers, asking several of them to sign a letter prepared by the industry to press the E.P.A. to back down, according to an industry report describing the lobbying visit.

Within a matter of weeks, two letters — using nearly identical language — were sent by House and Senate lawmakers to the E.P.A. — with the industry group forwarding copies of the letters to the agency as well, and then posting them on its website.

The industry lobbyists also held their own meeting at E.P.A. headquarters, and they urged Jim Jones, who oversaw the rule-making process as the assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, to visit a North Carolina furniture manufacturing plant. According to the trade group, Mr. Jones told them that the visit had “helped the agency shift its thinking” about the rules and how laminated products should be treated.

The resistance was particularly intense from lawmakers like Mr. Wicker of Mississippi, whose state is home to major manufacturing plants owned by Ashley Furniture Industries, the world’s largest furniture maker, and who is one of the biggest recipients in Congress of donations from the industry’s trade association. Asked if the political support played a role, a spokesman for Mr. Wicker replied: “Thousands of Mississippians depend on the furniture manufacturing industry for their livelihoods. Senator Wicker is committed to defending all Mississippians from government overreach.”

Individual companies like Ikea also intervened, as did the Chinese government, which claimed that the new rule would create a “great barrier” to the import of Chinese products because of higher costs.

Perhaps the most surprising objection came from Senator Boxer, of California, a longtime environmental advocate, whose office questioned why the E.P.A.’s rule went further than her home state’s in seeking testing on laminated products. “We did not advocate an outcome, other than safety,” her office said in a statement about why the senator raised concerns. “We said ‘Take a look to see if you have it right.’ ”

Safety advocates say that tighter restrictions — like the ones Ms. Boxer and Mr. Wicker, along with Representative Doris Matsui, a California Democrat, have questioned — are necessary, particularly for products coming from China, where items as varied as toys and Christmas lights have been found to violate American safety standards.

While Mr. Neltner, the environmental advocate who has been most involved in the review process, has been open to compromise, he has pressed the E.P.A. not to back down entirely, and to maintain a requirement that laminators verify that their products are safe.

An episode of CBS’s “60 Minutes” in March brought attention to the issue when it accused Lumber Liquidators, the discount flooring retailer, of selling laminate products with dangerous levels of formaldehyde. The company has disputed the show’s findings and test methods, maintaining that its products are safe.

“People think that just because Congress passed the legislation five years ago, the problem has been fixed,” said Becky Gillette, who then lived in coastal Mississippi, in the area hit by Hurricane Katrina, and was among the first to notice a pattern of complaints from people living in the trailers. “Real people’s faces and names come up in front of me when I think of the thousands of people who could get sick if this rule is not done right.”

An aide to Ms. Matsui rejected any suggestion that she was bending to industry pressure.

“From the beginning the public health has been our No. 1 concern,” said Kyle J. Victor, an aide to Ms. Matsui.

But further changes to the rule are likely, agency officials concede, as they say they are searching for a way to reduce the cost of complying with any final rule while maintaining public health goals. The question is just how radically the agency will revamp the testing requirement for laminated products — if it keeps it at all.

“It’s not a secret to anybody that is the most challenging issue,” said Mr. Jones, the E.P.A. official overseeing the process, adding that the health consequences from formaldehyde are real. “We have to reduce those exposures so that people can live healthy lives and not have to worry about being in their homes.”

Calvin Peete, 71, a Racial Pioneer on the PGA Tour, Is Dead

With 12 tournament victories in his career, Mr. Peete was the most successful black professional golfer before Tiger Woods.