Virginia is back at the top of CNBC’s annual ranking of the best states for business, after slipping one spot last year. The financial-news channel announced its 2009 rankings yesterday, with Virginia back in the No. 1 spot it first won in 2007. Last year’s top-ranked state, Texas, is No. 2 this year, followed by Colorado, Iowa and Utah.

If you’re one of those Richmonders looking for a good place to make a new start, just look out the window. Richmond is ranked the sixth-best place in the nation to start over for someone who has been laid off or is just looking for a career or lifestyle change, according to BusinessWeek.com.

The weekly BCS (Bowl Championship Series) football rankings can provoke fistfights—just ask fans of Texas and Oklahoma, for instance. Now comes a poll that might result in carnage in the nation’s concert halls, or at least among the approximately 73 Americans who remain interested in music. Britain’s Gramophone magazine asked music critics around the world to rate symphony orchestras. Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw came in first, with the philharmonics in Berlin and Vienna at second and third. The top U.S. band—the Chicago Symphony—finished fifth. The greatest concert we have heard was a Mahler Third with the Cleveland Orchestra led by Pierre Boulez, and Cleveland scored seventh worldwide.