Forbes ranks Austin best city for the value

From Austin Business Journal, October 16, 2008...

When it comes to getting the most for your money, Texas appears to have a lock on the country.

The state’s four biggest cities are among the top 10 on Forbes magazine’s list of the best bang-for-your-buck places in the United States. And garnering the top spot—where the magazine says one’s money goes the farthest—is Austin.

San Antonio is ranked No. 2 on the list and Houston and Dallas rank 4th and 7th respectively.

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Austin follows Houston on Kiplinger's Best Cities list

From Austin Business Journal, May 29, 2008...

Austin ranks sixth on Kiplinger's Personal Finance's newest list of top 10 cities in which to live, work and play.

The list, published in Kiplinger's July issue, ranks cities based on the strength of their economies, abundance of jobs, reasonable costs of living and activities.

Austin ranks sixth, but another major Texas city, Houston, tops this year's list.

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Ants swarm over Houston area, fouling electronics

From Wired.com, May 14, 2008...

In what sounds like a really low-budget horror film, voracious swarming ants that apparently arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship are invading homes and yards across the Houston area, shorting out electrical boxes and messing up computers.

The hairy, reddish-brown creatures are known as "crazy rasberry ants" - crazy, because they wander erratically instead of marching in regimented lines, and "rasberry" after Tom Rasberry, an exterminator who did battle against them early on.

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Non-native ants bugging parts of Texas

From KXAN.com, May 13, 2008...

Experts say a swarm of ants not native to Texas is spreading across the state and wreaking havoc.

It's thought that the so-called "crazy rasberry ants" arrived aboard a cargo ship in 2002.

Since then they've run rampant in homes and yards across the Houston area.

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Three Houston-Area Companies Make BPA

From Houston Chronicle April 18, 2008...

At least three companies in the Houston area manufacture a ubiquitous chemical used in plastic that got new attention this week because of possible links to cancer and reproductive and developmental diseases.

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Top Three CO2 Emitting US Counties Are Houston, Los Angeles And Chicago

From Medical News Today April 17, 2008...

The top twenty carbon dioxide-emitting counties in the United States have been identified by a research team led by Purdue University. The top three counties include the cities of Houston, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Bexar County, Tx (San Antonio) is ranked 17th.

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