Craig

Obsession of the moment: Hasami porcelain plates and bowls released in a new matte black finish by the Japanese design importer TGS, or Tortoise General Store, in Venice. The Hasami porcelain is beautiful in its spare simplicity and smart function. The pieces nest nicely for storage. Optional oak lids pair well with the stone bowls and can be used separately as serving trays. TGS co-owner Keiko Shinomoto says  the collection has a nice back story too: It's part of a project in the southern Japanese town of Hasami, where a pottery tradition that dates to 1599 is ailing because of -- can you guess?

There are many ways of being a political playwright. Christopher Shinn's approach, centered on characters rather than on ideologies, is one that will never go out of style. Illuminating large-scale public concerns through the microscopic examination of individual behavior, Shinn finds political meaning in psychological patterns. In plays such as "Four" and "Where Do We Live" (to my mind, the most resonant theatrical response to 9/11), he has shown how the conduct of our nation is reflected in our most intimate relationships.

Eight men say they either had sex with Sen. Larry E. Craig or were targets of sexual advances by the Idaho Republican at various times during his political career, a newspaper reported. One of the men is the former escort whose allegations disgraced the Rev. Ted Haggard, former president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals, the Idaho Statesman reported. The newspaper identified four men and reported details of the encounters they say involved Craig.

Now that Seth MacFarlane has tweeted that he simply can't find the time to host the Oscars again, is it too early to say: "Tina Fey, come on down!" "I think that's too hard," Fey tells The Times over the phone, when asked if she'd take the job. "Too many dresses to try on. " Really, Tina? You're going to go with the whole degree-of-difficulty dress thing as your primary reason to dodge the high-profile opportunity to flaunt your charm and talents in front of an audience of tens of millions of people?

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) is expected to announce today that he will give up his Senate seat, transforming in less than a week from a leading voice on Western issues to political pariah after it emerged that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a men's restroom sting. Craig scheduled a Boise news conference for 10:30 a.m. to announce his plans. Greg Smith, an Idaho pollster who has worked for Craig, said Friday that he expected the senator to resign.

The news might have set off alarms in some past administrations: The president's brother-in-law has written a book. But you won't find dirty laundry in a memoir from First Lady Michelle Obama's brother, Oregon State basketball coach Craig Robinson. The book, "A Game of Character," which has a foreword by their mother, Marian Robinson, is due out April 20. Craig Robinson writes that he and his parents didn't think Barack Obama stood much of a chance with his sister when they met him. He and his parents were out on their porch on a hot summer night in Chicago when the couple stopped by to say hello on their way to a movie.

R. Craig Schafer has resigned as an officer and director of Advanced Marketing Services.

Craig A. Israel has been named senior account executive at Manishor & Ames.

WASHINGTON -- A former senator. A scandal. A court case over campaign spending.  Not John Edwards. This time, it's former Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), who's fighting the Federal Elections Commission's attempt to force him to pay back more than $200,000 in campaign funds. Craig used the funds for his legal expenses in connection with his 2007 arrest at a men's restroom.  The FEC contends the expenses were "not made in connection with his campaign for federal office or for ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with his duties as a senator.

Re "Image Problem Is Costing Louisiana," Dec. 3 Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho said that every dollar sent to Louisiana should be strictly monitored. Too bad Craig's concern didn't extend to the Bush administration's throwing money hand over fist into Iraq -- and losing billions never to be accounted for. Then he has the gall to compare Louisiana to Iraq? The only thing the two have in common is the indifference and disregard the Bush administration shows to their people and future, and Craig should be roundly vilified for making such a careless comment.

Craig Anderson made 48 saves in a spectacular performance as the visiting Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-2, Thursday night in Game 1 of their playoff series. Jakob Silfverberg and Marc Methot scored early in the third period to give Ottawa a 3-2 lead. Erik Karlsson and Guillaume Latendresse also scored for the Senators, who were outshot, 50-31, but saw Anderson easily win the goaltending duel with Carey Price, who was beaten twice through the pads. Rene Bourque and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal, which set a team record for shots in a regulation-time playoff game.

Alexis Smith has been doing the same thing for 40 years: pasting items she finds in thrift stores and at yard sales into scrappy collages that paint a portrait of America as a place where much  has gone wrong but all is not lost. With the patience of a saint and a work ethic that's nothing if not old-school, the 64-year-old artist has gotten really good at what she does: stir wistful sentimentality and barbed discontent into a cocktail whose tastiness makes its kick all the more dangerous.

First impressions can be tricky. That's one of the lessons painfully and humorously driven home by the upcoming comedy "Peeples," starring Craig Robinson as an ordinary guy who crashes his girlfriend's posh family weekend in the Hamptons while trying to impress her domineering father. Naturally things don't go quite according to plan for Robinson's character, Wade, and by the time he shows up at the home of the Honorable Judge Virgil Peeples, he's rumpled, wallet-less and slicked with dog slobber.

A jury Friday acquitted a Los Angeles police officer and a former officer on charges that they lied about a drunk-driving arrest. After deliberating only a few hours, jurors found Phillip Walters and Craig Allen not guilty of the perjury charges, said Bill Seki, Allen's attorney. Allen also was cleared on an allegation of filing a false police report. The case stemmed from a DUI checkpoint in September 2010, where the two officers were working. The pair were dispatched to assist another officer who had stopped a drunk driving suspect.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has hired Craig Zadan and Neil Meron for an encore performance as Oscar producers, retaining them for the 2014 broadcast after this year's show garnered solid ratings. The move is unusual because the job of hiring the show's producers traditionally belongs to the incoming president, who won't be chosen until the end of July. But current President Hawk Koch, whose one-year term will end this summer, made the decision with the support of the 43-member Board of Governors.

Late-night television, busier than ever (and at its best, better than ever) with talk shows and comedy, has been in the news again lately, with the hand-over of "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno to Jimmy Fallon officially announced for next spring - a change in stewardship that will also take the show back to New York from Burbank. The man who brought "The Tonight Show" west in the first place is producer Peter Lassally, who wanted to live in Los Angeles and in 1972 convinced Johnny Carson that California was the place he ought to be. Lassally, 80, is now producer of the singular "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson"; when I interviewed Ferguson in 2010, he told me that the person I really should be talking to was Lassally.

Technical Equities, a a diversified company headquartered in San Jose, has appointed two senior vice presidents: Craig A. Foster, who is also treasurer of the company, and H. Conrad Blackerby, formerly president of West American Rubber Co., one of the firm's subsidiaries.

That Larry Craig really goes both ways. First, the Idaho senator is washed up, tapped out, spent. Then he's stalling for time, hanging tough, scrapping. Now he's throwing in the paper towel again. One group that definitely thinks he should have stuck it out is cartoonists. When the tawdry news first broke (does this scandal have a name? Tap-it Dome?

Hollywood power couple Daniel Craig (a.k.a. James Bond) and Rachel Weisz (most recently in "Oz: The Great and Powerful") are to head to Broadway in the fall, costarring as husband and wife in Harold Pinter's "Betrayal. " Tony Award winner Mike Nichols is to direct the revival and Scott Rudin will produce, Rudin's office announced Friday. The production marks Craig's return to Broadway after the hugely successful "A Steady Rain," which costarred Hugh Jackman, in 2009. The Pinter play will be Weisz's Broadway debut, though she's no stranger to theater.

The can of spray paint sat on the ledge of a downtown Sacramento office tower. A tool for etching glass lay below. The body of Craig Fugate was tangled in some ropes about nine stories up the tower. Authorities on Tuesday were trying to piece together the bizarre death. They believe Fugate was somehow killed Monday while trying to vandalize the office building. "They found the spray paint where he climbed down" but no actual tags, Officer Doug Morse said. The Sacramento coroner's office is still trying to determine a cause of death.