ameron Hajialiakbar serves as the founder and president of UCLA's chapter of Coaching Corps, and today he will be honored among 10 other "Champions of Change" at the White House. Every week Champions of Change, those "doing extraordinary things in their communities to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world," are invited to the White House "to share their ideas to win the future." more ›

Michelle Obama will no doubt be pleased to know that humans are not the only ones benefiting from her efforts to educate America about healthy food -- the meatball-eating bear in Glendale has heeded her advice as well, and was seen yesterday picking an orange from a tree. more ›

Normally, when the President arrives in town, we cluck about it for days beforehand because we're all so terrified that we'll be the unlucky bastards stuck on Pico Blvd. for three hours. But we haven't heard much about traffic delays leading up to the arrival of Michelle Obama today, and we're hoping that it stays that way. more ›

Nearly a year after chef and activist Jamie Oliver visited LA and our schools' lunchrooms none other than Rush Limbaugh weighs in on our kids and their eating habits at LAUSD. Sounding more like Jonathan Swift sans irony, Limbaugh has responded on air to this weekend's LA Times piece on the new menu fail at the country's second largest school district. more ›

In what has to be one of the most ridiculous mash-ups between our government and food since the Reagan administration proposed ketchup and relish be classified as vegetables comes word Congress is so desperate to keep pizza on school lunch menus they are declaring that two tablespoons of tomato paste as used on the pizza is also a veggie. more ›

With the time suck that was the debt ceiling deal finally signed, it's time for President Obama to get back to raising money for his re-election campaign. Fortunately for the campaign, President Obama is celebrating his birthday today (the big 5-0), which provides ample opportunity to celebrate his accomplishments while collecting campaign cash. more ›

Michelle Obama visits L.A. on Monday to to raise money for her husband's reelection campaign and to "boost support for military families," starting with a guilds-hosted, J.J. Abrams-moderated discussion in Beverly Hills about "how Hollywood can tell stories of today's military families through film and television," says the White House, according to the L.A. Times. more ›

Welcome to the 21st century a place where elementary school students grow herbs and vegetables, start a podcast about their garden, and sell their harvest to a local chef for the menu at his swanky restaurant. Who are these savvy kids? The students of Melrose Elementary School Math Science and Technololgy Magnet spend time each week with Chef Andrea Cavaliere of Cecconi's in West Hollywood. Their garden is filled with raised beds and vertical fabric planters and part of the Woolly Pocket School Garden Program. more ›

As part of a pre-Midterm Election week tour of West Coast cities, First Lady Michelle Obama spent some time in Los Angeles yesterday to speak at a small fundraiser event for incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. more ›

Preserve America has been a pet project of both First Ladies since 2003 when President Bush issued an incentive to preserve the historical and cultural heritage deeply grounded in communities across the country. Last week the city of Pasadena became one of those communities after Michelle Obama approved (PDF) their application. more ›

As thousands of people flocked to Denny's for free, yet not ideally healthy, meals this morning, First Lady Michelle Obama launched LetsMove.gov, a campaign to change the way we raise our children. more ›

Tonight the Food Network's Iron Chef America's season premiere is a 2-hour episode with some very special guests, and it's a show we've been looking forward to for some time now. Facing off in Kitchen Stadium will be White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford and Bobby Flay versus Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse, as the two teams try to take on the heat while using the unique secret ingredient. While usually the item or category is somewhat of a surprise to participants and viewers, tonight we know already that it's First Lady Michelle Obama who will assign the chefs the task of working with anything grown in the White House garden. more ›

Here in Los Angeles there is a valued relationship between the food on our plates and the ground from which it comes. From weekly stops at favorite farmers' markets to digging in at a local community garden, the bounty of the land and its role in our eating lives has a profound meaning for many Angelenos, and Americans. Local Chefs are eager to share how they use the market to influence their menu, like Grace and BLD's Neal Fraser and Ford Filling Station's Ben Ford, while some, like Border Grill and Ciudad's Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have partnered with the LAUSD to help reinforce the importance of garden-based learning and to be conscious of what we eat. The politics of eating has become a local focal point, thanks to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's championing a Food Policy Task Force this summer as we celebrated 30 years of farmers' markets in L.A. more ›

Syndication News: IFC will be rebroadcasting back to back episodes of "Arrested Development" on Sundays at 10pm and Tuesdays at 9pm starting on October 25th. Comedy Central will be rebroadcasting "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" starting in the Summer of 2010. more ›

Yesterday, First Lady Michelle Obama joined 5th graders from a DC-area school in harvesting some of the bounty from the White House's Kitchen Garden, a 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped plot on the South Lawn planted in April. Together they picked "harvested 73-pounds of lettuce and 12-pounds of peas," then worked together to create a meal they shared picnic-style right there at the White House. NPR broadcast a lovely story about the event, including the enthusiasm of the kids for working with the land and what it's taught them. The powerful partnership between learning and gardening has never been more evident than now. more ›

Although perhaps a certain segment of the population believes he should be throwing red paint on fur-coated old ladies and boycotting West Hollywood restaurants that serve foie gras, President Obama has actually been doing a pretty good job heeding Michael Pollan's call to real action within the American food industry. more ›

• Sen. Ted Kennedy's speech, obvs. The expectations going in were that this would be the senator's final public speech -- but Kennedy walked out on stage and continued standing during his entire speech, defying expectations that he would look different, appear to be very weak and need to sit on the stool that had been brought out for him due to his cancer treatment. Several delegates we were near had already started to get teary during the video tribute to Kennedy, so the emotional impact of the incredibly popular senator promising that he would "be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate" packed a real wallop. Kennedy was the hit of the night on the convention floor.
• Michelle Obama's speech was a close second. I had to head out of the Pepsi Center while she was still talking, but the entire house was rapt as she described what she and her husband have in common: "He was raised by grandparents who were working class folks just like my parents, and by a single mother who struggled to pay the bills just like we did," she said. Mrs. Obama did a good job convincing the crowd that she is a working mother who can identify with the struggles of ordinary Americans, proving herself a real asset to the campaign.

Stevie Wonder was the first of two surprises led to the Pauley Pavilion floor by Michelle Obama at yesterday's Get Out the Vote for Obama Rally. After a short explanation of his history as a Clinton supporter turned Obama believer, Wonder led the crowd in a rather difficult vocal exercise based on the candidate's name (see video below). more ›

"If Barack Obama was a state," California's First Lady said, "he'd be California." more ›

LAist News Editor Andy Sternberg is inside the Barack Obama rally which is scheduled to kick off at 1:30 this afternoon at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus. more ›

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