Two Austin-based companies -- Whole Foods Market and National Instruments -- once again found themselves on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For this year. ...

For the second year in a row, Whole Foods has been recognizes as one of the EPA's Green Power Partners of the Year. The award, which celebrates "leadership in accelerating the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide," is shared by seven entities, including PepsiCo, Wells Fargo, and the City of Bellingham, WA. With the recent acquisition of leading competitor Wild Oats Markets, Whole Foods is set to significantly expand its green power purchasing. This......

It's official: Whole Foods now owns its biggest rival, Wild Oats Markets. Despite a juicy scandal over Chairman and CEO John "rahodeb" Mackey's anonymous web postings and the Federal Trade Commission's earnest efforts to prevent what they believed was a serious antitrust violation, the deal was given the green light by a federal appeals court last Thursday. Whole Foods' buyout offer called for purchasing all outstanding shares of Wild Oats for $18.50 a pop;......

Three rescue workers killed and six others injured in attempt to save trapped miners. The sleeping giant and his laughing poodle play with guns. Former "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla convicted on all counts. Two of Michael Vick's co-defendants plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. A Federal Judge will not block Whole Foods take over of Wild Oats Market. Markets rebound after Feds cut interest rate. Dutch men arrested for adding maggots to meat.......

One of the country's biggest private mortgage companies goes belly-up, leaving 120 Austinites newly jobless The Texas Department of Transportation releases a list of over 2,000 "structurally deficient" bridges across the state, with 10 in Travis County Nicole and Jeffrey Rank of Corpus Christi are awarded $80k after being wrongfully arrested at a Bush rally in 2004 Tax-free holiday weekend starts on Friday Whole Foods gets the go-ahead to buy out Wild Oats The......

Wall Street has faith in the Texas economy Dell scores low in the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index A boy swimming in Lake LBJ contracts a fatal strain of meningitis and is now fighting for his life at the Dell Children's Medical Center. Austinist wishes you well, kiddo. A 9-year-old was responsible for one of the Dollar General fires Is Whole Foods buying Wild Oats just to take 'em out? Customs officials in Hidalgo confiscate......

Local media discovers, loves Craigslist 41-year-old drunk driver manages to slam into two houses in North Austin Just one of the sixteen amendments proposed for the November ballot in Texas: stripping the constitutional powers of the Inspector of Hides and Animals Roughly four percent of Texas bridges are considered "structurally deficient," says the Texas Department of Transportation Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo announces his executive staff A lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission calls......

Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey now faces an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, after a widely-distributed article in last week's Wall Street Journal revealed that he'd been making anonymous postings on internet message boards about his company. Writing as "rahodeb"—an anagram for "Deborah," his wife's name—Mackey left a string of messages and comments dating from 1999 to 2006. Many of the remarks focused on Mackey, Whole Foods, and, more recently, on......

Whole Foods Market yesterday announced a merger agreement with fellow organic grocery chain Wild Oats Markets. The deal, worth approximately $700 million, will see the Austin-based Fortune 500 company effectively taking over and eventually rebranding most of Wild Oats Markets' 110 stores. Locally, Wild Oats operates as Sun Harvest Farms. "Wild Oats Markets and Whole Foods Market have both had a large and positive impact on the natural and organic foods movement throughout the......