PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

Lemak-Lemak Yang Sehat Untuk Dikonsumsi

Tidak semua lemak itu buruk, karena sebenarnya ada dua jenis lemak yang terkandung di dalam makanan. Ada lemak baik yang biasa disebut dengan HDL, dan ada lemak jahat yang disebut juga sebagai LDL.

Nah, lemak jahat memang sebaiknya dihindari demi kesehatan Anda. Tetapi lemak baik justru wajib dihidangkan di dalam menu keseharian Anda.

Apa saja sih lemak baik itu. Menurut Reverse Diabetes, beberapa produk makanan ini mengandung lemak baik yang sehat untuk dikonsumsi sehari-hari.

Buah alpukat

Buah ini mengandung lemak yang cukup banyak, sebanyak Anda memesan double cheeseburger. Tetapi kandungan lemaknya adalah lemak baik. Kebaikan lemak pada buah berwarna hijau kekuningan ini dapat menurunkan kolesterol jahat di dalam tubuh.

Agar kebaikannya dapat dipetik secara maksimal, disarankan agar mengonsumsi alpukat tanpa tambahan apapun juga . Sajikan alpukat dalam bentuk plain agar jauh lebih sehat untuk tubuh.

Cokelat

Tidak semua cokelat bisa bikin tubuh jadi gemuk. Jenis dark chocolate mengandung lemak baik dan kaya akan antioksidan yang tinggi. Yang baik merawat kesehatan jantung serta menurunkan tekanan darah.

Disarankan untuk memilih dark chocolate dengan kandungan kakao 70% dan dikonsumsi sedikit saja setiap hari untuk memetik manfaatnya.

Ikan laut

Adalah omega-3 yang merupakan jenis lemak terbaik untuk sistem kardiovaskuler di tubuh. Mengonsumsi ikan laut secara rutin selama dua minggu, kabarnya dapat menurunkan resiko terkena serangan jantung sebesar 36%.

Ikan laut yang disarankan adalah ikan laut dalam atau sejenis tuna dan makarel. Agar tidak kehilangan nutrisinya, Anda dapat mengolah ikan dengan memanggang dalam oven, dikukus, atau dijadikan pepes.

Aneka kacang-kacangan

Kacang dapat menyebabkan jerawat? itu hanya mitos. Kacang tanah, kacang almond, dan jenis kacang lainnya mengandung protein nabati dan lemak yang dapat menurunkan resiko terkena diabetes tipe 2. Penelitian yang dilakukan mendapatkan hasil apabila seseorang mengganti snack dengan kacang- kacangan, maka resiko terkena serangan jantung akan menurun.

Untuk hasil terbaik, nikmati kacang dengan cara mengolah direbus, dipanggang dan tanpa tambahan gula, garam atau MSG.

Minyak zaitun

Judulnya sih minyak, tentunya kaya akan lemak. Tetapi, lemak dari minyak zaitun adalah lemak baik yang bermanfaat untuk menjaga kesehatan jantung.

Sebagian orang menggunakannya sebagai bahan memasak atau membuat kue, sebagian juga menggantikannya untuk media memasak dan ada pula yang meminumnya. Apapun caranya, minyak zaitun mendatangkan kebaikan dan sehat untuk dikonsumsi.

Tuh kan, tidak semua lemak itu jahat. Dengan cermat memilih makanan, maka Anda dapat memiliki tubuh bugar dan sehat serta umur panjang. Stay fit and healthy

TIPS MEMBELI PAKAIAN BAYI

saco-indonesia.com, Bagi pasangan yang baru hendak akan menimang cahaya mata sudah pastinya sangat teruja untuk dapat membeli keperluan bayi terutamnya baju bayi. Apapun jangan sampai anda terlebih bajet kerana pakaian bayi selalunya tidak boleh dipakai dalam jangka masa yang lama disebabkan bayi akan cepat membesar. Selain itu, para ibu bapa juga harus bijak dalam membuat pilihan yang terbaik buat si manja.

Di sini kami juga ingin berbagi beberapa tip untuk para ibu dan bapa baru di luar sana untuk dapat membeli pakaian bayi:

Keselesaan
Jangan memilih dan membeli baju kerana cantik pada pandangan mata semata-mata sebaliknya fikirlah faktor keselesaan untuk si manja anda sama. Sebagai contoh; pilih lah baju dari fabrik yang berbahan lembut dan diperbuat dari kapas 100%. Selain itu pastikan juga rekaan baju tersebut terlihat longgar dan bukaan leher yang luas agar tidak mencekik.

Mudah
Pastikan juga pakaian bayi anda fleksibel dan praktikal. yaitu mudah dibuka dan dipakaikan kepada bayi. Bayi juga kerap membuang air jadi kita akan kerap menukar lampin maka seharusnya pakaian yang pakai haruslah mudah untuk dibuka dan dipakaikan semula agar bayi anda sentiasa selesa.

Kesesuaian saiz
Juga pastikan anda membeli pakaian bayi mengikut saiz yang bersesuaian. Adalah digalakkan dalam membeli saiz baju yang lebih besar sedikit dari saiz badan bayi anda. Ini sudah tentunya akan menjimatkan anda karena pakaian ini hanya boleh dipakai dalam jangka masa yang lama.

Corak dan aksesori
Tidak dinafikan kita akan mudah tertarik pada corak pakaian bayi yang comel lagi fancy itu. Jika pakaian itu telah mempunyai aksesori tertentu pastikan aksesori itu tidak terlalu sarat sehingga mengganggu pergerakan bayi anda. Jangan untuk kelihatan cantik nanti jari si comel anda tersangkut pada juntaian aksesori yang terdapat pada pakaian yang anda beli.

Tip : Jumlah pakaian yang diperlukan bayi
Di bawah ada bebrapa tip atau panduan untuk anda memilih dan membeli pakaian bayi anda agar anda tidak perlu membazir, cukup dengan cara bersederhana.
• 6 helai baju nipis tanpa lengan
• 6 helai jumpsuits
• 2 helai pakaian malam atau jumpsuits khusus dipakai pada waktu tidur
• 3 helai kemeja T
• Sehelai kardigan atau jaket (dipakai ketika cuaca sejuk)
• Sepasang topi diperbuat daripada kain kapas
• Beberapa pasang stoking

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

Dalam Kasus Century, Anas Mengaku Ditugasi Amankan SBY

Jakarta, Saco-Indoneis.com — Mantan Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat, Anas Urbaningrum, mengaku pernah ditugaskan Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono untuk mengamankan kasus bail out Bank Century. Hal itu disampaikan pengacara Anas, Handika Honggowongso.

Selaku Ketua Fraksi Demokrat di Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat ketika itu, Anas mengaku diminta mencegah agar Panitia Khusus (Pansus) Bank Century di DPR tidak mengarah ke SBY, baik secara hukum maupun politik.

“Disampaikan (oleh Anas), jika saya (Anas) dipanggil SBY di Cikeas. Dalam pertemuan tersebut SBY memberi pengarahan ke saya (Anas) untuk mencegah supaya Pansus Century DPR tidak mengarah, baik secara hukum maupun politik ke SBY,” kata Handika saat dihubungi wartawan, Rabu (5/2/2014), menirukan pengakuan Anas.

Menurut Handika, kliennya pernah diminta melobi fraksi partai lain untuk mengamankan SBY dan membangun opini di media massa jika SBY tidak terlibat. Terkait tugas tersebut, kata Handika, Anas diminta berkoordinasi dengan Wakil Presiden Boediono, mantan Menteri Keuangan Sri Mulyani, serta pihak terkait lainnya.

Handika juga mengatakan bahwa informasi tersebut sudah disampaikan Anas kepada tim penyidik KPK dalam pemeriksaan sebagai tersangka kasus dugaan korupsi proyek Hambalang.

Saat ditanya lebih lanjut mengenai koordinasi yang dilakukan Anas dengan Boediono dan Sri tersebut, Handika mengatakan, hal itu akan diungkapkan Anas kepada penyidik KPK dalam pemeriksaan berikutnya.

“Nanti di pemeriksaan berikutnya akan dijelaskan, tadi pemeriksaan dihentikan dulu karena Mas Anas sakit gigi, yang makin ngilu dan bikin pusing,” ucapnya.

KPK menetapkan Anas sebagai tersangka atas dugaan menerima pemberian hadiah atau janji terkait proyek Hambalang dan proyek lain. Anas dijerat dalam kapasitasnya sebagai anggota DPR sebelum dia terpilih sebagai Ketua Umum Partai Demokrat.

Sumber :kompas.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

Investor bursa diminta lebih rasional, Efek Jokowi sementara

Saco-Indonesia.com - Asosiasi Pengusaha Reksa Dana Indonesia (APRDI) mengakui kabar kesediaan Gubernur DKI Jakarta Joko Widodo menjadi calon presiden menimbulkan euforia. Aktivitas investor pada perdagangan pekan lalu sampai membawa Indeks Harga Saham Gabungan (IHSG) melonjak 152 basis poin, atau naik 3,2 persen, titik tertinggi sepanjang tahun ini.

Ketua APRDI Denny Taher menilai euforia pemodal sesuatu yang wajar. Apalagi pasar sejak lama merasa Jokowi, sapaan sang gubernur dari PDIP itu, sebagai calon presiden ideal.

" Berita itu yang sudah ditunggu-tunggu masyarakat, sehingga reaksinya seperti itu," ujarnya di Gedung Bursa Efek Indonesia, Jakarta, Senin (17/3).

Adapun, Denny berkeyakinan euforia selalu ada batasnya. Oleh karena itu, investor, khususnya yang menanamkan modal di reksadana diharapkan tetap disiplin mengelola duitnya.

Sebab, reksadana adalah jenis investasi jangka panjang. Sehingga profit taking di saat situasi euforia tidak dianjurkan.

"Kita selalu menekankan harus dilakukan jangka panjang, disiplin, dan teratur. Kita jangan lihat indeks naik 3 atau turun 3 persen. Paling penting aset alokasi," kata Denny.

Dia pun tidak menyarankan para pengelola reksadana mendorong investor ramai-ramai menggelontorkan dana di saat pasar bergairah seperti sekarang. Alasannya, disiplin aset alokasi itu menentukan 95 persen keberhasilan dalam berinvestasi, sedang hanya 5 persen faktor dari market timing.

Sehingga, APRDI berharap investor tetap rasional, serta selalu mawas kendati ada kabar dunia perpolitikan yang membuat mereka gembira.

"Dalam berinvestasi kita tidak boleh terlalu suka atau terlalu benci, sehingga kita mengambil keputusan investasi rasional," tegasnya.

Sebelumnya, Menteri Keuangan Chatib Basri mengakui adanya efek isu domestik terhadap prestasi IHSG pekan lalu. Selepas bursa bullish, Rupiah menguat 30 persen, sementara Surat Utang Negara tingkat imbal hasilnya tetap di 8 persen.

Chatib meyakini pergerakan investasi akhir pekan lalu bukan oleh asing. Sehingga sentimen yang banyak direspon pasar adalah isu dalam negeri. Buktinya, bursa di regional banyak yang justru anjlok.

"Saya bisa bilang kejadian Jumat kemarin itu fenomena lokal, didorong oleh sejumlah sentimen lokal, karena kondisi pasar di regional mix," ungkapnya.

Editor : Maulana Lee

Sumber:merdeka.com

SATPAM KANTOR PAJAK TEGAL TEWAS TERLINDAS TRONTON

saco-indonesia.com, Kecelakaan telah terjadi di Jalur Pantura Barat, Jalan Raya Desa Kluwut, Kecamatan Bulakamba, Kabupaten Brebes, Jawa Tengah. Sepasang suami istri tewas mengenaskan usai terlindas sebuah truk tronton.

Korban bernama Suwarto yang berusia (40) tahun yang bekerja sebagai satpam kantor Pajak Kota Tegal dan istrinya yang juga merupakan warga Kelurahan Tegalsari, Kecamatan Tegal Barat, Kota Tegal.

"Diduga korban telah mengantuk dan kedua anak korban telah dilarikan ke Puskesmas terdekat untuk dirawat intensif," ujar Kepala Satuan Pos Lantas Tanjung, Aipda Adiat, Minggu (2/2) kemarin.

Adiat juga menjelaskan, korban telah mengendarai sepeda motor jenis Yamaha Cripton warna hitam yang melaju dengan kecepatan sedang menuju arah barat. Namun, korban telah menabrak trotoar di pinggir Jalan Raya Kluwut dan bersama kedua anaknya terpental ke tengah jalan. Dalam waktu yang bersamaan muncul sebuah truk tronton dari arah timur hingga menggilas pasangan suami istri tersebut.

"Kami juga masih harus mengumpulkan keterangan terkait kecelakaan yang telah menewaskan pasutri ini," kata Adiat.

Adiat juga menambahkan, kini kedua korban tewas masih berada di Rumah Sakit Bhakti Asih Kabupaten Brebes. Saat ini, pihaknya juga telah mengamankan sopir truk tronton untuk dapat dimintai keterangan.

"Kami juga belum bisa menetapkan sang sopir sebagai tersangka, karena masih butuh pengembangan dan pendalaman bukti-bukti untuk dapat dilakukan penyelidikan. Selanjutnya truk tronton telah diamankan di Pos Lantas Tanjung," pungkasnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

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.

Tribute for a Roller Hockey Warrior

Hockey is not exactly known as a city game, but played on roller skates, it once held sway as the sport of choice in many New York neighborhoods.

“City kids had no rinks, no ice, but they would do anything to play hockey,” said Edward Moffett, former director of the Long Island City Y.M.C.A. Roller Hockey League, in Queens, whose games were played in city playgrounds going back to the 1940s.

From the 1960s through the 1980s, the league had more than 60 teams, he said. Players included the Mullen brothers of Hell’s Kitchen and Dan Dorion of Astoria, Queens, who would later play on ice for the National Hockey League.

One street legend from the heyday of New York roller hockey was Craig Allen, who lived in the Woodside Houses projects and became one of the city’s hardest hitters and top scorers.

“Craig was a warrior, one of the best roller hockey players in the city in the ’70s,” said Dave Garmendia, 60, a retired New York police officer who grew up playing with Mr. Allen. “His teammates loved him and his opponents feared him.”

Young Craig took up hockey on the streets of Queens in the 1960s, playing pickup games between sewer covers, wearing steel-wheeled skates clamped onto school shoes and using a roll of electrical tape as the puck.

His skill and ferocity drew attention, Mr. Garmendia said, but so did his skin color. He was black, in a sport made up almost entirely by white players.

“Roller hockey was a white kid’s game, plain and simple, but Craig broke the color barrier,” Mr. Garmendia said. “We used to say Craig did more for race relations than the N.A.A.C.P.”

Mr. Allen went on to coach and referee roller hockey in New York before moving several years ago to South Carolina. But he continued to organize an annual alumni game at Dutch Kills Playground in Long Island City, the same site that held the local championship games.

The reunion this year was on Saturday, but Mr. Allen never made it. On April 26, just before boarding the bus to New York, he died of an asthma attack at age 61.

Word of his death spread rapidly among hundreds of his old hockey colleagues who resolved to continue with the event, now renamed the Craig Allen Memorial Roller Hockey Reunion.

The turnout on Saturday was the largest ever, with players pulling on their old equipment, choosing sides and taking once again to the rink of cracked blacktop with faded lines and circles. They wore no helmets, although one player wore a fedora.

Another, Vinnie Juliano, 77, of Long Island City, wore his hearing aids, along with his 50-year-old taped-up quads, or four-wheeled skates with a leather boot. Many players here never converted to in-line skates, and neither did Mr. Allen, whose photograph appeared on a poster hanging behind the players’ bench.

“I’m seeing people walking by wondering why all these rusty, grizzly old guys are here playing hockey,” one player, Tommy Dominguez, said. “We’re here for Craig, and let me tell you, these old guys still play hard.”

Everyone seemed to have a Craig Allen story, from his earliest teams at Public School 151 to the Bryant Rangers, the Woodside Wings, the Woodside Blues and more.

Mr. Allen, who became a yellow-cab driver, was always recruiting new talent. He gained the nickname Cabby for his habit of stopping at playgrounds all over the city to scout players.

Teams were organized around neighborhoods and churches, and often sponsored by local bars. Mr. Allen, for one, played for bars, including Garry Owen’s and on the Fiddler’s Green Jokers team in Inwood, Manhattan.

Play was tough and fights were frequent.

“We were basically street gangs on skates,” said Steve Rogg, 56, a mail clerk who grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and who on Saturday wore his Riedell Classic quads from 1972. “If another team caught up with you the night before a game, they tossed you a beating so you couldn’t play the next day.”

Mr. Garmendia said Mr. Allen’s skin color provoked many fights.

“When we’d go to some ignorant neighborhoods, a lot of players would use slurs,” Mr. Garmendia said, recalling a game in Ozone Park, Queens, where local fans parked motorcycles in a lineup next to the blacktop and taunted Mr. Allen. Mr. Garmendia said he checked a player into the motorcycles, “and the bikes went down like dominoes, which started a serious brawl.”

A group of fans at a game in Brooklyn once stuck a pole through the rink fence as Mr. Allen skated by and broke his jaw, Mr. Garmendia said, adding that carloads of reinforcements soon arrived to defend Mr. Allen.

And at another racially incited brawl, the police responded with six patrol cars and a helicopter.

Before play began on Saturday, the players gathered at center rink to honor Mr. Allen. Billy Barnwell, 59, of Woodside, recalled once how an all-white, all-star squad snubbed Mr. Allen by playing him third string. He scored seven goals in the first game and made first string immediately.

“He’d always hear racial stuff before the game, and I’d ask him, ‘How do you put up with that?’” Mr. Barnwell recalled. “Craig would say, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ and by the end of the game, he’d win guys over. They’d say, ‘This guy’s good.’”

Bruce Alger, 96, Dies; Led ‘Mink Coat’ Protest Against Lyndon Johnson

Mr. Alger, who served five terms from Texas, led Republican women in a confrontation with Lyndon B. Johnson that may have cost Richard M. Nixon the 1960 presidential election.

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.

Continue reading the main story

 

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.”

Continue reading the main story

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.

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.

Finding Scandal in New York and New Jersey, but No Shame

From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.

In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.

Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.

The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.

The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.

The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.

It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.

Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.

That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.

Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.

The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.

THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”

The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.

Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.

That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.

Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.

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.

As Vice Moves More to TV, It Tries to Keep Brash Voice

The live music at the Vice Media party on Friday shook the room. Shane Smith, Vice’s chief executive, was standing near the stage — with a drink in his hand, pants sagging, tattoos showing — watching the rapper-cum-chef Action Bronson make pizzas.

The event was an after-party, a happy-hour bacchanal for the hundreds of guests who had come for Vice’s annual presentation to advertisers and agencies that afternoon, part of the annual frenzy for ad dollars called the Digital Content NewFronts. Mr. Smith had spoken there for all of five minutes before running a slam-bang highlight reel of the company’s shows that had titles like “Weediquette” and “Gaycation.”

In the last year, Vice has secured $500 million in financing and signed deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars with established media companies like HBO that are eager to engage the young viewers Vice attracts. Vice said it was now worth at least $4 billion, with nearly $1 billion in projected revenue for 2015. It is a long way from Vice’s humble start as a free magazine in 1994.

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But even as cash flows freely in Vice’s direction, the company is trying to keep its brash, insurgent image. At the party on Friday, it plied guests with beers and cocktails. Its apparently unrehearsed presentation to advertisers was peppered with expletives. At one point, the director Spike Jonze, a longtime Vice collaborator, asked on stage if Mr. Smith had been drinking.

“My assistant tried to cut me off,” Mr. Smith replied. “I’m on buzz control.”

Now, Vice is on the verge of getting its own cable channel, which would give the company a traditional outlet for its slate of non-news programming. If all goes as planned, A&E Networks, the television group owned by Hearst and Disney, will turn over its History Channel spinoff, H2, to Vice.

The deal’s announcement was expected last week, but not all of A&E’s distribution partners — the cable and satellite TV companies that carry the network’s channels — have signed off on the change, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

A cable channel would be a further step in a transformation for Vice, from bad-boy digital upstart to mainstream media company.

Keen for the core audience of young men who come to Vice, media giants like 21st Century Fox, Time Warner and Disney all showed interest in the company last year. Vice ultimately secured $500 million in financing from A&E Networks and Technology Crossover Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has invested in Facebook and Netflix.

Those investments valued Vice at more than $2.5 billion. (In 2013, Fox bought a 5 percent stake for $70 million.)

Then in March, HBO announced that it had signed a multiyear deal to broadcast a daily half-hour Vice newscast. Vice already produces a weekly newsmagazine show, called “Vice,” for the network. That show will extend its run through 2018, with an increase to 35 episodes a year, from 14.

Michael Lombardo, HBO’s president for programming, said when the deal was announced that it was “certainly one of our biggest investments with hours on the air.”

Vice, based in Brooklyn, also recently signed a multiyear $100 million deal with Rogers Communications, a Canadian media conglomerate, to produce original content for TV, smartphone and desktop viewers.

Vice’s finances are private, but according to an internal document reviewed by The New York Times and verified by a person familiar with the company’s financials, the company is on track to make about $915 million in revenue this year.

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It brought in $545 million in a strong first quarter, which included portions of the new HBO deal and the Rogers deal, according to the document. More of its revenue now comes from these types of content partnerships, compared with the branded content deals that made up much of its revenue a year ago, the company said.

Mr. Smith said the company was worth at least $4 billion. If the valuation gets much higher, he said he would consider taking the company public.

“I don’t care about money; we have plenty of money,” Mr. Smith, who is Vice’s biggest shareholder, said in an interview after the presentation on Friday. “I care about strategic deals.”

In the United States, Vice Media had 35.2 million unique visitors across its sites in March, according to comScore.

The third season of Vice’s weekly HBO show has averaged 1.8 million viewers per episode, including reruns, through April 12, according to Brad Adgate, the director of research at Horizon Media. (Vice said the show attracted three million weekly viewers when repeat broadcasts, online and on-demand viewings were included.)

For years, Mr. Smith has criticized traditional TV, calling it slow and unable to draw younger viewers. But if all the deals Vice has struck are to work out, Mr. Smith may have to play more by the rules of traditional media. James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son and a member of Vice’s board, was at the company’s presentation on Friday, as were other top media executives.

“They know they need people like me to help them, but they can’t get out of their own way,” Mr. Smith said in the interview Friday. “My only real frustration is we’re used to being incredibly dynamic, and they’re not incredibly dynamic.”

With its own television channel in the United States, Vice would have something it has long coveted even as traditional media companies are looking beyond TV. Last year, Vice’s deal with Time Warner failed in part because the two companies could not agree on how much control Vice would have over a 24-hour television network.

Vice said it intended to fill its new channel with non-news programming. The company plans to have sports shows, fashion shows, food shows and the “Gaycation” travel show with the actress Ellen Page. It is also in talks with Kanye West about a show.

It remains to be seen whether Vice’s audience will watch a traditional cable channel. Still, Vice has effectively presold all of the ad spots to two of the biggest advertising agencies for the first three years, Mr. Smith said.

In the meantime, Mr. Smith is enjoying Vice’s newfound role as a potential savior of traditional media companies.

“I’m a C.E.O. of a content company,” Mr. Smith said before he caught a flight to Las Vegas for the boxing match on Saturday between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao. “If it stops being fun, then why are you doing it?”

Jack Ely, Who Sang the Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’, Dies at 71

A 2-minute-42-second demo recording captured in one take turned out to be a one-hit wonder for Mr. Ely, who was 19 when he sang the garage-band classic.

Don Mankiewicz, Screenwriter in a Family Film Tradition, Dies at 93

Mr. Mankiewicz, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter for “I Want to Live!,” also wrote episodes of television shows such as “Star Trek” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.”

Cher and Marc Jacobs

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.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, 93, Dies; Polish Auschwitz Survivor Aided Jews

Mr. Bartoszewski was given honorary Israeli citizenship for his work to save Jews during World War II and later surprised even himself by being instrumental in reconciling Poland and Germany.

Verne Gagne, Wrestler Who Grappled Through Two Eras, Dies at 89

Gagne wrestled professionally from the late 1940s until the 1980s and was a transitional figure between the early 20th century barnstormers and the steroidal sideshows of today