Huffington, once a vocal Republican and ex-wife of former GOP Congressman Michael Huffington is now well-established as a beacon of the progressive left. Apparently too much to handle for Politics Daily columnist Matt Lewis became the first AOL employee to quit publicly in protest of the deal. more ›

Stepping up its ongoing efforts to regain relevance in a post-dialup world, AOL will acquire Huffington Post for $315 million. As part of the deal, Arianna Huffington will become Editor-in-Chief for all properties of AOL's rapidly expanding content empire, including the increasingly ubiquitous Patch.com hyperlocal news network. Top sites that will be added to Huffington's editorial domain include TechCrunch, Mapquest, Moviefone and the surviving blogs of the Weblogs, Inc. network (including Endgadget, TV Squad, PopEater and Joystiq), acquired by AOL/Time Warner in 2005. Will the internet never be the same again? more ›

We've seen it roll out in New York and Chicago; now Los Angeles has one too. Yesterday, the Huffington Post launched its local Los Angeles website, featuring the day's hot stories plus commentary about the city. more ›

Los Angeles is a metropolis, a diversified city of 3.6 million with interests as varied as the neighborhoods that comprise its vast mosaic. Yet, one of the most persistent knocks against this town is its lack of interest in news and politics. Television news, what with its raging hard on for weather-related pieces and sex scandals, gives some life to those pernicious slanders. Print journalism's slow death also does nothing to dispel what may be a lack of interest in the news and the second largest media market in the nation now has one full time AM news station. Thankfully, for you news junkies out there, we have public radio and its weekly news show Left, Right & Center. more ›

Former Roseanne writer Betsy Salkind hosts Julie Goldman's Offensive Women, a monthly no holds barred comedy show featuring up-and-coming and established female comics. Julie Goldman herself will make the trek from New York for this month's performance, also featuring Kathleen Madigan, American Comedy Award winner for best female stand-up, among others. more ›

WORDS more ›

Monday Eliot Tiegel presents The Latinization of America 6:30pm @ Book Soup Judith Freeman discusses and signs The Long Embrace 7pm @ Vroman's Roz Chast discusses Theories of Everything 7pm @ Central Library Robert Kuttner in conversation with Arianna Huffington about The Squandering of America 8pm @ James Bridge Theater, UCLA Tuesday Cesar Millan presents Be the Pack Leader 7pm @ Borders, Pasadena Frank McCourt presents Angela and the Baby Jesus 7pm @ Borders,... more ›

It’s difficult to argue that KCRW, 89.9 FM, isn't one of the better things we, the citizens of Los Angeles, get to experience firsthand. Yeah, the station offers podcasts and streaming radio, but it’s not the same as actually living in the city the station is broadcast from. Not only does the station play some of the most innovative and unique music in the world, but broadcasts daily news and cultural information unable to... more ›

The Huffington Post is one of the biggest Internet surprises over the last few years. more ›

Congratulations to Bernie for winning The Cold War Kids tickets at the NME Club at Spaceland. Stay tuned to LAist for more contests! Merle Haggard @ Royce Hall Kasabian @ Henry Fonda Cold War Kids @ Spaceland Arianna Huffington @ Borders Books (Westwood) Porcupine Tree @ House of Blues Blue October @ Grove of Anaheim I See Hawks in L.A @ Highland Grounds Jill Sobule, Julia Sweeney @ Largo The Hot IQs @ The... more ›

So, when you go see Syriana (and, really, just go. It's smart and complex and detailed and worth at least a great conversation with your movie date in the car afterwards) you should try and bring Stephen Gaghan with you. You'll have questions. Thankfully, Arianna Huffington hasn't lost our email address yet so we got to spend some quality time with the writer/director after the flick last night and hear his interesting but wordy explanations about the film and the process of making it. more ›

THURSDAY more ›

LA Observed reports this morning about the huge blog v. blog argument currently going on between LA Weekly columnist Marc Cooper and Weekly freelancer Nikki Finke in regards to her recent attack on Arianna Huffington's brand new celebrity/political-centric blog, Huffington Post. more ›

After much discussion and publicity for Arianna Huffington's foray into celebrity group blogging, The Huffington Post launched this morning. It'll be interesting to see how timely the blog stays. Initial posts by the well known names cover well treaded topics like gay marriage and the death of Hunter S. Thompson. We will always appreciate any opportunity Harry Shearer has to take a closer look at the oddities and inaccuracies of news media and Laurie and Larry David talking hybrids and environment should prove interesting but As far as their day one content? Exclusives are great; Mike Nichols rambling a bit about a metaphor? Not so much. more ›

With general consensus being that our own little local election is essentially over, LA went national this weekend with the California Democratic Party Convention. The biggest democratic star not named Clinton -- Party Chair Howard Dean -- was everywhere to mixed reviews. The Angelino tells us very little about what Arianna Huffington said but we do know this: democratic faithful find the left-leaning independent sexy. more ›

While we scratch our heads figuring out how to increase civic engagement here in the city of LA, the restless lefties at MoveOn.org are thinking nationally. Monday they launched a Flash animation contest To Stop the Republican Social Security Scam. There are 16 days left for you to submit your wickedly funny, wierd, politically persuasive Flash animation. Al Franken and Arianna Huffington (of course) are among the judges, plus Richard (Slacker) Linklater, Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks cartoons), and John Cusack (LAist loves Grosse Pointe Blank). The winner, in addition to a few seconds of fame, will get an Apple G4 laptop. LA's genius deserves to represented in the final 10. more ›

We wonder how many of the well-heeled Angeleno party guests with school-aged children, like Arianna Huffington, actually enrolled their offspring into public schools or opted for one of the many private schools in the area. more ›