PAKET UMROH BULAN FEBRUARI MARET APRIL MEI 2018

Perancis Tersungkur Dibabat Brasil 3-0

UCAPKAN SELAMAT TINGGAL PADA WINDOWS XP, SINGAPURA

Sudah bukan rahasia lagi, tanggal 8 April Microsoft resmi menghentikan dukungan untuk Windows XP di seluruh dunia. Kampanye dengan menyerukan untuk berpindah ke OS yang lebih baru terus dilakukan.

Namun baru-baru ini Microsoft Asia melaporkan bahwa sebanyak 603.955 komputer di Singapura masih belum bisa move on dari Windows XP, seperti yang dilansir Softpedia (5/2).

"Resiko kegagalan sistem dan gangguan bisnis bisa meningkat setelah dukungan Windows XP berakhir. Kurangnya perangkat lunak yang support, dan bertambahnya usia senja pada XP akan sangat merugikan jika tidak segera berpindah," ujar juru bicara Microsoft.

Pada titik ini, Microsoft masih mengharap pada konsumen di Singapura untuk segera pindah dari Windows XP dan mengucapkan selamat tinggal untuk selama-lamanya.

Hingga saat ini, sekitar seperempat komputer yang ada di dunia ini masih berjalan dengan sistem operasi Windows XP. Begitu banyak orang yang berat meninggalkan XP. Bahkan di Indonesia pun masih banyak yang mengandalkan XP untuk keperluan kantor, warnet, maupun komputer pribadi.

BANDA ACEH IBARAT KOTA MATI

saco-indonesia.com, Pemerintah Kota (Pemkot) Banda Aceh akan menggelar renungan tsunami di pelataran Balai Kota Banda Aceh. Dalam renungan itu, selain tausiah yang akan disampaikan oleh Ary Ginanjar, juga ada pemutaran film saat Aceh dilanda tsunami.

Ribuan pengunjung telah terlihat khidmat saat menonton film tsunami yang diputarkan oleh panitia. Kemudian usai pemutaran film, salah seorang musisi putra Aceh, Raffly Kande langsung menyanyikan lagu berjudul "Aneuk Yatim" (Anak Yatim).

Wakil Wali Kota Banda Aceh, Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal juga mengatakan, setelah tsunami kota Banda Aceh ibarat kota mati. Banda Aceh telah hancur porak-poranda dan juga ribuan masyarakat telah kehilangan tempat tinggal dan juga keluarganya.

"Saat itu Banda Aceh memang jadi kota mati pasca tsunami. Wali kota saat itu Syarifuddin Latif yang juga ikut menjadi korban tsunami, Banda Aceh memang telah menjadi kota mati," kata Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, Rabu (25/12) malam di Balai Kota Banda Aceh.

Illiza juga menegaskan, ia telah menjadi saksi hidup dalam melakukan pembangunan kota Banda Aceh yang porak-poranda dihantam tsunami 9 tahun silam. Ribuan masyarakat telah kehilangan tempat tinggal, keluarga, dan kota Banda Aceh rata dengan tanah disapu oleh gelombang tsunami. Dan, kini Banda Aceh juga sudah kembali pulih dan tertata rapi kembali.

Atas dasar itulah, Illiza telah menyebutkan Wali Kota Banda Aceh, Mawardi Nurdin telah menjadi bapak pembangunan kota Banda Aceh. Di tengah-tengah porak-poranda Banda Aceh, ia telah berhasil kembali membangun Banda Aceh seperti saat ini yang tertata rapi.

"Bapak Mawardi Nurdin layak kita sebut sebagai bapak pembangunan di Banda Aceh," tegasnya.

Kendati demikian, Illiza juga tidak menampik pembangunan di Banda Aceh juga atas bantuan banyak pihak. Baik pihak Pemerintah Indonesia maupun pihak dunia internasional. "Terimakasih yang telah membantu Banda Aceh, baik TNI, polisi dan juga dunia internasional," imbuhnya.

Editor : Dian Sukmawati

BERTA'ARUFLAH WAHAI ANAK MUDA!!! ITU LEBIH MULIA

Banyaknya jaringan sosial di dunia maya seperti facebook, yahoo messenger, dll, menjadikan akhwat dan ikhwan mudah berinteraksi tanpa batas.

Begitu lembut dan halusnya jebakan dunia maya, tanpa disadari mudah menggelincirkan diri manusia ke jurang kebinasaan.

Kasus ta’aruf ini sangat memprihatinkan sebenarnya. Seorang bergelar ikhwan memajang profil islami, tapi serampangan memaknai ta’aruf. M
elihat akhwat yang dinilai bagus kualitas agamanya, langsung berani mengungkapkan kata ‘ta’aruf’, tanpa perantara.

Jangan memaknai kata “ta’aruf” secara sempit, pelajari dulu serangkaian tata cara ta’aruf atau kaidah-kaidah yang dibenarkan oleh Islam. Jika memakai kata ta’aruf untuk bebas berinteraksi dengan lawan jenis, lantas apa bedanya yang telah mendapat hidayah dengan yang masih jahiliyah? Islam telah memberi konsep yang jelas dalam tatacara ta’aruf.

Suatu ketika ada sebuah cerita di salah satu situs jejaring sosial, pasangan akhwat-ikhwan mengatakan sedang ta’aruf, dan untuk menjaga perasaan masing-masing, digantilah status mereka berdua sebagai pasutri, sungguh memiriskan hati.

Pernah juga ada kisah ikhwan-akhwat yang saling mengumbar kegenitan di dunia maya, berikut ini petikan obrolannya:
“Assalamualaikum ukhti,” Sapa sang ikhwan.
“‘Wa’alikumsalam akhi,” Balas sang akhwat.
“Subhanallah ukhti, ana kagum dengan kepribadian anti, seperti Sumayyah, seperti Khaulah binti azwar, bla bla bla bla…” puji ikhwan tersebut.

Apakah berakhir sampai di sini? Oh no…. Rupanya yang ditemui ini juga akhwat genit, maka berlanjutlah obrolan tersebut, si ikhwan bertanya apakah si akhwat sudah punya calon, lantas si akhwat menjawab:
“Alangkah beruntungnya akhwat yang mendapatkan akhi kelak.”
Sang ikhwan pun tidak mau kalah, balas memuji akhwat. “Subhanallah, sangat beruntung ikhwan yang mendapatkan bidadari dunia seperti anti.”
....Banyaknya jaringan sosial di dunia maya menjadikan akhwat dan ikhwan mudah berinteraksi tanpa batas. Ikhwannya membabi buta, akhwatnya terpedaya....
Owh mengerikan, berlebay- lebay di dunia maya, syaitan tak mau menyia-nyiakan kesempatan ini. Lalu tertancaplah rasa, bermekaran di dada dua sejoli tersebut, yang belum ada ikatan pernikahan.

Dengan bangganya sang ikhwan menaburkan janji-janji manis, akan mengajak akhwat hidup di planet mars, mengunjungi benua-benua di dunia. Hingga larutlah keduanya dalam janji-janji lebay.

Ikhwannya membabi buta, akhwatnya terpedaya……a’udzubillah, bukan begitu ta’aruf yang Rasulullah ajarkan.

Ikhwan, Jangan Permainkan Ta’aruf!

Muslimah itu mutiara, tidak sembarang orang boleh menyentuhnya, tidak sembarang orang boleh memandangnya. Jika kalian punya keinginan untuk menikahinya, carilah cara yang baik yang dibenarkan Islam. Cari tahu informasi tentang akhwat melalui pihak ketiga yang bisa dipercaya. Jika maksud ta’arufmu untuk menggenapkan separuh agamamu, silakan saja, tapi prosesnya jangan keluar dari koridor Islam.
....Wahai ikhwan, relakah jika adikmu dijadikan ajang coba-coba ta’aruf oleh orang lain? Tentu engkau keberatan bukan?....
ikhwan, relakah jika adikmu dijadikan ajang coba-coba ta’aruf oleh orang lain? Tentu engkau keberatan bukan?

Jagalah izzah muslimah, mereka adalah saudaramu. Pasanglah tabir pembatas dalam interaksi dengannya. Pahamilah, hati wanita itu lembut dan mudah tersentuh, akan timbul guncangan batin jika jeratan yang kalian tabur tersebut hanya sekedar main-main.

Jagalah hati mereka, jangan banyak memberi harapan atau menabur simpati yang dapat melunturkan keimanan mereka.
Mereka adalah wanita-wanita pemalu yang ingin meneladani wanita mulia di awal-awal Islam, biarkan iman mereka bertambah dalam balutan rasa nyaman dan aman dari gangguan JIL alias Jaringan Ikhwan Lebay.

Ikhwan,

Ini hanya sekedar nasihat, jangan mudah percaya dengan apa yang dipresentasikan orang di dunia maya, karena foto dan kata-kata yang tidak kamu ketahui kejelasan karakter wanita, tidak dapat dijadikan tolak ukur kesalehahan mereka, hendaklah mengutus orang yang amanah yang membantumu mencari data dan informasinya.
....luasnya ilmu yang engkau miliki tidak menjadikan engkau mulia, jika tidak kau imbangi dengan menjaga adab pergaulan dengan lawan jenis....
Wahai ikhwan, luasnya ilmu yang engkau miliki tidak menjadikan engkau mulia, jika tidak kau imbangi dengan menjaga adab pergaulan dengan lawan jenis.

Akhwat, Jaga Hijabmu!

akhwat, jaga hijabmu agar tidak runtuh kewibaanmu. Jangan bangga karena banyaknya ikhwan yang menginginkan taaruf. Karena ta’aruf yang tidak berdasarkan aturan syar’i, sesungguhnya sama saja si ikhwan merendahkanmu. Jika ikhwan itu punya niat yang benar dan serius, tentu akan memakai cara yang Rasulullah ajarkan, dan tidak langsung menembak kalian dengan caranya sendiri.

akhwat, terkadang kita harus mengoreksi cara kita berinteraksi dengan mereka, apakah ada yang salah hingga membuat mereka tertarik dengan kita? Terlalu lunakkah sikap kita terhadapnya?

akhwat, sadarilah, orang-orang yang engkau kenal di dunia maya tidak semua memberikan informasi yang sebenarnya, waspadalah, karena engkau adalah sebaik-baik wanita yang menggenggam amanah Ilahi. Jangan mudah terpedaya oleh rayuan orang di dunia maya.
....berhiaslah dengan akhlak islami, jangan mengumbar kegenitan pada ikhwan yang bukan mahram....
akhwat, berhiaslah dengan akhlak islami, jangan mengumbar kegenitan pada ikhwan yang bukan mahram, biarkan apa yang ada di dirimu menjadi simpanan manis buat suamimu kelak.

akhwat, ta’aruf yang sesungguhnya haruslah berdasarkan cara Islam, bukan dengan cara mengumbar rasa sebelum ada akad nikah

Waspadai Bahaya Kekeringan

BANDUNG, Saco-Indonesia.com - Sementara sebagian penduduk Jakarta mengutuk musibah banjir yang terjadi hampir setiap datangnya hujan besar, penduduk di wilayah lain justeru menghadapi bahaya kekeringan. Hal ini terungkap dalam penyampaian makalah di Sidang Kolokium Puslitbang Sumber Daya Air Kementerian Pekerjaan Umum, Rabu (15/5/2013).

Perubahan intensitas kekeringan tersebut menimbulkan kerentanan terhadap sektor pertanian, terutama padi dan palawija.

-- Wanny M Putuhena

Subjek mengenai kekeringan ini disampaikan oleh Wanny K. Adidarma berdasakan makalah berjudul "Perubahan Ciri Kekeringan Pertanian di Pulau Jawa". Makalah tersebut merupakan karyanya bersama William M. Putuhena.

Wanny mengatakan, karakteristik musibah kekeringan jauh berbeda dengan musibah banjir. Musibah banjir dapat diantisipasi dengan tindakan-tindakan spontan, sementara kekeringan dapat datang perlahan-lahan tanpa mampu diantisipasi.

Inilah jenis bencana yang seringkali mengalami overlapping dengan pemberitaan bencana banjir. Padahal, keduanya merupakan musibah berbahaya.

"Dampak dari perubahan iklim terhadap kekeringan sudah mulai terasa di beberapa wilayah di Indonesia. Perubahan intensitas kekeringan tersebut menimbulkan kerentanan terhadap sektor pertanian, terutama padi dan palawija," ujar Wanny.

Untuk membuktikan hal tersebut, Wanny melakukan penelitian di lima lokasi. Kelimanya yaitu, wilayah Cidanau Cilisung Ciliman, wilayah Cirebon, Pemali Comal beserta Daerah Aliran Sungai (DAS) Pemali dan DAS Comal, DAS Solo Hulu, dan wilayah Kedu. Kajian dilakukan oleh Wanny dan William itu menyiratkan bahwa jenis kekeringan pertanian mempunyai hubungan dengan dampaknya.

Kekeringan pertanian digambarkan oleh intensitas kekeringan yang pada umumnya kurang dari 220mm/bulan dan durasi kekeringan kurang dari sembilan bulan. Selama dua hingga tiga dasawarsa terakhir, intensitas kekeringan mengalami perubahan jika dibandingkan dengan durasi kekeringan terutama bagi tanaman padi. Kekeringan untuk padi yang terjadi pada tahun-tahun kering sifatnya lebih merata secara ruang dibandingkan kekeringan untuk palawija.

"Kekeringan pertanian terjadi karena kurangnya hujan bulanan, padahal kebutuhan air lebih banyak," kata Wanny.

Perubahan ciri kekeringan pertanian terjadi dalam bentuk pergeseran tingkat keparahan, makin besar periode ulang, artinya semakin parah. Sementara itu, setiap wilayah juga memiliki perubahan berbeda, namun secara garis besar tingkat kekeringan semakin parah. Lewat penelitian dan pemantauan yang dilakukan oleh Wanny dan William, tampak tren terjadinya kekeringan di wilayah-wilayah sampel tersebut.

"Kalau kita tahu dengan pasti intensitasnya berapa, kita bisa tahu kapan kekeringan dapat terjadi," ujarnya.

Sid Tepper Dies at 96; Delivered ‘Red Roses for a Blue Lady’ and Other Songs

Mr. Tepper was not a musical child and had no formal training, but he grew up to write both lyrics and tunes, trading off duties with the other member of the team, Roy C. Bennett.

Robert Patterson Jr., Lawyer and Judge Who Fought for the Accused, Dies at 91

Judge Patterson helped to protect the rights of Attica inmates after the prison riot in 1971 and later served on the Federal District Court in Manhattan.

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.

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.

Dean Skelos, Albany Senate Leader, Aided Son at All Costs, U.S. Says

Over the last five years or so, it seemed there was little that Dean G. Skelos, the majority leader of the New York Senate, would not do for his son.

He pressed a powerful real estate executive to provide commissions to his son, a 32-year-old title insurance salesman, according to a federal criminal complaint. He helped get him a job at an environmental company and employed his influence to help the company get government work. He used his office to push natural gas drilling regulations that would have increased his son’s commissions.

He even tried to direct part of a $5.4 billion state budget windfall to fund government contracts that the company was seeking. And when the company was close to securing a storm-water contract from Nassau County, the senator, through an intermediary, pressured the company to pay his son more — or risk having the senator subvert the bid.

The criminal complaint, unsealed on Monday, lays out corruption charges against Senator Skelos and his son, Adam B. Skelos, the latest scandal to seize Albany, and potentially alter its power structure.

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The repeated and diverse efforts by Senator Skelos, a Long Island Republican, to use what prosecutors said was his political influence to find work, or at least income, for his son could send both men to federal prison. If they are convicted of all six charges against them, they face up to 20 years in prison for each of four of the six counts and up to 10 years for the remaining two.

Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, of Long Island, who serves as chairman of the Republican conference, emerged from a closed-door meeting Monday night to say that conference members agreed that Mr. Skelos should be benefited the “presumption of innocence,” and would stay in his leadership role.

“The leader has indicated he would like to remain as leader,” said Mr. LaValle, “and he has the support of the conference.” The case against Mr. Skelos and his son grew out of a broader inquiry into political corruption by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, that has already changed the face of the state capital. It is based in part, according to the six-count complaint, on conversations secretly recorded by one of two cooperating witnesses, and wiretaps on the cellphones of the senator and his son. Those recordings revealed that both men were concerned about electronic surveillance, and illustrated the son’s unsuccessful efforts to thwart it.

Adam Skelos took to using a “burner” phone, the complaint says, and told his father he wanted them to speak through a FaceTime video call in an apparent effort to avoid detection. They also used coded language at times.

At one point, Adam Skelos was recorded telling a Senate staff member of his frustration in not being able to speak openly to his father on the phone, noting that he could not “just send smoke signals or a little pigeon” carrying a message.

The 43-page complaint, sworn out by Paul M. Takla, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, outlines a five-year scheme to “monetize” the senator’s official position; it also lays bare the extent to which a father sought to use his position to help his son.

The charges accuse the two men of extorting payments through a real estate developer, Glenwood Management, based on Long Island, and the environmental company, AbTech Industries, in Scottsdale, Ariz., with the expectation that the money paid to Adam Skelos — nearly $220,000 in total — would influence his father’s actions.

Glenwood, one of the state’s most prolific campaign donors, had ties to AbTech through investments in the environmental firm’s parent company by Glenwood’s founding family and a senior executive.

The accusations in the complaint portray Senator Skelos as a man who, when it came to his son, was not shy about twisting arms, even in situations that might give other arm-twisters pause.

Seeking to help his son, Senator Skelos turned to the executive at Glenwood, which develops rental apartments in New York City and has much at stake when it comes to real estate legislation in Albany. The senator urged him to direct business to his son, who sold title insurance.

After much prodding, the executive, Charles C. Dorego, engineered a $20,000 payment to Adam Skelos from a title insurance company even though he did no work for the money. But far more lucrative was a consultant position that Mr. Dorego arranged for Adam Skelos at AbTech, which seeks government contracts to treat storm water. (Mr. Dorego is not identified by name in the complaint, but referred to only as CW-1, for Cooperating Witness 1.)

Senator Skelos appeared to take an active interest in his son’s new line of work. Adam Skelos sent him several drafts of his consulting agreement with AbTech, the complaint says, as well as the final deal that was struck.

“Mazel tov,” his father replied.

Senator Skelos sent relevant news articles to his son, including one about a sewage leak near Albany. When AbTech wanted to seek government contracts after Hurricane Sandy, the senator got on a conference call with his son and an AbTech executive, Bjornulf White, and offered advice. (Like Mr. Dorego, Mr. White is not named in the complaint, but referred to as CW-2.)

The assistance paid off: With the senator’s help, AbTech secured a contract worth up to $12 million from Nassau County, a big break for a struggling small business.

But the money was slow to materialize. The senator expressed impatience with county officials.

Adam Skelos, in a phone call with Mr. White in late December, suggested that his father would seek to punish the county. “I tell you this, the state is not going to do a [expletive] thing for the county,” he said.

Three days later, Senator Skelos pressed his case with the Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, a fellow Republican. “Somebody feels like they’re just getting jerked around the last two years,” the senator said, referring to his son in what the complaint described as “coded language.”

The next day, the senator pursued the matter, as he and Mr. Mangano attended a wake for a slain New York City police officer. Senator Skelos then reassured his son, who called him while he was still at the wake. “All claims that are in will be taken care of,” the senator said.

AbTech’s fortunes appeared to weigh on his son. At one point in January, Adam Skelos told his father that if the company did not succeed, he would “lose the ability to pay for things.”

Making matters worse, in recent months, Senator Skelos and his son appeared to grow wary about who was watching them. In addition to making calls on the burner phone, Adam Skelos said he used the FaceTime video calling “because that doesn’t show up on the phone bill,” as he told Mr. White.

In late February, Adam Skelos arranged a pair of meetings between Mr. White and state senators; AbTech needed to win state legislation that would allow its contract to move beyond its initial stages. But Senator Skelos deemed the plan too risky and caused one of the meetings to be canceled.

In another recorded call, Adam Skelos, promising to be “very, very vague” on the phone, urged his father to allow the meeting. The senator offered a warning. “Right now we are in dangerous times, Adam,” he told him.

A month later, in another phone call that was recorded by the authorities, Adam Skelos complained that his father could not give him “real advice” about AbTech while the two men were speaking over the telephone.

“You can’t talk normally,” he told his father, “because it’s like [expletive] Preet Bharara is listening to every [expletive] phone call. It’s just [expletive] frustrating.”

“It is,” his father agreed.

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.

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.”

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

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

Hard but Hopeful Home to ‘Lot of Freddies’

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

Dave Goldberg, Head of Web Survey Company and Half of a Silicon Valley Power Couple, Dies at 47

By VINDU GOEL and QUENTIN HARDY

Mr. Goldberg was a serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist who was married to Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook.

Dave Goldberg Was Lifelong Women’s Advocate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Jim Fanning, 87, Dies; Lifted Baseball in Canada With Expos

Hired in 1968, a year before their first season, Mr. Fanning spent 25 years with the team, managing them to their only playoff appearance in Canada.

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.

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.

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

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