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Home prices jump, Cypriots protest bank closures, and more in our roundup of the business stories that are making news and driving opinion

Spurred by rising prices, Phoenix is experiencing a new housing boom.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

1. HOME PRICES LEAP

In the latest sign that the housing recovery is gathering strength, home prices rose in January by the most since June 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities. Prices jumped by 8.1 percent over the same month a year earlier, after posting 6.8 percent gain for all of 2012. The January increase was slightly higher than the median forecast by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. All 20 cities included in the study saw at least some improvement. Phoenix posted the best numbers of all, with a 23.2 percent surge. [Bloomberg]

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.