PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

MENJELAJAHI MASJID AGUNG BRUSSEL DI BELGIA

Masjid Agung Brussel – Belgia yang terletak di kawasan elit dalam taman Cinquantenaire Park kota Brussel dan tak jauh dari markas  besar Uni Eropa itu pada awalnya tidak diperuntukkan sebagai masjid melainkan sebagai paviliun pameran kebudayaan negeri negeri timur, selesai dibangun tahun 1879 dan setahun kemudian di digunakan sebagai gedung eksebisi nasional Belgia. Di tahun tersebut komunitas muslim Belgia belum lagi dikenal.
Organisasi Islam pertama di Belgia, Islamic and Cultural Centre Belgium, baru berdiri di tahun 1963 atau 84 tahun setelah gedung pameran tersebut selesai dibangun.  Pada awal pendiriannya Islamic and Cultural Center Belgium berkantor di gedung sewaan di kawasan sederhana kota Brussels, berkat bantuan dari kedutaan negara negara Islam di Brussels waktu itu.

Bangunan aslinya dibangun oleh arsitek Ernest Van Humbeek dalam gaya bahasa Arab, untuk membentuk Pavilion Oriental dari National Exhibition di Brussels pada tahun 1880. Pada saat itu paviliun ditempati lukisan monumental pada kanvas : “Panorama Kairo”, oleh  pelukis Belgia Emile Wauters , yang telah sukses besar. Namun, kurangnya pemeliharaan pada abad kedua puluh menyebabkan bangunan memburuk secara bertahap.

Pada tahun 1967, King Baudouin membuat hadiah bangunan untuk Raja Faisal bin Abdul Aziz dari Arab Saudi , dalam kunjungan resmi ke Belgia, bangunan tersebut mungkin berubah menjadi tempat ibadah untuk penggunaan komunitas Muslim Belgia yang telah berkembang cukup pada saat itu. Masjid, setelah rekonstruksi panjang dilakukan dengan mengorbankan Arab Saudi oleh Tunisia arsitek Boubaker, diresmikan pada tahun 1978 di hadapan Khalid ibn Abd al-Aziz dan Baudouin. Masjid ini peran lembaga keagamaan terkemuka dalam Belgia Islam peran yang dimaksudkan sebagai jembatan diplomatik antara Saudi dan Belgia masyarakat serta monarki-telah menjadi titik perdebatan sejak kembali berdiri.

Saat ini juga menjadi tuan rumah sebuah sekolah dan pusat penelitian Islam yang tujuannya adalah untuk menyebarkan agama Islam. Pusat ini juga menyediakan kursus bahasa Arab untuk orang dewasa dan anak-anak, serta kursus pengantar dalam Islam .

Sumber : http://khalistatour.com

Baca Artikel Lainnya : MAKNA IBADAH HAJI DAN UMRAH

GANGGUAN WESEL DI GAMBIR, PENUMPANG BERDIRI DI KRL HINGGA 2 JAM

saco-indonesia.com, Perjalanan KRL sejak pagi tadi telah mengalami kekacauan. Penyebabnya gangguan wesel (perpindahan rel) di Stasiun Gambir. Jarak tempuh yang biasanya cuma 45 menit, kini telah mencapai hingga 2 jam.

Gangguan yang terjadi sejak pukul 07.00 pagi WIB, Selasa (11/2). sejak Stasiun Depok Lama, jadwal keberangkatan juga sudah terlambat 30 menit. Beberapa rangkaian kereta bahkan juga tersendat-sendat.

Beberapa kali KRL terpaksa harus berhenti di antara dua stasiun seperti di Stasiun UI, Pasar Minggu, hingga Stasiun Tebet dan berlanjut hingga Stasiun Gondangdia.

Dewi yang berusia (25) tahun, penumpang yang naik dari Stasiun Bojong Gede pada pukul 07.30 pagi WIB, juga mengaku baru sampai di Stasiun Tebet dua jam kemudian. Padahal biasanya setiap hari jarak itu ditempuh antara 40-45 menit saja.

Demikian juga dengan Ratna, yang hingga pukul 10.30 WIB masih tertahan di dalam kereta. "Saya juga mau turun di Stasiun Gondangdia, dari Stasiun Pondok Cina tadi naik jam 8," ujarnya ketika dihubungi.

Para penumpang pun telah mengeluhkan informasi yang minim dari petugas PT KAI. "Kalau tahu lama begini, tadi turun naik taksi," cetus Ratna.

Selain jalur Bogor-Jakarta, gangguan wesel ini juga berdampak pada perjalanan KRL dari Bekasi.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

PELAKU UTAMA PEMBUNUH FEBY LORITA DIBURU KE MEDAN

saco-indonesia.com, Polisi akhirnya telah berhasil untuk mengungkap pelaku pembunuhan wanita dalam mobil Nissan March putih F 1356 KA. Satu dari dua pelaku, telah diamankan oleh jajaran Polres Jakarta Timur.

Berdasarkan informasi yang telah berhasil dihimpun, salah satu pelaku berhasil ditangkap, Sabtu (1/2) malam. Petugas tengah menggiring pelaku atas nama Daniel ke Pasar Kecapi, Pondok Gede, untuk dapat menggambil barang bukti motor yang digunakannya.

Daniel sendiri bukanlah pelaku utama atas tewasnya Feby Lorita. Ia hanya bertugas untuk membantu pelaku utama Ed, yang saat ini masih dalam proses pengejaran di Medan. Daniel sendiri juga merupakan seorang angkot yang terbujuk rayu Ed.

Kabar ditangkapnya Daniel sendiri, juga telah dibenarkan oleh Kapolres Jakarta Timur, Kombes Mulyadi Kaharni. Namun, ia belum dapat memberikan keterangan detil atas penangkapan yang dilakukan petugasnya. Melalui pesan singkatnya, Mulyadi hanya menulis. “Iya, sudah tahu kan,” tulisnya.

TIDAK HAMIL

Sementara itu, berdasarkan hasil otopsi yang telah dilakukan petugas, Feby sendiri tidak dalam kondisi hamil. Hanya saja, luka akibat benda tajam terlihat di leher korban. “Dari hasil otopsi korban sendiri tidak hamil,” kata Kasat Reskrim AKBP Didik Sugiarto.

Didik sendiri mengaku, jasad yang ditemukan di bagasi mobil disamping TPU Pondok Kelapa, Duren Sawit, benar Feby Lorita. Hal itu telah teruji dari hasil sidik jari korban yang dibandingkan dengan ijazah SMU miliknya. “Hasilnya identik 100 persen, korban adalah benar Feby Lorita,” tuturnya

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

5 Alasan untuk Tak Meninggalkan Jam Tangan

Saco-Indonesia.com - Seperti halnya dengan kaset dan komunikasi tatap muka, jam tangan kini juga mulai kehilangan makna pentingnya dalam kehidupan modern. Apalagi kita punya ponsel yang bisa menunjukkan waktu, belum lagi komputer, tablet, dan berbagai gadget lainnya.

Namun, jam tangan disukai bukan hanya karena fungsinya saja. Sebagian besar wanita mengganggap jam tangan sebagai aksesoris yang bisa menunjang penampilan.

Berikut ada alasan lain mengapa jam tangan masih penting untuk dipakai:

1. Tak sopan cek ponsel terus menerus
Walau Anda bisa melihat dengan jelas jam yang tertera di ponsel, tetapi tak sopan jika sebentar-sebentar Anda membuka ponsel hanya untuk melihat jam.

2. Cek waktu tanpa repot
Tentu merepotkan saat kedua tangan Anda membawa tas, buku, tentengan belanja, atau menggandeng anak, namun Anda masih harus membuka ponsel untuk melihat jam. Jam tangan adalah solusinya.

3. Bagian dari fashion
Tak sulit menemukan jam tangan yang trendi dan terlihat indah saat dipakai. Jam tangan memang bagian dari fashion. Apalagi jika Anda malas memadukan pakaian dengan kalung, cincin, atau gelang. Cukup pilih jam tangan dengan strap yang menarik, penampilan pun terasa komplet.

4. Bagian dari identitas
Seperti halnya tas, jam tangan juga menjadi simbol dari status, asosiasi, dan identitas. Perhatikan seorang eksekutif muda yang memakai Rolex dan seorang mahasiswa yang memakai jam karet digital, sengaja atau tidak masing-masing memberi pesan tersendiri terhadap apa yang mereka pakai.

5. Bagian dari orang dewasa
Dibelikan jam tangan saat kita masih anak-anak menjadi sebuah milestone tersendiri karena itu berarti kita sudah mampu mengenali waktu. Sebagai orang dewasa, memakai jam tangan juga membuat kita merasa benar-benar seperti orang dewasa.

Sumber:kompas.com

Editor : Maulana Lee

BNPT : Bom Bunuh Diri Diduga Adalah Jaringan Abu Umar

Bandung, Saco- Indonesia.com, Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Teroris atau BNPT menduga Pelaku bom bunuh diri di Mapolres Poso merupakan satu jaringan dengan teroris di Jakarta, Bandung, Solo, NTT, Aceh, yang merupakan anak buah dari Abu Umar, Abu Roban, Kodrat, Sofyan dan Jamil.

Demikian hal itu dikatakan Kepala BNPT, Ansyad Mbai, Selasa (4/6) hari ini.

Ansyad mengatakan, aparat kepolisian dari mabes polri terus melakukan identifikasi terkait pelaku bom bunuh diri yang terjadi di Poso, dan hal ini perlu dilakukan untuk mengetahui jaringan-jaringan mana. Karena saat ini jaringan teroris tersebut mencari bibit-bibit baru untuk dijadikan sel-sel teroris.

Editor:Liwon Maulana

Sumber:Elshinta

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.”

Jozef Paczynski, Inmate Barber to Auschwitz Commandant, Dies at 95

Mr. Paczynski was one of the concentration camp’s longest surviving inmates and served as the personal barber to its Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss.

Marcel Pronovost, 84, Dies; Hall of Famer Shared in Five N.H.L. Titles

Pronovost, who played for the Red Wings, was not a prolific scorer, but he was a consummate team player with bruising checks and fearless bursts up the ice that could puncture a defense.

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.

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Children playing last week in Sandtown-Winchester, the Baltimore neighborhood where Freddie Gray was raised. One young resident called it “a tough community.”

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

The neighborhood where Freddie Gray came of age has survived harrowing rates of unemployment, poor health, violent crime and incarceration.

ay 4, 2015 ‘Game of Thrones’ Q&A: Keisha Castle-Hughes on the Tao of the Sand Snakes

“It was really nice to play with other women and not have this underlying tone of being at each other’s throats.”

Fatal Police Shootings: Accounts Since Ferguson

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Rhapsody, a Lofty Literary Journal, Perused at 39,000 Feet

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Last summer at a writers’ workshop in Oregon, the novelists Anthony Doerr, Karen Russell and Elissa Schappell were chatting over cocktails when they realized they had all published work in the same magazine. It wasn’t one of the usual literary outlets, like Tin House, The Paris Review or The New Yorker. It was Rhapsody, an in-flight magazine for United Airlines.

It seemed like a weird coincidence. Then again, considering Rhapsody’s growing roster of A-list fiction writers, maybe not. Since its first issue hit plane cabins a year and a half ago, Rhapsody has published original works by literary stars like Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Amy Bloom, Emma Straub and Mr. Doerr, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction two weeks ago.

As airlines try to distinguish their high-end service with luxuries like private sleeping chambers, showers, butler service and meals from five-star chefs, United Airlines is offering a loftier, more cerebral amenity to its first-class and business-class passengers: elegant prose by prominent novelists. There are no airport maps or disheartening lists of in-flight meal and entertainment options in Rhapsody. Instead, the magazine has published ruminative first-person travel accounts, cultural dispatches and probing essays about flight by more than 30 literary fiction writers.

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An airline might seem like an odd literary patron. But as publishers and writers look for new ways to reach readers in a shaky retail climate, many have formed corporate alliances with transit companies, including American Airlines, JetBlue and Amtrak, that provide a captive audience.

Mark Krolick, United Airlines’ managing director of marketing and product development, said the quality of the writing in Rhapsody brings a patina of sophistication to its first-class service, along with other opulent touches like mood lighting, soft music and a branded scent.

“The high-end leisure or business-class traveler has higher expectations, even in the entertainment we provide,” he said.

Some of Rhapsody’s contributing writers say they were lured by the promise of free airfare and luxury accommodations provided by United, as well as exposure to an elite audience of some two million first-class and business-class travelers.

“It’s not your normal Park Slope Community Bookstore types who read Rhapsody,” Mr. Moody, author of the 1994 novel “The Ice Storm,” who wrote an introspective, philosophical piece about traveling to the Aran Islands of Ireland for Rhapsody, said in an email. “I’m not sure I myself am in that Rhapsody demographic, but I would like them to buy my books one day.”

In addition to offering travel perks, the magazine pays well and gives writers freedom, within reason, to choose their subject matter and write with style. Certain genres of flight stories are off limits, naturally: no plane crashes or woeful tales of lost luggage or rude flight attendants, and nothing too risqué.

“We’re not going to have someone write about joining the mile-high club,” said Jordan Heller, the editor in chief of Rhapsody. “Despite those restrictions, we’ve managed to come up with a lot of high-minded literary content.”

Guiding writers toward the right idea occasionally requires some gentle prodding. When Rhapsody’s executive editor asked Ms. Russell to contribute an essay about a memorable flight experience, she first pitched a story about the time she was chaperoning a group of teenagers on a trip to Europe, and their delayed plane sat at the airport in New York for several hours while other passengers got progressively drunker.

“He pointed out that disaster flights are not what people want to read about when they’re in transit, and very diplomatically suggested that maybe people want to read something that casts air travel in a more positive light,” said Ms. Russell, whose novel “Swamplandia!” was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize.

She turned in a nostalgia-tinged essay about her first flight on a trip to Disney World when she was 6. “The Magic Kingdom was an anticlimax,” she wrote. “What ride could compare to that first flight?”

Ms. Oates also wrote about her first flight, in a tiny yellow propeller plane piloted by her father. The novelist Joyce Maynard told of the constant disappointment of never seeing her books in airport bookstores and the thrill of finally spotting a fellow plane passenger reading her novel “Labor Day.” Emily St. John Mandel, who was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction last year, wrote about agonizing over which books to bring on a long flight.

“There’s nobody that’s looked down their noses at us as an in-flight magazine,” said Sean Manning, the magazine’s executive editor. “As big as these people are in the literary world, there’s still this untapped audience for them of luxury travelers.”

United is one of a handful of companies showcasing work by literary writers as a way to elevate their brands and engage customers. Chipotle has printed original work from writers like Toni Morrison, Jeffrey Eugenides and Barbara Kingsolver on its disposable cups and paper bags. The eyeglass company Warby Parker hosts parties for authors and sells books from 14 independent publishers in its stores.

JetBlue offers around 40 e-books from HarperCollins and Penguin Random House on its free wireless network, allowing passengers to read free samples and buy and download books. JetBlue will start offering 11 digital titles from Simon & Schuster soon. Amtrak recently forged an alliance with Penguin Random House to provide free digital samples from 28 popular titles, which passengers can buy and download over Amtrak’s admittedly spotty wireless service.

Amtrak is becoming an incubator for literary talent in its own right. Last year, it started a residency program, offering writers a free long-distance train trip and complimentary food. More than 16,000 writers applied and 24 made the cut.

Like Amtrak, Rhapsody has found that writers are eager to get onboard. On a rainy spring afternoon, Rhapsody’s editorial staff sat around a conference table discussing the June issue, which will feature an essay by the novelist Hannah Pittard and an unpublished short story by the late Elmore Leonard.

“Do you have that photo of Elmore Leonard? Can I see it?” Mr. Heller, the editor in chief, asked Rhapsody’s design director, Christos Hannides. Mr. Hannides slid it across the table and noted that they also had a photograph of cowboy spurs. “It’s very simple; it won’t take away from the literature,” he said.

Rhapsody’s office, an open space with exposed pipes and a vaulted brick ceiling, sits in Dumbo at the epicenter of literary Brooklyn, in the same converted tea warehouse as the literary journal N+1 and the digital publisher Atavist. Two of the magazine’s seven staff members hold graduate degrees in creative writing. Mr. Manning, the executive editor, has published a memoir and edited five literary anthologies.

Mr. Manning said Rhapsody was conceived from the start as a place for literary novelists to write with voice and style, and nobody had been put off that their work would live in plane cabins and airport lounges.

Still, some contributors say they wish the magazine were more widely circulated.

“I would love it if I could read it,” said Ms. Schappell, a Brooklyn-based novelist who wrote a feature story for Rhapsody’s inaugural issue. “But I never fly first class.”

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.

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.”

Ruth Rendell, Novelist Who Thrilled and Educated, Dies at 85

Ms. Rendell was a prolific writer of intricately plotted mystery novels that combined psychological insight, social conscience and teeth-chattering terror.

Advertisement Politics Obama Finds a Bolder Voice on Race Issues

As he reflected on the festering wounds deepened by race and grievance that have been on painful display in America’s cities lately, President Obama on Monday found himself thinking about a young man he had just met named Malachi.

A few minutes before, in a closed-door round-table discussion at Lehman College in the Bronx, Mr. Obama had asked a group of black and Hispanic students from disadvantaged backgrounds what could be done to help them reach their goals. Several talked about counseling and guidance programs.

“Malachi, he just talked about — we should talk about love,” Mr. Obama told a crowd afterward, drifting away from his prepared remarks. “Because Malachi and I shared the fact that our dad wasn’t around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn’t around and what had happened. But really, that’s what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”

Many presidents have governed during times of racial tension, but Mr. Obama is the first to see in the mirror a face that looks like those on the other side of history’s ledger. While his first term was consumed with the economy, war and health care, his second keeps coming back to the societal divide that was not bridged by his election. A president who eschewed focusing on race now seems to have found his voice again as he thinks about how to use his remaining time in office and beyond.

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Obama Speaks of a ‘Sense of Unfairness’

In the aftermath of racially charged unrest in places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and New York, Mr. Obama came to the Bronx on Monday for the announcement of a new nonprofit organization that is being spun off from his White House initiative called My Brother’s Keeper. Staked by more than $80 million in commitments from corporations and other donors, the new group, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, will in effect provide the nucleus for Mr. Obama’s post-presidency, which will begin in January 2017.

“This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency but for the rest of my life,” Mr. Obama said. “And the reason is simple,” he added. Referring to some of the youths he had just met, he said: “We see ourselves in these young men. I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path. The only difference between me and a lot of other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”

Organizers said the new alliance already had financial pledges from companies like American Express, Deloitte, Discovery Communications and News Corporation. The money will be used to help companies address obstacles facing young black and Hispanic men, provide grants to programs for disadvantaged youths, and help communities aid their populations.

Joe Echevarria, a former chief executive of Deloitte, the accounting and consulting firm, will lead the alliance, and among those on its leadership team or advisory group are executives at PepsiCo, News Corporation, Sprint, BET and Prudential Group Insurance; former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey; former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.; the music star John Legend; the retired athletes Alonzo Mourning, Jerome Bettis and Shaquille O’Neal; and the mayors of Indianapolis, Sacramento and Philadelphia.

The alliance, while nominally independent of the White House, may face some of the same questions confronting former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as she begins another presidential campaign. Some of those donating to the alliance may have interests in government action, and skeptics may wonder whether they are trying to curry favor with the president by contributing.

“The Obama administration will have no role in deciding how donations are screened and what criteria they’ll set at the alliance for donor policies, because it’s an entirely separate entity,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One en route to New York. But he added, “I’m confident that the members of the board are well aware of the president’s commitment to transparency.”

The alliance was in the works before the disturbances last week after the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who suffered fatal injuries while in police custody in Baltimore, but it reflected the evolution of Mr. Obama’s presidency. For him, in a way, it is coming back to issues that animated him as a young community organizer and politician. It was his own struggle with race and identity, captured in his youthful memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” that stood him apart from other presidential aspirants.

But that was a side of him that he kept largely to himself through the first years of his presidency while he focused on other priorities like turning the economy around, expanding government-subsidized health care and avoiding electoral land mines en route to re-election.

After securing a second term, Mr. Obama appeared more emboldened. Just a month after his 2013 inauguration, he talked passionately about opportunity and race with a group of teenage boys in Chicago, a moment aides point to as perhaps the first time he had spoken about these issues in such a personal, powerful way as president. A few months later, he publicly lamented the death of Trayvon Martin, a black Florida teenager, saying that “could have been me 35 years ago.”

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That case, along with public ruptures of anger over police shootings in Ferguson and elsewhere, have pushed the issue of race and law enforcement onto the public agenda. Aides said they imagined that with his presidency in its final stages, Mr. Obama might be thinking more about what comes next and causes he can advance as a private citizen.

That is not to say that his public discussion of these issues has been universally welcomed. Some conservatives said he had made matters worse by seeming in their view to blame police officers in some of the disputed cases.

“President Obama, when he was elected, could have been a unifying leader,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a Republican candidate for president, said at a forum last week. “He has made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions.”

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, some liberal African-American activists have complained that Mr. Obama has not done enough to help downtrodden communities. While he is speaking out more, these critics argue, he has hardly used the power of the presidency to make the sort of radical change they say is necessary.

The line Mr. Obama has tried to straddle has been a serrated one. He condemns police brutality as he defends most officers as honorable. He condemns “criminals and thugs” who looted in Baltimore while expressing empathy with those trapped in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

In the Bronx on Monday, Mr. Obama bemoaned the death of Brian Moore, a plainclothes New York police officer who had died earlier in the day after being shot in the head Saturday on a Queens street. Most police officers are “good and honest and fair and care deeply about their communities,” even as they put their lives on the line, Mr. Obama said.

“Which is why in addressing the issues in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York, the point I made was that if we’re just looking at policing, we’re looking at it too narrowly,” he added. “If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that’s not fair to the communities, it’s not fair to the police.”

Moreover, if society writes off some people, he said, “that’s not the kind of country I want to live in; that’s not what America is about.”

His message to young men like Malachi Hernandez, who attends Boston Latin Academy in Massachusetts, is not to give up.

“I want you to know you matter,” he said. “You matter to us.”

Police Rethink Long Tradition on Using Force

WASHINGTON — During a training course on defending against knife attacks, a young Salt Lake City police officer asked a question: “How close can somebody get to me before I’m justified in using deadly force?”

Dennis Tueller, the instructor in that class more than three decades ago, decided to find out. In the fall of 1982, he performed a rudimentary series of tests and concluded that an armed attacker who bolted toward an officer could clear 21 feet in the time it took most officers to draw, aim and fire their weapon.

The next spring, Mr. Tueller published his findings in SWAT magazine and transformed police training in the United States. The “21-foot rule” became dogma. It has been taught in police academies around the country, accepted by courts and cited by officers to justify countless shootings, including recent episodes involving a homeless woodcarver in Seattle and a schizophrenic woman in San Francisco.

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

Gilbert Haroche, Builder of an Economy Travel Empire, Dies at 87

Mr. Haroche was a founder of Liberty Travel, which grew from a two-man operation to the largest leisure travel operation in the United States.