PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

TUBUH LANGSING DENGAN MANFAAT BUAH NANAS

Tubuh Langsing Dengan Manfaat Buah Nanas : Mengkonsumsi beberapa buah-buahan di percaya telah memiliki kontribusi positif dalam upaya untuk menurunkan berat badan, hal ini dikarenakan didalam buah-buahan tersebut telah terkandung beberapa nutrisi penting dan bermafaat bagi tubuh.

Salah satu buah-buahan yang dianjurkan untuk anda konsumsi ketika diet adalah nanas. Buah yang identik dengan warna kuning pada dagingnya ini selain telah memiliki rasa manis dan menyegarkan, juga dianggap mampu untuk menyingkirkan timbunan lemak dalam tubuh.

Dalam buah nanas juga terkandung beberapa nutrisi penting antara lain vitamin C, vitamin B6, tembaga, tiamin, mangan, serat,sukrosa, dan dekstrosa. Selain itu terdapat juga beberapa enzim seperti bromelain, proteiolitik dan zat penting lainnya seperti asid sitrik.

Manfaat Kandungan Nutrisi Buah Nanas Untuk Diet

Beberapa kandungan nutrisi dalam buah nanas juga dapat memberikan efek cukup baik terhadap program diet yang anda jalankan. Antara lain sebagai berikut :

Vitamin C. vitamin ini juga berperan untuk dapat mengurangi kandungan lemak dalam tubuh yaitu dengan menggiatkan pembakaran lemak sehingga jumlahnya dalam tubuh tidak berlebihan. Tapi, patut anda ketahui, untuk bisa mendapatkan manfaat dari vitamin ini terhadap diet, anda juga harus mengkonsumsi vitamin C dalam kadar mencukupi. Untuk bisa mendapatkan asupan vitamin C yang cukup kedalam tubuh, caranya bisa dengan mengkonsumsi makanan yang kaya akan vitamin C dan juga bisa dengan mengkonsumsi suplemen vitamin C.

Serat. manfaatnya untuk diet yaitu dapat membantu melancarkan buang air besar dan juga dapat menjaga kondisi perut agar merasa kenyang dalam waktu lama.

Enzim proteiolitik. peranannya yaitu dapat memperlambat penyerapan lemak pada saluran pencernaan sehingga sebagian besar terbuang dalam peses.

Asid sitrik. zat ini juga berperan dalam mengurangi tumpukan lemak dalam tubuh sebagai salah satu penyebab obesitas.

Air. Buah nanas juga mengandung banyak air, sehingga dengan menkonsumsi buah nanas, perut akan cepat merasa kenyang.

Sebuah Planet "Alien" AkhirnyaBerhasil Dipotret Langsung

Saco-Indonesia.com — Sebuah planet gas alien yang mengorbit bintang berjarak 300 tahun cahaya dari Bumi berhasil diungkap keberadaannya dan dipotret secara langsung. Pemotretan planet secara langsung selama ini sulit dilakukan, apalagi planet yang baru ditemukan ini tergolong kecil.

Potret dari planet yang bernama HD 95086b ini dirilis European Southern Observatory pada Senin (3/6/2013). Potret planet yang mengelilingi bintang bernama HD 95086 ini dipotret dengan cahaya inframerah.

Pada gambar di atas, planet terlihat dengan warna biru terang, ada di bagian kiri bawah. Citra bintang telah dihilangkan sehingga publik bisa menyadari dan melihat keberadaan planet yang dimaksud dengan lebih jelas.

HD 95086 teramati lewat pengamatan secara langsung dengan very large telescope milik ESO. Berdasarkan kecerlangan cahayanya, ilmuwan menduga bahwa planet ini cuma punya massa empat hingga lima kali lebih besar dari Yupiter.

Astronom mengungkapkan, sangat jarang planet alien yang berjarak jauh bisa teramati secara langsung. Kebanyakan planet ditemukan secara tidak langsung dengan mengamati peredupan cahaya bintang saat planet melewati mukanya atau goyangan bintang akibat pengaruh gravitasi planet itu.

"Pengamatan secara langsung adalah teknik yang sangat menantang dan membutuhkan instrumen yang maju, baik yang berbasis di darat maupun antariksa," kata Julian Rameau, astronom di Institute of Astrophysics and Planetology di Perancis.

"Hanya beberapa planet bisa ditemukan secara langsung, membuat setiap penemuan merupakan lompatan penting dalam memahami planet raksasa dan pembentukannya," sambung Rameau seperti dikutip Space.com, Senin kemarin.

Foto lain yang diambil ESO menunjukkan bahwa planet dan bintang yang diorbitnya terletak di konstelasi Carina. HD 95086b mengorbit bintangnya pada jarak dua kali jarak Matahari-Neptunus atau 56 kali jarak Bumi-Matahari.

Penemuan planet ini akan dipublikasikan di Astrophysical Journal. HD 95086 yang menjadi bintang induk diduga masih berusia muda, baru 10-17 juta tahun. Hal ini membuat pembentukan planet dan piringan debu di sekitarnya menarik.

Anne Marie Langrange, peneliti yang juga terlibat penemuan, mengungkapkan, "Posisi planet saat ini memunculkan pertanyaan." Ia mengatakan bahwa planet mungkin telah berpindah dari tempat penemuannya ke tempat "tinggal" saat ini.

Tentang pembentukannya, Langrange mengatakan, "Mungkin planet tumbuh menyatukan batu yang membentuk inti padat dan secara perlahan mengakumulasi gas dari sekitarnya, atau bisa jadi terbentuk dari gumpalan gas yang akibat ketidakstabilan gravitasi di piringannya."

TAWURAN ANTARPEMUDA PECAH DI BREBES

saco-indonesia.com, Tawuran antar pemuda warga Desa Cikeusal Lor dan warga Desa Cikeusal Kidul telah terjadi di Kecamatan Banjarharjo, Kabupaten Brebes, Jawa Tengah, Kamis (2/1) sore hingga malam hari.

Akibat dari insiden tawuran tersebut, satu rumah warga Desa Cikeusal Lor dibakar, dan beberapa warga telah mengalami luka akibat terkena lemparan batu.

insiden tawuran yang seringkali terjadi di dua desa tersebut, telah dipicu dari sejumlah pemuda Desa Cikeusal Kidul yang pada saat merayakan malam tahun baru.

Mereka secara ramai-ramai telah melakukan konvoi mengendarai sepeda motor melintas di jalan raya Desa Cikeusal Lor yang mengejek pemuda desa yang tengah berada di sekitar desa tersebut.

Lantaran tidak terima diejek, beberapa pemuda Desa Cikeusal Lor yang tengah di lokasi pun telah terpancing emosinya dan membalasnya dengan ejekan.

Namun, justru beberapa pemuda Desa Cikeusal Kidul yang telah mengejek lebih terlebih dahulu, Kamis sore, langsung membakar salah satu rumah warga Desa Cikeusal Lor.

Kebakaran rumah pun telah terjadi hingga Kamis sore hingga malam hari. Puluhan warga desa langsung secara bersama-sama berupaya untuk memadamkan api dan berhasil padam menjelang Jumat (3/1) dini hari.

Beruntung dalam insiden pembakaran rumah tersebut salah satu warga itu tidak ada korban jiwa. Sebab, penghuni rumah sudah lama pindah ke rumah saudaranya di desa setempat. "Tapi ada beberapa warga desa yang telah mengalami luka-luka akibat kena lemparan batu," ujar salah seorang warga Desa Cikeusal Lor, Rakim Siuban Jumat (3/1) pagi.

Kapolres Brebes, AKBP Ferdy Sambo saat dikonfirmasi terkait dalam hal tersebut telah membenarkan adanya insiden tawuran pemuda antar dua desa yang telah mengakibatkan satu rumah warga dibakar.

Namun demikian, tambah Sambo, saat ini kondisi dua desa itu juga sudah kondusif karena puluhan anggotanya telah langsung diterjunkan di lokasi kejadian untuk dapat mengamankannya.

"Alhamdulillah saat ini kondisi dua desa itu juga sudah kondusif. Tapi puluhan anggota kami yang diterjunkan dua regu masih berjaga-jaga di lokasi kejadian," terangnya.

Hingga berita ini diturunkan, petugas Polres Brebes masih harus melakukan penjagaan terutama di perbatasan desa untuk dapat mencegah terpicunya kembali tawuran antar desa tersebut.

Saat ini polisi sedang melakukan pengejaran terhadap pelaku tawuran dan otaknya. Terutama beberapa pemuda yang nekat membakar rumah warga untuk dapat dimintai pertanggungjawaban.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

SEKJEN MK DIPERIKSA KPK

saco-indonesia.com, Penyidik Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi telah kembali memeriksa Sekretaris Jenderal Mahkamah Konstitusi, Janedri Mahili Gaffar, dalam kasus dugaan suap pengurusan sengketa pilkada Kabupaten Lebak di Mahkamah Konstitusi. Janedri juga mengaku diperiksa sebagai saksi buat mantan Ketua MK, Akil Mochtar, dan menampik mengenal orang kepercayaan Akil, Mochtar Ependy.

"Terkait Pak Akil Mochtar. Nanti kita lihat. Ini untuk Lebak," kata Janedri kepada awak media di Gedung KPK, Jakarta, Selasa (24/12).

Janedri juga menyangkal mengenal Mochtar Ependy. Dia juga menampik tidak pernah tahu kalau Mochtar kabarnya kerap bolak-balik ke MK menemui Akil. Mochtar disebut-sebut sebagai orang yang turut aktif dalam membantu pencucian uang Akil. Dalam kasus dugaan suap, KPK juga akan memeriksa pegawai PT Peraga Lambang Sejahtera, Aditya Mun'im, sebagai saksi.

Hari ini, KPK juga akan mengusut dugaan pencucian uang Akil. Tiga saksi akan dijadwalkan diperiksa dalam perkara itu. Mereka adalah dua pejabat lelang pada Balai Lelang JBA, yakni Ende Mirawan dan Ganda Purba, serta General Manager Balai Lelang Serasi, Jacob Anthonius Margaretha.

Dalam perkara dugaan suap sengketa pilkada Lebak tersebut , KPK hari ini juga akan memeriksa Akil Mochtar serta adik Ratu Atut, Tubagus Chaery Wardhana Chasan alias Wawan. Akil akan diperiksa sebagai tersangka, sedangkan Wawan sebagai saksi. Ada kemungkinan Janedri bakal dikonfrontir dengan Akil dalam pemeriksaan hari ini.

Editor ; Dian Sukmawati

SENI UKIR DI INDONESIA

saco-indonesia.com,
    
SENI UKIR DIINDONESIA
Ukiran merupakan Seni yang telah menghias suatu benda menjadi hiasan 3Dimensi yang menyusun suatu gambar yang indah. Hal ini juga membuat seni ukir telah memiliki pengertian sebagai seni yang telah membentuk gambar pada batu, kayu atau bahan-bahan lain. Indonesia telah mengenal seni ukir sejak zaman batu muda atau sekitar tahun 1500 SM.Saat itu hasil dar seni ukir Indonesia berupa ukiran yang berapa pada kapak batu. Bahan yang digunakan untuk dapat membuat ukiran telah mengalami perkembangan yaitu dengan menggunakan bahan perunggu, emas, perak, batu dan lain sebagainya. Membuat ukirannya pun juga menggunakan teknologi cor.
Seni ukir yang mengalami perkembangan yang sangat pesat, dalam bentuk desain produksi, dan motif Setelah agama Hindu, Budha, Islam masuk ke Indonesia. Bentuk ukiran juga ditemukan pada senjata-senjata, seperti keris dan tombak, batu nisan, masjid, termasuk gamelan dan wayang. Motif seni ukir, selain menggambarkan bentuk, kadang-kadang berisi tentang kisah suatu cerita.
Saat sekarang seni ukir kayu dan logam juga mengalami perkembangan pesat. Dan fungsinyapun juga sudah bergeser dari hal-hal yang berbau magis berubah menjadi hanya sebagai alat penghias saja.pada ukiran kayu telah meliputi motif Pejajaran, Majapahit, Mataram, Pekalongan, Bali, Jepara, Madura, Cirebon, Surakarta, Yogyakarta, dan berbagai macam motif yang berasal dari luarJawa
Bukti-bukti sejarah peninggalan ukiran pada periode tersebut juga dapat dilihat pada relief candi Penataran di Blitar, candi Prambanan dan Mendut di Jawa Tengah.
    
    
Editor : Dian Sukmawati

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.

Ex-C.I.A. Official Rebuts Republican Claims on Benghazi Attack in ‘The Great War of Our Time’

WASHINGTON — The former deputy director of the C.I.A. asserts in a forthcoming book that Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency’s analysis of events. But he also argues that the C.I.A. should get out of the business of providing “talking points” for administration officials in national security events that quickly become partisan, as happened after the Benghazi attack in 2012.

The official, Michael J. Morell, dismisses the allegation that the United States military and C.I.A. officers “were ordered to stand down and not come to the rescue of their comrades,” and he says there is “no evidence” to support the charge that “there was a conspiracy between C.I.A. and the White House to spin the Benghazi story in a way that would protect the political interests of the president and Secretary Clinton,” referring to the secretary of state at the time, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But he also concludes that the White House itself embellished some of the talking points provided by the Central Intelligence Agency and had blocked him from sending an internal study of agency conclusions to Congress.

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“I finally did so without asking,” just before leaving government, he writes, and after the White House released internal emails to a committee investigating the State Department’s handling of the issue.

A lengthy congressional investigation remains underway, one that many Republicans hope to use against Mrs. Clinton in the 2016 election cycle.

In parts of the book, “The Great War of Our Time” (Twelve), Mr. Morell praises his C.I.A. colleagues for many successes in stopping terrorist attacks, but he is surprisingly critical of other C.I.A. failings — and those of the National Security Agency.

Soon after Mr. Morell retired in 2013 after 33 years in the agency, President Obama appointed him to a commission reviewing the actions of the National Security Agency after the disclosures of Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor who released classified documents about the government’s eavesdropping abilities. Mr. Morell writes that he was surprised by what he found.

“You would have thought that of all the government entities on the planet, the one least vulnerable to such grand theft would have been the N.S.A.,” he writes. “But it turned out that the N.S.A. had left itself vulnerable.”

He concludes that most Wall Street firms had better cybersecurity than the N.S.A. had when Mr. Snowden swept information from its systems in 2013. While he said he found himself “chagrined by how well the N.S.A. was doing” compared with the C.I.A. in stepping up its collection of data on intelligence targets, he also sensed that the N.S.A., which specializes in electronic spying, was operating without considering the implications of its methods.

“The N.S.A. had largely been collecting information because it could, not necessarily in all cases because it should,” he says.

The book is to be released next week.

Mr. Morell was a career analyst who rose through the ranks of the agency, and he ended up in the No. 2 post. He served as President George W. Bush’s personal intelligence briefer in the first months of his presidency — in those days, he could often be spotted at the Starbucks in Waco, Tex., catching up on his reading — and was with him in the schoolhouse in Florida on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush presidency changed in an instant.

Mr. Morell twice took over as acting C.I.A. director, first when Leon E. Panetta was appointed secretary of defense and then when retired Gen. David H. Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair with his biographer, a relationship that included his handing her classified notes of his time as America’s best-known military commander.

Mr. Morell says he first learned of the affair from Mr. Petraeus only the night before he resigned, and just as the Benghazi events were turning into a political firestorm. While praising Mr. Petraeus, who had told his deputy “I am very lucky” to run the C.I.A., Mr. Morell writes that “the organization did not feel the same way about him.” The former general “created the impression through the tone of his voice and his body language that he did not want people to disagree with him (which was not true in my own interaction with him),” he says.

But it is his account of the Benghazi attacks — and how the C.I.A. was drawn into the debate over whether the Obama White House deliberately distorted its account of the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that is bound to attract attention, at least partly because of its relevance to the coming presidential election. The initial assessments that the C.I.A. gave to the White House said demonstrations had preceded the attack. By the time analysts reversed their opinion, Susan E. Rice, now the national security adviser, had made a series of statements on Sunday talk shows describing the initial assessment. The controversy and other comments Ms. Rice made derailed Mr. Obama’s plan to appoint her as secretary of state.

The experience prompted Mr. Morell to write that the C.I.A. should stay out of the business of preparing talking points — especially on issues that are being seized upon for “political purposes.” He is critical of the State Department for not beefing up security in Libya for its diplomats, as the C.I.A., he said, did for its employees.

But he concludes that the assault in which the ambassador was killed took place “with little or no advance planning” and “was not well organized.” He says the attackers “did not appear to be looking for Americans to harm. They appeared intent on looting and conducting some vandalism,” setting fires that killed Mr. Stevens and a security official, Sean Smith.

Mr. Morell paints a picture of an agency that was struggling, largely unsuccessfully, to understand dynamics in the Middle East and North Africa when the Arab Spring broke out in late 2011 in Tunisia. The agency’s analysts failed to see the forces of revolution coming — and then failed again, he writes, when they told Mr. Obama that the uprisings would undercut Al Qaeda by showing there was a democratic pathway to change.

“There is no good explanation for our not being able to see the pressures growing to dangerous levels across the region,” he writes. The agency had again relied too heavily “on a handful of strong leaders in the countries of concern to help us understand what was going on in the Arab street,” he says, and those leaders themselves were clueless.

Moreover, an agency that has always overvalued secretly gathered intelligence and undervalued “open source” material “was not doing enough to mine the wealth of information available through social media,” he writes. “We thought and told policy makers that this outburst of popular revolt would damage Al Qaeda by undermining the group’s narrative,” he writes.

Instead, weak governments in Egypt, and the absence of governance from Libya to Yemen, were “a boon to Islamic extremists across both the Middle East and North Africa.”

Mr. Morell is gentle about most of the politicians he dealt with — he expresses admiration for both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama, though he accuses former Vice President Dick Cheney of deliberately implying a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq that the C.I.A. had concluded probably did not exist. But when it comes to the events leading up to the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, he is critical of his own agency.

Mr. Morell concludes that the Bush White House did not have to twist intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s alleged effort to rekindle the country’s work on weapons of mass destruction.

“The view that hard-liners in the Bush administration forced the intelligence community into its position on W.M.D. is just flat wrong,” he writes. “No one pushed. The analysts were already there and they had been there for years, long before Bush came to office.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

David Goldman/Associated Press

National Guard soldiers boarding a truck in Baltimore on Sunday.

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

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

The Uphill Battle to Better Regulate Formaldehyde

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

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

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

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Document: The Formaldehyde Fight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Typical

laminate

flooring

CLEAR FINISH LAYER

Often made of melamine resin

PATTERN LAYER

Paper printed to resemble wood,

or a thin wood veneer

GLUE

Layers may be bound using

formaldehyde-based glues

CORE LAYER

Fiberboard or other

composite, formed using

formaldehyde-based adhesives

BASE LAYER

Moisture-resistant vapor barrier

What is formaldehyde?

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

WHERE IT IS COMMONLY FOUND

POTENTIAL HEALTH RISKS

Pressed-wood and composite wood products

Wallpaper and paints

Spray foam insulation used in construction

Commercial wood floor finishes

Crease-resistant fabrics

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

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

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

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

Sources: Consumer Product Safety Commission; Minnesota Department of Health

 

By The New York Times

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

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

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

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

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

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

Senator Vitter’s staff was pleased.

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

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

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

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

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

Photo

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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