The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that in February, month-over-month, 22 states had unemployment rate decreases, 12 states experienced increases and 16 states and the District of Columbia saw no change.

The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices said that average home prices were up 7.3 percent for the 10-city composite and 8.1 percent for the 20-city composite in the 12 months ending in January 2013.

In the broad uptick, the Federal Reserve of Chicago reported that its National Activity Index (CFNAI) increased to +0.44 in February, from 0.49 in January.

Over the weekend, the Cypriot parliament worked on a plan to confiscate a percentage of deposits over 100,000 euros in the most troubled of the country’s banks to raise the money demanded by lenders, so that the 10 billion-euro bailout may proceed.

The Federal Open Market Committee offered its thoughts about the U.S. economy once again on Wednesday, and came out more optimistic than it’s been in a few months.

The euro-zone crisis has been somnolent lately, but over the weekend it returned to mini-panic mode in a hurry when word broke that as part of Cyprus’ bailout, the EU wants depositors in the island nation’s banks to pay a 6.75 percent tax on their deposits up to 100,000 euros, and a higher tax on deposits higher than that.

The middle class in the developing world will indeed be developing quite rapidly in the next two decades, according to the United Nation’s Human Development Report 2013.