PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

3 ORANG DIDUGA BONGKAR MAKAM DI TANGERANG BEBAS

saco-indonesia.com, Tiga orang yang telah diduga terlibat dalam kasus pembongkaran makam di kampung Cigaten, Pagedangan, Kabupaten Tangerang, Banten, yakni Sobri (54), Irshad (45) dan Durat alias Bewok (49), kini telah diperiksa polisi sebagai saksi kasus tersebut.

Kapolsek Pedegangan AKP Murodih, juga mengatakan 3 orang tersebut belum memiliki bukti kuat atas dugaan pembongkaran 93 makam. Oleh sebab itu ketiganya kini dibebaskan.

"Hasil penyelidikan kami, 3 pekerja pembongkaran tersebut saat ini telah sebagai saksi dan dibebaskan. Itu karena kita belum kuat bukti untuk dapat ditetapkan sebagai tersangka," ujar Murodih, Kamis (6/1) kemarin .

Dia juga menuturkan, dari hasil laporan ahli waris yang merasa telah dirugikan hanya satu yang keberatan, yakni Saepudi. "Baru itu yang melapor. Itu juga salah satunya belum kuat bukti," ujarnya.

Selain itu, Murodih juga menjelaskan, dari keterangan ketiga saksi, pembongkaran makam telah dilakukan dengan cara mengangkat kain kafan. Sebab, dari keterangan dari masyarakat beredar kabar bahwa jenazah tersebut dibuang ke sungai Cisadane.

"Dari 93 jenazah itu tidak ada yang dibuang. Itu isu yang tidak benar," terang Murodih menegaskan.

Seperti yang telah diketahui, pembongkaran 93 makam Pagedangan telah disetujui oleh 14 ahli waris yakni Ramli, Saripudin, Suprata, Taing, Juned, Roiyah, Mansur, Tahsir, Ajhari, Hasan, Masun, Juriah dan Suhendi. Lalu hanya 1 yang dirugikan dan tidak diberi tahu.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

PERSIAPAN MEMBUKA USAHA JUAL BUKU BEKAS

Meski saat ini sudah banyak buku-buku digital, buku konvensional tak lantas kehilangan peminat. Sebagian besar menyukai buku konvensional, dengan kertas yang nyata, bau yang khas serta ilustrasi yang indah, bukan teks digital yang tersimpan dalam ebook reader nan pipih.
Karena itu, usaha jual beli buku bekas masih memiliki pasar tersendiri yang lumayan prospektif  jika ditekuni.  Asalkan Anda gemar membaca dan menyukai buku, menjalankan usaha jual buku bekas bisa jadi ladang pencaharian sekaligus hobi yang menghasilkan uang.
Untuk memulai usaha jual buku bekas, Anda harus memahami kebutuhan pasar.  Ada yang membeli buku bekas karena murahnya, namun tidak sedikit yang bersedia membayar mahal buat sebuah buku bekas yang usang, asal ada nilai sejarahnya. Untuk itu lah Anda harus memahami produk yang Anda jual sekaligus pasar yang Anda sasar. Menetapkan tujuan merupakan dasar paling penting dalam bisnis apapun, tidak terkecuali jual beli buku bekas.

Apabila Anda memutuskan untuk membuka usaha jual buku bekas untuk memenuhi kebutuhan pasar akan buku murah, maka sebaiknya Anda menghubungi penerbit. Setiap tahunnya, selalu ada buku-buku yang harus dilepas penerbit dengan harga sangat murah akibat terbatasnya gudang penyimpanan. Biasanya penerbit mendapatkan buku-buku retur dari toko buku. Penerbit besar biasanya menerima buku retur dalam jangka waktu 3-6 bulan. Karena itu, periksa kapan jadwal penerbit menerima returan atau kembalian buku-buku mereka. Harganya bisa 25- 30% saja dari harga bandrol. Jadi Anda bisa menjualnya kembali dengan diskon 40-50% dan masih mendapatkan untung.
Mau lebih murah? Beli saja sekaligus dalam jumlah banyak. Yusuf Agency, misalnya, selalu sukses dengan gelaran buku murah di setiap bazaar dan pameran buku akibat strategi ini. Mereka biasa membeli buku dalam jumlah sangat besar, misalnya 1 truk, yang kemudian dijual eceran dengan murah kepada masyarakat. Strategi ini membutuhkan dana tidak sedikit. Namun jika Anda punya modal lumayan, sebaiknya coba cara ini.
Anda juga bisa menghubungi sekolah atau perusahaan-perusahaan. Biasanya mereka juga mendaurulang koleksi buku perpustakaan. Cara lain, hubungi orang-orang yang pindah tempat tinggal ke luar negeri. Misalnya ekspatriat yang sudah habis masa kerjanya di Indonesia dan kembali ke negara asal. Buku-buku koleksi mereka biasanya ditinggalkan begitu saja. Lumayan kan buat koleksi awal jasa jual buku bekas?

Besok, Jokowi lantik kepala Puskesmas, SMA/SMK hasil seleksi

Gubernur DKI Jakarta Joko Widodo (Jokowi) akan melantik Kepala Puskesmas dan Kepala Sekolah SMA/SMK di Balai Kota DKI Jakarta, Jumat (21/3). Mereka juga merupakan hasil seleksi dan lelang jabatan.

Kepala Badan Kepegawaian Daerah (BKD) DKI Jakarta I Made Karmayoga juga mengatakan, pelantikan akan langsung dilakukan oleh Jokowi. Sebelumnya pelantikan hanya dilakukan oleh masing-masing kepala dinas.

"Selanjutnya pelantikan, hari Jumat jam 3. Teragenda di Pak Gubernur, dan ini mungkin pelantikan yang pertama bagi kepsek dan kepala Puskesmas yang dilantik oleh Pak Gubernur sendiri," katanya di Balai Kota DKI Jakarta, Rabu (19/3).

Berdasarkan data BKD, kepala SMA yang akan dilantik sebanyak 117 orang, 63 kepala SMK dan 44 kepala Puskesmas. Setelah dilantik, mereka juga akan mulai bekerja pada Senin pekan depan.

"Itu lah konsen dan keseriusan Pak Gubernur, untuk terus membenahi dan meningkatkan mutu pendidikan dan juga untuk Puskesmas mutu pelayanan kesehatan sesuai standar ibu kota," ujarnya.

Sebelumnya, ratusan kepala SMK/SMA dan kepala Puskesmas ini juga mengikuti public hearing di Balai Kota DKI Jakarta, hari ini. Dalam kesempatan itu juga dihadiri oleh Gubernur DKI Jakarta Joko Widodo.

Pemprov DKI Jakarta sengaja telah menerapkan pola baru dalam mengangkat pejabatnya. Sehingga tidak lagi mengenal istilah like and dislike.

"Ini pola baru yang kita kenalkan, jangan sampai nanti diangkat karena dekat dengan saya, foto dengan saya, juga jangan berpendapat jangan oh ada politik, harus profesional, bukan karena suka dan tidak suka," kata Jokowi.

PENTINGNYA MANASIK HAJI

Masyarakat Muslim yang berencana melaksanakan ibadah Haji diminta untuk mempersiapkan segala sesuatunya. Bukan hannya dari segi materi atau kesehatan fisik, tapi juga dari sisi mental serta memahami rukun dan tata cara prosesi ibadah haji. Salah satu persiapan yang sangat penting bagi setiap calon jamaah adalah manasik. Biasanya Kementrian Agama meminta kepada setiap jamaah regular maupun haji hkusus untuk mengikuti manasik yang diselenggarakan oleh kelompok Bimbingan Ibadah Haji ( KBIH ) atau biro perjalanan haji. Dalam manasik, jamaah akan mendapatkan pembekalan mengenai tata cara ibadah, rukun, syarat, wajib, atau hal-hal yang tidak boleh dilakukan di Tanah Suci serta sosialisasi kebijakan pemerintah Arab Saudi. Manasik adalah sebuah keharusan, karena ini pembekalan untuk jamaah, ujar ustadz Muhammad hafidz kepada Republika, selasa (14/6). Manasik , lanjut dia, sangat bermanfaat bagi jamaah. Lewat kuliah singkat ini, jamaah bakal mengetahui apa yang harus dilakukan ketika berada di Tanah Suci. Karena untuk berhaji ataupun umrah, jamaah tidak cukup hanya berbekal niat atau mampu, tapi tidak tahu, ketika sampai di sana dan kembali ke Tanah Air, tidak aka nada perubahan, ujarnya Materi manasik yang diberikan, menurut hafidz, tidak hanya soal haji atau umrah, tapi juga pembekalan mulai dari apa itu Islam, bagaimana ber-islam yang benar dan hal lainnya, termasuk melaksanakan tawaf, sa’I, dan wukuf di Arafah. Pembimbing haji dan umrah, ustadz Ali Nurul Hak menjelaskan, manasik sangat penting agar jamaah mengetahui tujuan berangkat ke Tanah Suci untuk ibadah karena Allah. Supaya Jamaah bisa menjalankan syariah dengan benar. Cara Ibadahnya benar, akhirnya dapat yang baik, katanya. Dalam manasik calon jamaah akan mendapatkan pencerahan mengenai filosofi ibadah, tawaf, sa’I, dan tahallul. Selain itu, juga dijelaskan mengenai ritual ibadah, rukun, wajib dan syarat haji, dan juga tak ketinggalan mengenai regulasi Sekretaris Jenderal Forum Komunikasi Kelompok Bimbingan Ibadah Haji (FKKBIH), Qosim Shaleh mengataka, manasik memiliki multi manfaat, pengenalan lapangan, pendalaman substansi haji, sosialisasi situasi suasana, pengenalan budaya Arab, juga meningkatkan kualitas ilmu calon jamaah serta perluasan cakrawala ilmu pengetahuan. Jamaah yang tidak mengikuti manasik bakal mengalami kesulitan ketika di Tanah Suci. Mereka yang sudah berhaji dua kali pun, terkadang tetap mengalami kesulitan, khususnya dalam menghafal bacaan atau doa-doa penting. Apalagi jamaah yang baru kali pertama melaksanakan haji, tentu saja akan sangat kesulitan. Persiapan psikis jamaah juga penting disamping fisik. Para pembimbing juga mengajarkan agar jamaah mampu menendalikan sifat iri, emosi, takabur, dan lainnya. Setiap jamaah juga diminta bersosialisasi dengan jamaah lainnya. Hal ini penting agar jamaah memiliki akhlakul karimah dan akidah yang baik. Untuk itu dalam manasik, jamaah disarankan saling mengenal satu sama lain. Agar timbul rasa kekeluargaan dan persaudaraan. Sehingga ketika ada masalah bisa diselesaikan dengan kekeluargaan pula. Sebelumnya Wakil Ketua Umum Himpunan Penyelenggara Umrah dan haji, Djadjang Sudradjat mengatakan, pentingnya manasik haji bisa dilihat dari dua sisi pertama, sisi agama. Haji merupakan ibadah dan bagian dari rukun islam. Tentunya, semuanya harus ada syaratnya. Haji pun ada urutannya, mulai dari ihram, wukuf di Arafah, tawaf ifadah, sa’I, tahallul, serta tertib. REPUBLIKA

Sumber : http://www.umrahhajiplus.com

Baca Artikel Lainnya : PEMAHAMAN TERHADAP IBADAH HAJI DAN UMRAH

7 Manusia Terpendek Di Dunia

1. Ajay Kumar (Aktor Terkecil Dunia)

Aktor Komedi India Ajay Kumar telah resmi diakui sebagai aktor terkecil di dunia. Kumar, yang memiliki tinggi 75 cm telah berhasil masuk ke Guinness Book of World Records setelah membintangi lebih dari 50 film dari usia 13 tahun. Lebih dikenal dengan nama panggung Unda Pakru, bintang kecil telah menjadi nama marga di daerah aslinya, Kerala Setelah meraih ketenaran dan keberuntungan lewat aktingnya, Ajay bahkan dianggap sebagai sukses yang memenuhi syarat yang diinginkan sebuah keluarga yang ingin mencarikan seorang suami yang baik untuk anak perempuan mereka. menikah pada tahun 2005 dengan istrinya Gayatri yang mempunyai tinggi 150 cm, pernikahanya disiarkan di televisi lokal di seluruh negara bagian India barat daya. 2. Chen Li Guilan & Tangyong (Pasangan Terpendek di Dunia)

Dua warga Cina pengantin baru berharap untuk masuk ke buku rekor sebagai pasangan terpendek di dunia. Chen Guilan, 70 cm, dari kota Shunde, Cina, menikahi Li Tangyong, 67 cm pada Oktober 2007. 3. Edward Nino Hernandez (Pemegang rekor Manusia Terkecil Dunia September 2010)

Edward Nino Hernandez secara resmi disebut sebagai manusia hidup terpendek di dunia pada tanggal 4 September 2010, oleh Guinness World Records. Pada usia 24 tahun Hernandez mempunyai tinggi 0,7 m, dan berat 10 kg . Hernandez tinggal di Bogota, Kolombia, dan tubuhnya tidak tumbuh lagi sejak ulang tahun ke-2nya.Mengapa pertumbuhan tubuhnya berhenti, bagaimanapun,hal itu tetap misteri. Rekor Hernandez berakhir pada tanggal 14 Oktober 2010 ketika Khagendra Thapa Magar dari Nepal berusia 18 dinyatakan lebih pendek darinya. 4. Khagendra Thapa Magar (Pemegang Rekor Manusia Terkecil Dunia Oktober 2010)

Khagendra Thapa Magar (lahir 14 Oktober 1992), putra Rup Bahadur dan Dhana Maya Thapa Magar, adalah pria terpendek di dunia, dengan tinggi 0,67 m . Dahulu dia memegang rekor remaja terpendek di dunia, Magar memegang rekor pria terpendek menggantikan Edward Nino Hernandez ketika ia berusia 18 pada 14 Oktober 2010. Magar adalah kurcaci primordial. Dia kehilangan Gelar Rekor "Manusia Terpendek Dunia" pada tanggal 12 Juni 2011, digantikan Junrey Balawing dari Filipina 5. Jyoti Amge (Gadis Terkecil di Dunia)

Jyoti Amge remaja India 15 tahun adalah gadis terkecil di dunia dengan berat sekitar 5kg dan tinggi sekitar 58 cm. Dia memiliki bentuk dwarfisme disebut achodroplasia dan tidak akan pernah tumbuh lebih tinggi. Meskipun tidak begitu bahagia dengan keadaan fisiknya, kini Jyoti bangga menjadi yang terkecil di dunia dan dia banyak mendapat perhatian khusus dari orang-orang di sekitarnya. Jyoti mempunyai harapan bahwa dia satu hari masuk ke Bollywood sebagai seorang aktris.

6. Verne Troyer Verne Troyer

This 40-year old actor, famous for playing Mini-Me in Austin Powers, is now just as famous for his private antics as his professional. Ini aktor berusia 40 tahun, terkenal untuk bermain Mini-Me di Austin Powers, sekarang hanya sebagai terkenal karena kejenakaan swasta sebagai profesional. The self-confessed sex addict was the latest celebrity to fall foul of a sex tape scandal, after private moments between him and his former girlfriend, Ranae Shrider, were leaked. Pecandu seks mengaku diri adalah selebriti terbaru untuk jatuh enak skandal sex tape, setelah saat-saat pribadi antara dia dan mantan pacarnya, Ranae Shrider, yang bocor. He is no stranger to reality TV however, and is currently doing a stint on Celebrity Big Brother UK, where he has been seen getting sozzled on Champagne, flirting with the ladies, and causing havoc on his mobility scooter. Dia tidak asing ke TV realitas Namun, dan saat ini sedang melakukan tugas di Celebrity Big Brother UK, di mana dia telah terlihat masuk mabuk pada Champagne, menggoda dengan wanita, dan menyebabkan kerusakan pada skuter mobilitas nya.

7. Danny Devito Danny DeVito

This huge movie star stands at just 4”11 tall. Bintang film besar berdiri di hanya 4 "11 tinggi. He was born in Neptune, New Jersey, to a middle class family, and decided to go into acting at an early age. Ia dilahirkan di Neptune, New Jersey, untuk sebuah keluarga kelas menengah, dan memutuskan untuk pergi ke dunia akting pada usia dini. After getting his big break in Taxi, Devito went on to star in blockbusters such as Other People's Money, LA Confidential, Batman and Heist. Setelah mendapatkan terobosan besar di Taksi, DeVito pergi ke bintang di film-film seperti Uang Orang Lain, LA Rahasia, Batman dan Heist. He continues to act, but also branched into producing, with films such as Pulp Fiction and Erin Brockovich under his belt. Dia terus bertindak, tapi juga bercabang menjadi memproduksi, dengan film seperti Pulp Fiction dan Erin Brockovich di bawah ikat pinggang.

Berita Selanjutnya

KLIK INI

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.

Mike Phillips, Half of Kentucky’s ‘Twin Towers’ of Basketball, Dies at 59

The 6-foot-10 Phillips played alongside the 6-11 Rick Robey on the Wildcats team that won the 1978 N.C.A.A. men’s basketball title.

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

Photo

 

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

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

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

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

Taiwan party leader affirms eventual reunion with China

BEIJING (AP) — The head of Taiwan's Nationalists reaffirmed the party's support for eventual unification with the mainland when he met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of continuing rapprochement between the former bitter enemies.

Nationalist Party Chairman Eric Chu, a likely presidential candidate next year, also affirmed Taiwan's desire to join the proposed Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank during the meeting in Beijing. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and doesn't want the island to join using a name that might imply it is an independent country.

Chu's comments during his meeting with Xi were carried live on Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television.

The Nationalists were driven to Taiwan by Mao Zedong's Communists during the Chinese civil war in 1949, leading to decades of hostility between the sides. Chu, who took over as party leader in January, is the third Nationalist chairman to visit the mainland and the first since 2009.

Relations between the communist-ruled mainland and the self-governing democratic island of Taiwan began to warm in the 1990s, partly out of their common opposition to Taiwan's formal independence from China, a position advocated by the island's Democratic Progressive Party.

Despite increasingly close economic ties, the prospect of political unification has grown increasingly unpopular on Taiwan, especially with younger voters. Opposition to the Nationalists' pro-China policies was seen as a driver behind heavy local electoral defeats for the party last year that led to Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou resigning as party chairman.

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

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

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.

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.”

Suzanne Crough, Actress in ‘The Partridge Family,’ Dies at 52

Ms. Crough played the youngest daughter on the hit ’70s sitcom starring David Cassidy and Shirley Jones.

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.

Harvey R. Miller, Renowned Bankruptcy Lawyer, Dies at 82

Mr. Miller, of the firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, represented companies including Lehman Brothers, General Motors and American Airlines, and mentored many of the top Chapter 11 practitioners today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

William Sokolin, Wine Seller Who Broke Famed Bottle, Dies at 85

The bottle Mr. Sokolin famously broke was a 1787 Château Margaux, which was said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Sokolin had been hoping to sell it for $519,750.

How Some Men Fake an 80-Hour Workweek, and Why It Matters

Imagine an elite professional services firm with a high-performing, workaholic culture. Everyone is expected to turn on a dime to serve a client, travel at a moment’s notice, and be available pretty much every evening and weekend. It can make for a grueling work life, but at the highest levels of accounting, law, investment banking and consulting firms, it is just the way things are.

Except for one dirty little secret: Some of the people ostensibly turning in those 80- or 90-hour workweeks, particularly men, may just be faking it.

Many of them were, at least, at one elite consulting firm studied by Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. It’s impossible to know if what she learned at that unidentified consulting firm applies across the world of work more broadly. But her research, published in the academic journal Organization Science, offers a way to understand how the professional world differs between men and women, and some of the ways a hard-charging culture that emphasizes long hours above all can make some companies worse off.

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Ms. Reid interviewed more than 100 people in the American offices of a global consulting firm and had access to performance reviews and internal human resources documents. At the firm there was a strong culture around long hours and responding to clients promptly.

“When the client needs me to be somewhere, I just have to be there,” said one of the consultants Ms. Reid interviewed. “And if you can’t be there, it’s probably because you’ve got another client meeting at the same time. You know it’s tough to say I can’t be there because my son had a Cub Scout meeting.”

Some people fully embraced this culture and put in the long hours, and they tended to be top performers. Others openly pushed back against it, insisting upon lighter and more flexible work hours, or less travel; they were punished in their performance reviews.

The third group is most interesting. Some 31 percent of the men and 11 percent of the women whose records Ms. Reid examined managed to achieve the benefits of a more moderate work schedule without explicitly asking for it.

They made an effort to line up clients who were local, reducing the need for travel. When they skipped work to spend time with their children or spouse, they didn’t call attention to it. One team on which several members had small children agreed among themselves to cover for one another so that everyone could have more flexible hours.

A male junior manager described working to have repeat consulting engagements with a company near enough to his home that he could take care of it with day trips. “I try to head out by 5, get home at 5:30, have dinner, play with my daughter,” he said, adding that he generally kept weekend work down to two hours of catching up on email.

Despite the limited hours, he said: “I know what clients are expecting. So I deliver above that.” He received a high performance review and a promotion.

What is fascinating about the firm Ms. Reid studied is that these people, who in her terminology were “passing” as workaholics, received performance reviews that were as strong as their hyper-ambitious colleagues. For people who were good at faking it, there was no real damage done by their lighter workloads.

It calls to mind the episode of “Seinfeld” in which George Costanza leaves his car in the parking lot at Yankee Stadium, where he works, and gets a promotion because his boss sees the car and thinks he is getting to work earlier and staying later than anyone else. (The strategy goes awry for him, and is not recommended for any aspiring partners in a consulting firm.)

A second finding is that women, particularly those with young children, were much more likely to request greater flexibility through more formal means, such as returning from maternity leave with an explicitly reduced schedule. Men who requested a paternity leave seemed to be punished come review time, and so may have felt more need to take time to spend with their families through those unofficial methods.

The result of this is easy to see: Those specifically requesting a lighter workload, who were disproportionately women, suffered in their performance reviews; those who took a lighter workload more discreetly didn’t suffer. The maxim of “ask forgiveness, not permission” seemed to apply.

It would be dangerous to extrapolate too much from a study at one firm, but Ms. Reid said in an interview that since publishing a summary of her research in Harvard Business Review she has heard from people in a variety of industries describing the same dynamic.

High-octane professional service firms are that way for a reason, and no one would doubt that insane hours and lots of travel can be necessary if you’re a lawyer on the verge of a big trial, an accountant right before tax day or an investment banker advising on a huge merger.

But the fact that the consultants who quietly lightened their workload did just as well in their performance reviews as those who were truly working 80 or more hours a week suggests that in normal times, heavy workloads may be more about signaling devotion to a firm than really being more productive. The person working 80 hours isn’t necessarily serving clients any better than the person working 50.

In other words, maybe the real problem isn’t men faking greater devotion to their jobs. Maybe it’s that too many companies reward the wrong things, favoring the illusion of extraordinary effort over actual productivity.

Baltimore Residents Away From Turmoil Consider Their Role

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A skeptical Mr. Vasilakopoulos predicted tensions would worsen.

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

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

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