According to DNS and WHOIS, news.ycombinator.com is hosted at ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc.

Since "where are YC funded companies hosted" is a common question, I'll answer that too, based on the list of YC-funded companies at http://www.ycombinator.com/faq.html:

$ echo reddit.com loopt.com clickfacts.com textpayme.com snipshot.com inklingmarkets.com flagr.com wufoo.com youos.com likebetter.com thinkature.com jamglue.com shoutfit.com scribd.com weebly.com virtualmin.com buxfer.com octopart.com heysan.com justin.tv iminlikewithyou.com socialmoth.com xobni.com versionate.com adpinion.com anywhere.fm fuzzwich.com bountii.com auctomatic.com disqus.com draftmix.com webmynd.com rescuetime.com reble.fm heroku.com tipjoy.com addher.com 8aweek.com | xargs -n 1 | lam -s 'www.' - | xargs -n 1 host -t a | grep 'has address' | cut -f 4 -d ' ' | xargs -n 1 whois | grep OrgName | sort | uniq -c | sort -srn | sed -e 's/OrgName://'

   8     Amazon.com, Inc.
   6     SoftLayer Technologies Inc.
   4     ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc.
   2     NoZone, Inc.
   1     BitPusher, LLC
   1     Columbus Network Access Point, Inc.
   1     Global Netoptex, Inc
   1     Layered Technologies, Inc.
   1     Performance Systems International Inc.
   1     RackForce Hosting Inc.
   1     ServePath, LLC
   1     Slicehost LLC
   1     Time Warner Telecom, Inc.

  Amazon.com, Inc.                           7
  	youos.com
  	jamglue.com
  	shoutfit.com
  	socialmoth.com
  	webmynd.com
  	heroku.com
  	8aweek.com
  SoftLayer Technologies Inc.                5
  	scribd.com
  	xobni.com
  	anywhere.fm
  	bountii.com
  	disqus.com
  ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc.      5
  	snipshot.com
  	virtualmin.com
  	heysan.com
  	adpinion.com
  	reble.fm
  Hurricane Electric                         3
  	weebly.com
  	octopart.com
  	auctomatic.com
  Internap Network Services                  2
  	loopt.com
  	likebetter.com
  NoZone, Inc.                               2
  	flagr.com
  	thinkature.com
  Peer 1 Network Inc.                        2
  	rescuetime.com
  	addher.com
  ServePath, LLC                             1
  	reddit.com
  American Digital Network                   1
  	fuzzwich.com
  Columbus Network Access Point, Inc.        1
  	versionate.com
  Performance Systems International Inc.     1
  	justin.tv
  Global Netoptex, Inc                       1
  	clickfacts.com
  RackForce Hosting Inc.                     1
  	draftmix.com
  Time Warner Telecom, Inc.                  1
  	textpayme.com
  Logicworks Corporation                     1
  	inklingmarkets.com
  Layered Technologies, Inc.                 1
  	buxfer.com
  Rackspace.com, Ltd.                        1
  	iminlikewithyou.com
  BitPusher, LLC                             1
  	wufoo.com
  Slicehost LLC                              1
  	tipjoy.com

  #!/usr/bin/env ruby
  domains = %w{reddit.com loopt.com clickfacts.com
               textpayme.com snipshot.com inklingmarkets.com flagr.com wufoo.com 
               youos.com likebetter.com thinkature.com jamglue.com shoutfit.com scribd.com 
               weebly.com virtualmin.com buxfer.com octopart.com heysan.com justin.tv 
               iminlikewithyou.com socialmoth.com xobni.com versionate.com adpinion.com anywhere.fm 
               fuzzwich.com bountii.com auctomatic.com disqus.com draftmix.com webmynd.com 
               rescuetime.com reble.fm heroku.com tipjoy.com addher.com 8aweek.com}

  orgs = {}
  domains.each do |c|
    whois = `host -t a #{c} | grep 'has address' | cut -f 4 -d ' ' | xargs -n 1 whois`
    if org = whois.grep(/OrgName/).first
      org = org.sub(/OrgName:\s/, '').strip
    else
      org = whois.split("\n").first.split("(")[0].strip.sub(/\s+[A-Z\-\d]+$/, '')
    end
    orgs[org] ||= []
    orgs[org] << c
  end
  max_size = orgs.sort_by{|k, v| k.size}.last.first.size


  orgs.sort_by{|k, v| v.size}.reverse.each do |o, ds|
    puts "%-#{max_size}s %5s" % [o, ds.size]
    ds.each {|d| puts "\t#{d}"}
  end
  puts
  puts "%-#{max_size}s %5s" % ["Total # of Domains", domains.size]
  puts "%-#{max_size}s %5s" % ["Total # of Providers", orgs.size]

If you're looking to scale (as in, you need at least one dedicated machine and will likely be adding more), I highly recommend Softlayer. Their pricing is reasonable and support is pretty good, but more importantly (for my startup) their setup time is incredible. Adding a low-end machine usually takes about 2 hours and higher-end machines take 4-6 hours. That kind of agility has really been invaluable.

If you're just starting up, Slicehost is generally considered the best of the VPS providers, though Linode is also well regarded and is cheaper than Slicehost.

If you want to scale bandwidth eventually, Amazon is the only game in town unless you want to beta test Google. Maybe Microsoft would also let you beta test if you asked nicely.

Is there anyone using enough bandwidth on Google App Engine to hit the bandwidth cap and start paying?

I use and would recommend ThePlanet.com and Slicehost.

I use and would not recommend Mosso or MediaTemple.

I use and would conditionally recommend PHPWebhosting.com, Google App Engine, and RackSpace.

I use and do not have enough data to comment on AWS.

Slicehost +1, easy to use, easy to scale, cost effective.

softlayer ftw (most of the time)

I would suggest Linode for hosting and Virtualmin (YC backed) for the panel.