The cleanest cities in America

 


These places scored best for factors like air and water quality in a ranking of the biggest metro areas.

America's Cleanest Cities, 2011

Texas is widely known as a mecca for all things related to fossil fuels, but here's a surprise: It's also home to the cleanest town in the country. That's right. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) ranks tops in our list of the America's Cleanest Cities.

The Cleanest Cities list is a healthy offshoot of the Most Toxic Cities list we released last month. In that ignominious ranking Philadelphia comes out on top, followed by New York City and its surrounding suburbs, and four California metros.

In Pictures: America's Cleanest Cities

So many readers told us they wanted to know which cities fared the best in terms of low toxicity that we decided to put together a ranking of America's 10 Cleanest (as in environmentally healthy) Cities.

What got the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA on the list? A lack of Superfund sites, respectable air quality and a meager amount of toxic substances generated and disposed of by local facilities.

Ten cars with a license to thrill

    

Cars that are the most fun to drive 

"Fun to drive" is a subjective measure—an elusive quality that can mean different things to different people. From our experience, a car can have a very powerful engine and accelerate quickly, but without handling agility, it's not much fun. For us, fun is a combination of factors such as handling response,

Where nearly 20% of homes sit vacant

 

Nearly 20% of Florida homes are vacant

It's not always easy to feel sorry for sunny Florida. But it just got hit with another blow.

On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% -- or 1.6 million -- of the Sunshine State's homes are sitting vacant. That's a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years.

Having this amount of oversupply on the market will keep home prices depressed and slow any recovery.

During the housing boom, Florida was among the hottest real estate markets in the nation. Homes were snapped up by the state's growing population as well as hordes of investors confident that prices would continue to soar.

"You'd drive through downtown Miami and see 30 or 40 cranes sticking up in the air," said Michael Larson, a housing market analyst for Weiss Research.

John Travolta slammed for 'cheesy' video

 


Qantas Airlines employees attack the actor's "corny" role in a new in-flight safety video.

John Travolta Under Fire for 'Cheesy' Quantas 

Airline Video

John Travolta is angering employees at Australia's Qantas Airlines, where he works as a Goodwill Ambassador.

The actor appears in a three-minute safety video that airs before every flight take off, and employees have taken to online forums to call it "cringe worthy," "corny" and "tacky," according to the Australia Daily Telegraph.

These castles are for sale — in the U.S.

 


Europe has nothing on America's storybook homes like this $11 million, 61-acre spread.

American Castles for Sale

If you think castles only exist in Europe, think again. Surprisingly, there are many castles in the U.S. and some are even for sale.

While these castles can weather storms, are they recession proof? Unfortunately, they are struggling to find buyers just like most other high-end homes and, according to Erin Diaz of Beaches & Backroads Realty, people are missing the boat. "I think we forget that people were on the ocean a century ago, hand-building these castles with these incredible details. These structures can withstand salt water, hurricanes and Mother Nature much better than other wooden structures. And there's a misconception that castles are dark and dingy, but these properties are gorgeous and they're mostly re-done."

Although modern-day castles are still being built, suburbia-style, we chose the 10 below due to their age and historic significance. These are not fortified with moats, or men dumping boiling oil from above, but they were all built around the start of the 20th century by those who were captured by the grandeur of dramatic fortress-like structures so prevalent centuries ago.

Here are five American castles for sale:

Searles Hopkins Castle is selling for $11 million in Great Barrington, MA. Photo: Zillow

Searles Hopkins Castle
389 Main St, Great Barrington, MA 01230
For Sale - $11 million

Now, that’s a castle! Known as the Searles Hopkins Castle, this 1888 French Chateau-style stone castle was commissioned in 1889 by Mary Hopkins, who was the widow of Mark Hopkins, founder of the Central Pacific Railroad. Several years after her husband’s death, she continued to build the castle, hiring designer Edward Searles who was 22 years her junior. As the castle’s name implies, the pair eventually married. Castle highlights include a Louis XIV drawing room with details in gold leaf and original painted ceiling, acoustically engineered music room with 42-ft dome ceiling, and large stone terraces overlooking a dramatic cross-shaped reflecting pond and gardens. The property consists of 61 acres with over a thousand feet of frontage on the Housatonic River. Located in the Berkshire Mountains, Great Barrington real estate is considered accessible and desirable to urbanites in New York City and Boston since it’s only two and a half hours away from each city.

American fighter jet crashes in Libya

 


Two Air Force crew members are rescued after ejecting from their doomed F-15 Strike Eagle.

US jet crashes in Libya, both crew are safe

BERLIN – A U.S. fighter jet crashed in Libya after an apparent equipment malfunction but both crewmembers were able to eject and are back safely in American hands, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The plane crashed Monday at 2130 GMT (5:30 p.m. EDT), said Vince Crawley, a spokesman for U.S. Africa Command.

A spokesman for the Libyan opposition, Mohammed Ali, said the U.S. plane crashed about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city.

A Marine Corps Osprey search and rescue aircraft retrieved the pilot, while the second crew member, a weapon's officer, was recovered by rebel forces and is now in American hands, another U.S. official said in Washington. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.