PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

Cara Alami Obati Sakit Tenggorokan

TERORIS TEMBAK 4 POLISI

saco-indonesia.com, Di tangan kelompok teroris Ciputat ini lima personil polisi yang telah bertugas di wilayah Polda Metro Jaya telah ditembak, 4 di antaranya tewas, hanya dalam 3 bulan.

Tindakan keji itu telah mereka lakukan lantaran polisi telah dianggap sebagai musuh yang kerap menghalangi ‘misi’ mereka dalam mencari fa’i (dana operasional terorisme) dengan cara merampok. Selain itu juga diduga sebagai bentuk balas dendam atas perlakuan polisi terhadap terduga teroris yang telah ditangkap.

Para teroris tersebut adalah: Nurul Haq, Hendi Albar, Daeng alias Dayat Kacamata, Ozi alias Tomo, Rizal alias Teguh, dan Edi alias Amril. Ke-6 teroris ini telah ditembak mati oleh petugas Densus 88 Mabes Polri dalam baku tembak di Ciputat, Rabu (1/1) dinihari.

Satu pelaku lain berhasil ditangkap hidup-hidup di Banyumas, Jateng, yakni Anton alias Septi. Ia juga merupakan anggota kelompok teroris Mujahidin Indonesia Barat pimpinan Abu Roban yang tewas ditembak oleh pasukan anti terror di Kendal, Jateng pada Mei 2013 lalu. Kelompok ini juga bersinergi dengan kelompok teroris Mujahidin Indonesia Timur pimpinan Santoso di Poso, Sulawesi.

Jaringan Abu Roban telah memiliki andil mendistribusikan dana untuk keperluan aksi teror di Poso. Upaya Fa’i telah ditempuh Abu Roban dengan cara merampok. Aksi perampokan kelompok ini:

•    Bank  BPR Cililin,  Bandung
•    Kantor Pos Cibaduyut
•    Toko emas di Tambora
•    Bank BRI di Panongan, Tangerang. pada Selasa (24/12) lalu.

5 POLISI JADI KORBAN:

o. Aipda Patah Saktiyono, 53. Anggota Polsek Gambir ini ditembak di depan  Sekolah Al Fath, Ciputat, Sabtu (27/7). Patah luput dari maut.

o. Aiptu Dwiyatno, 50.  Anggota Babinkamtibmas Polsek Cilandak ini tewas ditembak di depan RS Sari Asih, Tangerang Selatan pada Rabu (7/8).

o. Aiptu Kus Hendratno, 44.  Anggota Polsek Pondok Aren ini tewas ditembak di Jl. Graha Bintaro, Pondok Aren, Tangsel, pada Jumat (16/8).

o. Bripka Ahmad Maulana, 35. Anggota Polsek Pondok Aren ini tewas ditembak ini di Jl Graha Bintaro, Pondok Aren, pada Jumat (16/8).

o. Bripka Sukardi, 46.  Anggota Baharkam Mabes Polri ini tewas ditembak di depan Gedung KPK, Jalan HR Rasuna Said, pada Selasa (10/9).

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

7 JAM NIKITA MIRZANI DIPEIKSA POLRESTA BANDUNG

saco-indonesia.com, Setelah korban melaporkan penyidik ke Propam Polda Jabar, artis seksi Nikita Mirzani yang juga sudah menyandang status tersangka baru bisa menjalani pemeriksaan di Sat Reskrim Polresrtabes Bandung, Selasa malam.

Nikita telah diperiksa dalam status tersangka kasus penganiayaan terhadap korban Yun Tjun di tempat hiburan di Dago Bandunbg, beberapa bulan lalu.

Nikita yang didampingi oleh kuasa hukumnya telah menjalani pemeriksaan hampir tujuh jam. Dia juga menghadap penyidik pukul 17.00 dan baru keluar hampir pukul 22.00. “ Kami telah memeriksa Nikita sebagai tersangka dalam kasus penganiayaan atas nama korban Yuin Tjun,“ kata Kasat Reskrim Polresdtabes Bandung AKBP Trunoyudho, Rabu (18/12).

Dia juga menambahkan, materi pemeriksaan tiada lain hanya sebatas konfrontir antara korban dengan tersangka. Kedua duanya hadir. “ Dalam kasus ini juga ada dua tersangka satu pelapor. Tersangkanya Nikita!n dan temannyan“ tanbah Kasat.

Nikita dan temannya juga sudah hampir dua bulan ditetapkan jadi tersangka. Penyidik baru bisa memeriksa tadi malam terhadap Nikita dengan alasan artis itu sulit dihubungi dan sedang bulan madu. Saking jengkelnya, pelapor Yun Tjun yang didampingi oleh kuasa hokumnya Andrea Sukmana, telah melaporkan penyidik ke Bidang Propam dengan alasan ketidakprofesionalanya dalam menangani kasus tersebut. Dikabarkan pekan depan Nikita akan dipanggil kembali untuk dapat menjalani pemeriksaan yanhg kedua kalinya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

Pelaku Bom Bunuh Diri Menggunakan Sepeda Motor

POSO, Saco-Indonesia.COM — Seorang pria yang menggunakan sepeda motor meledakkan diri di halaman Mapolres Poso, Sulawesi Tengah, Senin (3/6/2013), sekitar pukul 08.05 Wita. Ledakan itu menewaskan pelaku. Tak ada korban lain dalam ledakan itu, kecuali seorang pekerja bangunan yang sedang merenovasi masjid di kompleks Mapolres Poso, kata Kapolres Poso AKBP Susnadi dalam wawancara dengan Metro TV. Pekerja bangunan itu dikatakan menderita luka ringan.

Menurut Susnadi, pria itu melintas di depan gerbang pos penjagaan Mapolres Poso pada sekitar pukul 08.03 dengan menggunakan sepeda motor. Petugas kepolisian sempat menghentikan pria itu, tetapi ia nekat menerobos. Sekitar 20 meter dari pos penjagaan, bom yang dibawa pelaku meledak tepat di depan masjid yang ada di kompleks Mapolres. Belum diketaui apakah bom itu merupakan bom sepeda motor (melekat di sepeda motor), di tubuh pelaku, atau ada dalam tas yang dibawa pelaku.

"Kondisi jenazah korban (pelaku) hancur dan bagian-bagian tubuhnya menyebar ke mana-mana. Hanya pahanya yang masih utuh," kata Sofyan, seorang warga Poso yang sedang berada di lokasi kejadian, sebagaimana dikutip kantor berita Antara.

Tidak ada anggota kepolisian yang jadi korban dalam ledakan itu. Namun, beberapa bagian gedung mapolres dan masjid rusak sedang dan ringan.

Menurut Susnadi, pelaku diduga berusia berusia 30-35 tahun. Pelaku kemungkinan berasal dari kelompok garis keras bersenjata yang beroperasi di Poso.

Petugas kini sedang meneliti lokasi kejadian guna mengidentifikasi jenis bom dan identitas pelaku, sedangkan potongan-potongan tubuh jenazah sedang dikumpulkan dan belum dievakuasi.

16 WEBSITE DOWNLOAD LAGU SECARA LEGAL DAN GRATIS

saco-indonesia.com, Masalah pembajakan hak cipta untuk karya lagu di Indonesia sudah mencapai titik nadir. Yeah, begitu mudahnya kita mendapatkan lagu-lagu dengan format mp3 secara ilegal, entah itu download dari layanan file sharing, men- copy dari teman maupun membelinya dari lapak-lapak DVD di pinggir jalan. Bahkan artis dan label dibuat pusing dengan permasalahan ini, berbagai kampanye anti bajakan dan langkah- langkah lainnya untuk mencegah terjadinya pembajakan gencar dilakukan.

Okey, saya juga mengakui kalau dulu pernah download lagu-lagu secara ilegal. Kemudian saya menyadari bahwa karya lagu merupakan sumber penghasilan bagi para musisi dan mendapatkannya secara ilegal tentunya sangat merugikan bagi para musisi tersebut. Sangat penting untuk menyadari akan masalah copyright atau hak cipta bagi kita yang bekerja di dunia kreatif.

Bagi Anda yang berkocek tebal tentu tidak memiliki masalah untuk dapat membeli dan menikmati lagu-lagu. Tapi bagi kamu yang memiliki dana terbatas dan tidak cukup untuk membeli sebuah CD, solusinya? Download lagu gratis! (dan legal tentunya) Yeah, banyak sekali online resource yang menyediakan lagu-lagu ber-format mp3 secara gratis. Memang kebanyakan dari musisi-musisi indie dan (mungkin) masih asing didengar bagai dari antah berantah. But, hei secara musikalitas lagu-lagunya gak kalah keren dari artis-artis terkenal loh. Mencoba mendengarkan sesuatu yang baru tentu menjadi tantangan tersendiri kan? :D dan para hipster bilang “is too mainstream! let’s get indie”.

Jamendo

Jamendo

Semua lagu di Jamendo gratis untuk di-download dan dilisensikan dari salah satu lisensi Creative Commons atau Free Art License, sehingga hukum untuk men- copy, berbagi, memodifikasi dan digunakan secara komersial sudah diatur pada tiap lisensi yang dicantumkan pada lagu-lagu tersebut. Ada lebih dari 32.000 album dari seluruh musisi di dunia yang tersedia untuk di-download sekarang di Jamendo. Menjadikan Jamendo salah satu dari website terbaik untuk men-download lagu gratis dan tumbuh menjadi perpustakaan lagu-lagu gratis.

PureVolume

PureVolume

PureVolume adalah sebuah website yang digunakan untuk mencari dan mempromosikan seorang musisi maupun band. Musisi atau band di PureVolume memiliki akses penuh untuk men-upload lagu dan mengaturnya untuk dibagikan gratis ataupun dijual, men- upload video, menjual merchandise dan memberi info jadwal tour/konser mereka.

ReverbNation

ReverbNation

ReverbNation menjadi sebuah wadah berkumpulnya para pelaku industri musik profesional, manajemen artis, label, musisi, band, promotor, dan tentunya fans. Banyak artis, musisi dan band terkenal nangkring disini, yang lokal Indonesia juga banyak. Biasanya mereka memberikan minimal satu lagu gratis untuk di-download.

LastFM

LastFM

Selain menjadi jejaring sosial musik terbesar, LastFM juga turut memberikan lagu-lagu gratis terutama dari para musisi atau band indie. Masuk ke menu “Free Music Downloads” untuk melihat daftar lagu gratis dan men-download-nya.

MP3

MP3

MP3 adalah sebuah website yang dioperasikan oleh CNET Networks yang menyediakan informasi tentang lagu, album, dan video dari para musisi di seluruh dunia. Tidak hanya berbayar, MP3 juga menyediakan ribuan lagu-lagu gratis untuk di-download.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud

Siapa yang tidak kenal SoundCloud? bagi pecinta musik tidak afdol rasanya bila tidak memiliki akun di sini. Selain sebagai social sound platform, SoundCloud juga menyediakan lagu-lagu dari para member-nya yang bisa di-download secara gratis.

NoiseTrade

NoiseTrade

Ide dari NoiseTrade sangat menarik! “Fans get free music. Artists connect with new fans. Everybody wins”. Sound very Indie, right? Tentunya NoiseTrade menjadi sebuah ‘Valhalla’ bagi para musisi di jalur indie.

Epitonic

Epitonic

Epitonic pertama kali di launch pada 8 Maret 1999. Website ini menjadi salah satu yang pertama sebagai music library dan informasi seputar industri musik. Sempat terbengkalai pada tahun 2004 dan pada 8 Maret 2011 Epitonic kembali di launch dengan penambahan fitur-fitur yang lebih keren.

Stereogum

Stereogum

Stereogum adalah salah satu blog mp3 pertama. Stereogum pertama kali rilis lebih fokus membahas pada genre musik indie dan alternatif. Tapi dengan antusiasme yang besar dari para musisi, kini Stereogum menghadirkan hampir semua genre musik. Anda bisa men-download lagu secara gratis dari beberapa artis terkenal seperti: Kanye West, Ryan Adams, Vampire Weekend, dan lain-lain.

FreeMusicArchive

FreeMusicArchive

Ingin mendapatkan playlist yang tidak biasa? Anda bisa mencoba di FreeMusicArchive. Download seluruh track dari playlist yang sudah di kurasi oleh para kurator indie terpercaya. “It’s not just free music; it’s good music”.

Myspoonful

Myspoonful

Myspoonful memberikan lagu-lagu baru secara gratis tiap harinya. Tim Myspoonful rutin menkurasi artis atau musisi indie yang terbaik dan merekomendasikannya untuk anda.

Amazon MP3

Amazon mp3

Amazon salah satu toko online retail terbesar juga menjual lagu-lagu layaknya iTunes store. Selain berbayar, Amazon MP3 memberikan cukup banyak lagu gratis yang bisa anda download.

Insound

Insound

Insound adalah sebuah toko online musik yang salah satu produk terkenalnya adalah mixtape lagu digital yang di-convert dari vynil. Insound juga memberikan 1-2 track gratis untuk di-download setiap harinya (mungkin sebagai bentuk dari promosinya).

Museopen

Museopen

Museopen adalah sebuat website non-profit yang memfokuskan pada pengembangan akses dan informasi musik serta sebagai bahan pendidikan. Museopen menyediakan musik rekaman gratis, sheet music dan textbooks kepada publik secara gratis. Suka dengan musik orkestra, Museopen bisa menjadi referensi yang bagus.

Overclocked Remix

Overclocked Remix

Suka dengan musik remix khas game? atau penggemar film Scott Pilgrim vs The World? Well, Overclocked Remix didedikasikan buat anda.

CCMixter

CCMixter

CCMixter hampir serupa seperti Overclocked Remix, tetapi lebih luas dan tidak terfokus hanya untuk musik remix game saja. Musisi remix maupun komunitas remix bisa men- upload karyanya di sini untuk dibagikan secara gratis.

Penutup

Cukup banyak sekali online resource untuk mendapatkan lagu-lagu secara legal dan gratis. Hari gini dibilang gak gaul, karena playlist-mu terbatas? hehehe… balas deh tuh anak-anak songong dengan playlist lagu-lagu indie dan pengetahuan musik yang mumpuni yang didapat dari website-website diatas. “Is too mainstream! let’s get indie” *toss*

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.

Marty Napoleon, 93, Dies; Jazz Pianist Played With Louis Armstrong

Mr. Napoleon was a self-taught musician whose career began in earnest with the orchestra led by Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers.

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.

Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer of ‘Lord of the Rings,’ Dies at 59

The magical quality Mr. Lesnie created in shooting the “Babe” films caught the eye of the director Peter Jackson, who chose him to film the fantasy epic.

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.”

Edward Chambers, Early Leader in Community Organizing, Dies at 85

A lapsed seminarian, Mr. Chambers succeeded Saul Alinsky as leader of the social justice umbrella group Industrial Areas Foundation.

With Iran Talks, a Tangled Path to Ending Syria’s War

UNITED NATIONS — Wearing pinstripes and a pince-nez, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations envoy for Syria, arrived at the Security Council one Tuesday afternoon in February and announced that President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to halt airstrikes over Aleppo. Would the rebels, Mr. de Mistura suggested, agree to halt their shelling?

What he did not announce, but everyone knew by then, was that the Assad government had begun a military offensive to encircle opposition-held enclaves in Aleppo and that fierce fighting was underway. It would take only a few days for rebel leaders, having pushed back Syrian government forces, to outright reject Mr. de Mistura’s proposed freeze in the fighting, dooming the latest diplomatic overture on Syria.

Diplomacy is often about appearing to be doing something until the time is ripe for a deal to be done.

Now, with Mr. Assad’s forces having suffered a string of losses on the battlefield and the United States reaching at least a partial rapprochement with Mr. Assad’s main backer, Iran, Mr. de Mistura is changing course. Starting Monday, he is set to hold a series of closed talks in Geneva with the warring sides and their main supporters. Iran will be among them.

In an interview at United Nations headquarters last week, Mr. de Mistura hinted that the changing circumstances, both military and diplomatic, may have prompted various backers of the war to question how much longer the bloodshed could go on.

“Will that have an impact in accelerating the willingness for a political solution? We need to test it,” he said. “The Geneva consultations may be a good umbrella for testing that. It’s an occasion for asking everyone, including the government, if there is any new way that they are looking at a political solution, as they too claim they want.”

He said he would have a better assessment at the end of June, when he expects to wrap up his consultations. That coincides with the deadline for a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks.

Whether a nuclear deal with Iran will pave the way for a new opening on peace talks in Syria remains to be seen. Increasingly, though, world leaders are explicitly linking the two, with the European Union’s top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, suggesting last week that a nuclear agreement could spur Tehran to play “a major but positive role in Syria.”

It could hardly come soon enough. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian war has claimed 220,000 lives, prompted an exodus of more than three million refugees and unleashed jihadist groups across the region. “This conflict is producing a question mark in many — where is it leading and whether this can be sustained,” Mr. de Mistura said.

Part Italian, part Swedish, Mr. de Mistura has worked with the United Nations for more than 40 years, but he is more widely known for his dapper style than for any diplomatic coups. Syria is by far the toughest assignment of his career — indeed, two of the organization’s most seasoned diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi and Kofi Annan, tried to do the job and gave up — and critics have wondered aloud whether Mr. de Mistura is up to the task.

He served as a United Nations envoy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and before that in Lebanon, where a former minister recalled, with some scorn, that he spent many hours sunbathing at a private club in the hills above Beirut. Those who know him say he has a taste for fine suits and can sometimes speak too soon and too much, just as they point to his diplomatic missteps and hyperbole.

They cite, for instance, a news conference in October, when he raised the specter of Srebrenica, where thousands of Muslims were massacred in 1995 during the Balkans war, in warning that the Syrian border town of Kobani could fall to the Islamic State. In February, he was photographed at a party in Damascus, the Syrian capital, celebrating the anniversary of the Iranian revolution just as Syrian forces, aided by Iran, were pummeling rebel-held suburbs of Damascus; critics seized on that as evidence of his coziness with the government.

Mouin Rabbani, who served briefly as the head of Mr. de Mistura’s political affairs unit and has since emerged as one of his most outspoken critics, said Mr. de Mistura did not have the background necessary for the job. “This isn’t someone well known for his political vision or political imagination, and his closest confidants lack the requisite knowledge and experience,” Mr. Rabbani said.

As a deputy foreign minister in the Italian government, Mr. de Mistura was tasked in 2012 with freeing two Italian marines detained in India for shooting at Indian fishermen. He made 19 trips to India, to little effect. One marine was allowed to return to Italy for medical reasons; the other remains in India.

He said he initially turned down the Syria job when the United Nations secretary general approached him last August, only to change his mind the next day, after a sleepless, guilt-ridden night.

Mr. de Mistura compared his role in Syria to that of a doctor faced with a terminally ill patient. His goal in brokering a freeze in the fighting, he said, was to alleviate suffering. He settled on Aleppo as the location for its “fame,” he said, a decision that some questioned, considering that Aleppo was far trickier than the many other lesser-known towns where activists had negotiated temporary local cease-fires.

“Everybody, at least in Europe, are very familiar with the value of Aleppo,” Mr. de Mistura said. “So I was using that as an icebreaker.”

The cease-fire negotiations, to which he had devoted six months, fell apart quickly because of the government’s military offensive in Aleppo the very day of his announcement at the Security Council. Privately, United Nations diplomats said Mr. de Mistura had been manipulated. To this, Mr. de Mistura said only that he was “disappointed and concerned.”

Tarek Fares, a former rebel fighter, said after a recent visit to Aleppo that no Syrian would admit publicly to supporting Mr. de Mistura’s cease-fire proposal. “If anyone said they went to a de Mistura meeting in Gaziantep, they would be arrested,” is how he put it, referring to the Turkish city where negotiations between the two sides were held.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains staunchly behind Mr. de Mistura’s efforts. His defenders point out that he is at the center of one of the world’s toughest diplomatic problems, charged with mediating a conflict in which two of the world’s most powerful nations — Russia, which supports Mr. Assad, and the United States, which has called for his ouster — remain deadlocked.

R. Nicholas Burns, a former State Department official who now teaches at Harvard, credited Mr. de Mistura for trying to negotiate a cease-fire even when the chances of success were exceedingly small — and the chances of a political deal even smaller. For his efforts to work, Professor Burns argued, the world powers will first have to come to an agreement of their own.

“He needs the help of outside powers,” he said. “It starts with backers of Assad. That’s Russia and Iran. De Mistura is there, waiting.”

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.

Joseph Lechleider, a Father of the DSL Internet Technology, Dies at 82

Mr. Lechleider helped invent DSL technology, which enabled phone companies to offer high-speed web access over their infrastructure of copper wires.

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.”

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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.”

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.

François Michelin, Head of Tire Company, Dies at 88

Under Mr. Michelin’s leadership, which ended when he left the company in 2002, the Michelin Group became the world’s biggest tire maker, establishing a big presence in the United States and other major markets overseas.

Jean Nidetch, 91, Dies; Pounds Came Off, and Weight Watchers Was Born

A 214-pound Queens housewife struggled with a lifelong addiction to food until she shed 72 pounds and became the public face of the worldwide weight-control empire Weight Watchers.

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.”

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.”