Household Goods

Makaha Inc., a casual clothing maker that had stopped manufacturing in recent months, is going into the plastics business. The company disclosed in a securities filing Monday that it plans to spend $4 million to buy a Mexican plastics manufacturing plant on the border near Mexicali, which will make plastic household goods. The products will be marketed in the United States and Latin America.

NEW YORK - It has been six months since Donna Graziano packed a barbecue into her car, drove 15 miles from her Brooklyn home to Staten Island, and began cooking for residents of a neighborhood ravaged by Superstorm Sandy. Her one-woman effort in a seaside park expanded into an aid hub that has drawn donations of food, generators, clothes, diapers and household goods, and has become the go-to center for locals seeking advice on everything from emergency aid to mold removal. Now, the city's parks department says it is time for Graziano's Cedar Grove Community Hub to dismantle its five tents so that the park and nearby beach can welcome summer visitors and begin a major dune reinforcement project.

NEW YORK - It has been six months since Donna Graziano packed a barbecue into her car, drove 15 miles from her Brooklyn home to Staten Island, and began cooking for residents of a neighborhood ravaged by Superstorm Sandy. Her one-woman effort in a seaside park expanded into an aid hub that has drawn donations of food, generators, clothes, diapers and household goods, and has become the go-to center for locals seeking advice on everything from emergency aid to mold removal. Now, the city's parks department says it is time for Graziano's Cedar Grove Community Hub to dismantle its five tents so that the park and nearby beach can welcome summer visitors and begin a major dune reinforcement project.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu embarked Monday on a fence-mending trip to the U.S., his government released a list of thousands of items that will continue to be banned or restricted from entering the Gaza Strip, including such basics as fertilizer and cement. Announcement of the new list was intended to demonstrate that Israel was easing its three-year land blockade of the territory that allowed the import of fewer than 200 items, chiefly basic food and humanitarian goods.

Atlas Van Lines Rejects Rate Increase: The fifth-largest transporter of household goods and special commodities announced that it will not participate in a 2% general rate increase scheduled to begin Nov. 7. The increase was filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission by the Household Goods Carriers Bureau on behalf of its moving-industry members. "For too long, our industry has increased its prices every year and then increased its discounts by commensurate amounts," said Norman D.

Dock workers in San Francisco finally began unloading South African cargo from a merchant ship after police broke up an anti-apartheid demonstration, arresting 57 of the 150 protestors on suspicion of blocking access to the pier. The cargo--auto windshields, canned foods, household goods, steel plates and coils--arrived at Pier 80 over the weekend aboard the Dutch-registered Nedlloyd Kembla.

* Costco Wholesale Corp. posted a 22% increase in its fiscal fourth- quarter profit from operations to $183.2 million, or 79 cents a share, from the like period of '98. The results for the three months ended Aug. 29 beat forecasts by 3 cents, driven by higher sales of low-price PCs and by food and household goods. Revenue jumped 14% to $8.81 billion; sales at stores open at least a year climbed 12%.

Consumers who use installment credit gained added protection from abusive debt collections under a federal regulation that took effect Friday. The new Federal Trade Commission rule--the product of a decade of debate and drafting--bans creditors from requiring consumers to give up certain rights, limits the use of wage assignments for repayment and gives increased protection to household goods in the event of a loan default.

A nine-day exhibit of goods and services from the People's Republic of China was opened at Shrine Exposition Hall on Friday by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Chinese officials. Damon Lawrence, the mayor's adviser on international trade, called it "the most important exhibition of products ever brought to Los Angeles from China." The exhibits range from shipbuilding to household goods and toys.

Re: "A charitable benefit," March 14: "Some Salvation Army officers get use of expensive homes." So what? For the men and women who devote their lives to providing care for those in need, any organization employing them would be remiss if it did not ensure adequate salaries and benefits. It sounds like smart money management and real estate investing to me when the Salvation Army buys homes in pricier neighborhoods to house its personnel. James Wight Altadena :: The fact that the Salvation Army is a residential powerhouse is in one sense irrelevant.

Procter & Gamble Co. was among the businesses that responded to the surge in oil earlier this year. The world's largest consumer-products company charged more for Cascade dishwashing detergent, Iams pet food and Gillette razors to offset some of the jump in packaging costs. McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant company, also has raised prices as ingredient expenses surged. Inflation is running at its highest rate since 1991, having risen 5.6% over the last 12 months.

With undulating plaster walls, Jerusalem stone masonry, limestone sinks and tile, and Moroccan-style dome skylights, the new Spa Luce at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel blends ancient and modern, Mediterranean and Southern Californian.

"I DON'T believe in reincarnation, but if I did, I think I must have lived in the 1920s," says Jim DeMeo, who recently opened the period furniture gallery Casa DeMeo in Silver Lake. Living in a 1931 hacienda nearby, he has a special affection for Mexican colonial and Spanish Revival, but he also deals in Art Nouveau, Deco and Arts and Crafts designs.

Israel allowed dozens of trucks to deliver food, diapers and clothes to the Gaza Strip on Sunday, boosting the flow of basic goods as part of a 4-day-old truce with Hamas militants. Further increases are expected if the quiet continues, offering the prospect of relief for Gazans after a year of Israeli sanctions against the Hamas regime.

Consider this the ultimate spring cleaning: Lisa Perry, a 45-year-old lawyer and self-described pack rat, is selling nearly all of her belongings -- minus her dog, cat, photo albums and a stack of underwear -- on EBay. The auction -- entitled "Everything Perry Owns!!" -- began Tuesday and is set to end Sunday morning. "I am moving, changing my life, and want to purge all things from the past," Perry wrote in her listing of 41 items that were part of the package, along with "many more things ...

Nine days before Christmas, fire destroyed a warehouse jammed with donated clothes, household goods and furniture that were to be distributed by one of the city's largest charities. More than 100 firefighters and 30 trucks were sent to the four-building Society of St. Vincent de Paul complex after the blaze was reported Friday night. Crews finally extinguished the fire Saturday afternoon, more than 17 hours after it broke out.

At the beginning of the 18th Century, pharmacist Johann Friedrich Boettger, reputedly also an alchemist, was instructed by Augustus the Strong, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, to convert base metals into gold. Like others before him, Boettger failed, but he discovered something in the process: how to turn this region's pale clay into fine porcelain, of such quality that it quickly became known as "white gold."

IT may look like a lost Picasso with a touch of Gustav Klimt, but "Where From My Love" is an even more striking fusion of art and craft. Doris Hall's 3-by-5-foot enameled panel, at right, made in 1957 from powdered glass fused to steel at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, is one of 200 pieces in "Painting With Fire: Masters of Enameling in America 1930-1980" on display at the Long Beach Museum of Art through Aug. 19. The show, curated by Bernard N. Jazzar and Harold B.

JUST picture it: Your smiling face plastered on a pillow. A tabletop. Perhaps an entire wall. Thanks to new photographic reproduction technologies, you can now transfer your likeness -- or that of your spouse, child, dog, you name it -- onto nearly every surface of the home, from the welcome mat to the shower curtain. Want to sleep on your back, sit on your derriere or walk all over yourself -- literally? You're in luck.