Just in case you needed another reason to love Pat Kiernan, here he is reading Huffington Post headlines on HuffPost Live.

Kiernan is a pro, so nothing — even reading about Emma Watson’s sports bra — derails him from a smooth delivery. You’re our boy Pat!

The Huffington Post launched eight years ago today. Above is its first homepage.

It’s nice to see that the all caps headlines started from day one, but we’re disappointed there are no slideshows full of “best names for dogs” and “coolest ways to go camping.” However, this is only the top half of the page, so you never know.

[Image: Ethan Klapper]

You couldn’t keep up with all the Huffington Post sites if you dedicated your life to it, but nevertheless, we thought we should tell you Huffington Post Japan is now live. The new edition comes on the heels of HuffPo Germany, which debuted just last week.

HuffPo Japan is the latest local effort (joining France, Italy, Spain, Canada, and the United Kingdom) from Huffington Post. A look at its team: Shigeki Matsuura is editor-in-chief; Chitose Wada is news editor; Naoko Utsumiya and Akihiro Chishiro are associate news editors; Kenji Ando and Kaori Matsumoto are blog editors; Chika Igaya serves as reporter; and Atsushi Nagayama is traffic and trends editor.

“In addition to telling the stories of such defining events, and inviting Japan’s people to tell their own stories, HuffPost Japan will be exploring and celebrating the country’s culture, from deeply-rooted traditions — including zen meditation and Tea Ceremonies, with their rich rituals and fascinating tea masters like Sen no Rikyu — to its embrace of oddball pursuits, like, yes, crying baby contests,” wrote Arianna Huffington, in announcing the new site.

Well, we hope Japan is ready for the inevitable crying baby slideshows. Or maybe that’s already a thing.

Kim Bhasin is joining Huffington Post Business as a senior reporter. He comes to the site from Business Insider, where he had worked for the past two years.

According to a memo from Peter Goodman, HuffPost’s executive business editor, at HuffPost Bhasin will be focusing on retail and the food industry.

Goodman’s full note is below.

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Peter Daou and James Boyce, former advisors for John Kerry, just cleared a hurdle in their push to show that they had the initial idea for Huffington Post, and that Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer cut them out of it and launched the site without them. The claim was first filed in 2010, but a ruling by a New York judge is moving it forward.

The judge allowed the idea theft, fraud and unjust enrichment claims to move ahead, essentially giving some credence to what Daou and Boyce have been saying.

A snippet of the judge’s ruling:

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Huffington Post の日本によろしく. That’s Japanese for “Say hello to The Huffington Post Japan.” Or at least we think it is. If it’s wrong, take it up with the dudes and dudettes at Google. Anyway, the point of that was to introduce the newest International HuffPost site.

HuffPost Media Group is partnering with Japan’s Asahi Shimbun Company to make the Japanese-language version of the HuffPost happen. As for when the site will launch, well, that’s still being worked out. However, HuffPost officials are still excited about it.

“This is a key step in the global growth of The Huffington Post as it marks our entrance into Asia, the fastest-growing region in the world, economically,” Jimmy Maymann, CEO of HuffPost Media Group, said in a statement. ”We are thrilled to have The Asahi Shimbun Company, a leading publisher in Japan and one of the largest newspapers in the world, as our partner.”

HuffPost Japan will be the companies sixth International site, joining the U.K., Canada, France, Spain, and Italy.

Jimmy Maymann, formerly AOL senior vice president and head of International, has been bumped up to CEO of the Huffington Post Media Group. As CEO, Maymann will be responsible for continuing to grow the Huffington Post’s many web properties and its relatively new streaming news network, HuffPost Live.

“Jimmy has been an indispensable partner to me over the past year-and-a-half as we have launched HuffPost around the world,” said Arianna Huffington, in a statement. ”He brings a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and an ability to scale a business, so he was the first person I turned to to be our CEO.”

Maymann joined AOL in 2011, when his company — GoViral —  was acquired by AOL for a cool $97 million.

Hurricane Sandy hit the city hard, and along with flooding and devastation, several media companies saw their sites go down. All Gawker Media sites, Mediaite, The Huffington Post, and BuzzFeed were down at some point as Sandy made its way across land.

The source of the outage is flooding at Datagram, which houses the servers used by all the sites that went out. “Gawker sites down after power cut off at Datagram, our data center down on Whitehall St. Backup power didn’t kick in fast enough,” tweeted Nick Denton.

The Huffington Post was down, but is now publishing posts on an extremely stripped down version of the site. “Due to power outages caused by Superstorm Sandy, our own website is experiencing technical difficulties,” reads a post on the site.

BuzzFeed is up now, but isn’t being updated. According to their Twitter account, they’re updating content via other platforms, such as Tumblr.

UPDATE:
BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post are both back up.

Moritz Loew joined The Huffington Post just three months ago, but he’s already been fired. According to Ad Age, Loew was dismissed after a background check turned up an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court regarding a DWI he received in 2003.

Loew has since dealt with the charge, but it didn’t matter. ”Recent information has indicated that Moritz’s hiring did not meet AOL requirements,” a spokesperson told Ad Age.

Loew said he he didn’t realize he had an outstanding warrant, but called it “a stupid mistake.”

[Image via Adweek]

HuffPost Live, the news video venture from The Huffington Post, has arrived. At 10 am this morning, the live content begins rolling in. There will be plenty of it — 12 hours of it, to be specific. That’s enough to separate HuffPost Live from other news sites, but there’s more: HuffPost Live is chock full of interactive features.

The biggest is the “Join This Segment” box, which — if you’re qualififed enough — lets you offer your two cents on whatever is being discussed by the HuffPost anchors. Yes, HuffPost Live is going to put everyone on the same level as the experts, the celebrities and more.

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