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Ivana and Andrew Casterlin welcomed a healthy baby boy in 2021.
For many Austinites, 2020 couldn't end fast enough as they looked forward to the fresh start a new year symbolizes. For some families, the day was made even sweeter with the welcome of new additions.
Paulo Andres Casterlin Escobar came into the world three seconds after midnight on Jan 1. The 7.1 pound healthy baby boy was born to parents Ivana and Andrew Casterlin at Ascension Seton Medical Center. Young Paulo was the first baby born in Austin in 2021.
Meanwhile, St. David's saw the second birth of the year just 30 minutes later. Kesha Matthews gave birth to her baby boy Jordan Arvie Jr. just months after Hurricane Laura forced the family to flee from Lake Charles to Austin.
A spokesperson said this is Matthews' and Arvie's third child.
Austin Pets Alive! also welcomed their first litter of 2021 this weekend when one of their felines, Sparkle, gave birth to two kittens in a foster home. Anthony, Abigail and their three-year-old mother will all be available to go into their forever home(s) in a couple of months when the kittens are old enough.
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A $6,000 cockatoo named Lemon Grab was stolen from a pet store Sunday afternoon, owner Kelsey Fernandez said. (Kelsey Fernandez)
A big-money bird has been stolen from a northwest Austin pet store.
Kelsey Fernandez, the owner of a $6,000 sulphur and citron-crested cockatoo named Lemon Grab, said the emotional support animal was taken from the Gallery of Pets store, around closing time on Sunday.
"I've struggled with mental illness my entire life, and ever since I got him I've been doing so much better," Fernandez told Austonia.
The $6k cockatoo is young and will starve unless he is fed by hand, Fernandez said.
In a surveillance video, a man appears to have something under his shirt as he and two others exit the business around the same time the store believes that Lemon Grab was stolen.
Fernandez said a report has been filed with the Austin Police Department with an $1,000 reward for his return.
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(Pexels)
Introverts and personal space lovers may not want to make the move to Austin anytime soon: The Texas capital saw a bigger increase in one-bedroom rent prices than almost any other U.S. city in April, according to a Rent.com report.
Austin's one-bedroom rent has more than doubled—a 112% increase—from April 2021 to 2022, the report said. Only Oklahoma City saw a higher year-over-year increase with a 133% jump.
Austin also had the fourth-highest increase in two-bedroom rent, with a 50% increase in the past year. The city joined a nationwide trend where rents were up 8.3% year-over-year across the U.S, a trend exacerbated by a 6.2% increase in inflation in the same time period.
But "not everyone is experiencing inflation the same way," Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr said in the report, and a brunt of the load has gone to cities with more move-ins. While over 90% of state rental markets increased in the last year, that jump was seen most in Sun Belt states, including Texas, Arizona and Florida.
Even with breakneck increases in rent, however, Austin's rent prices still haven't cracked the top 10: the city's one-bedroom apartments are the 12th most expensive in the nation with an average price of $2,918. Meanwhile, its two-bedrooms fall behind Texas cities Frisco, Dallas and Plano and come out 34th on the list with a $2,302 average monthly rent.
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