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There were solid increases in home prices during the month of February across all 20 major cities where that data is tracked, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices report.

"Despite some recent mixed economic reports for March, housing continues to be one of the brighter spots in the economy," economist David Blitzer, who directs the work done by S&P Dow Jones Indices, says in the report.

Some of the data:

— The average home price in the 20 cities rose 9.3 percent from February 2012 to February 2013.

— From January to February alone, prices rose 0.3 percent.

— "Phoenix continued to stand out with an impressive year-over-year return of 23 percent."

— There were also significant year-over-year price increases in Las Vegas (17.6 percent), Atlanta (16.5 percent) and Detroit (15.2 percent).

Bloomberg News says the report is another sign that "the U.S. housing market is strengthening."

When it comes to culinary matters, France, in many minds, is synonymous with fine dining. So it may surprise you to know that, for the first time, sales at fast food chains have overtaken those at traditional restaurants in the country that gave us the word gastronomie.

That's according to an annual survey of consumer spending, traffic and other restaurant data conducted by Gira Conseil, a food consultancy firm. The latest survey, to be released in May, found that fast food chains now account for 54 percent of all restaurant sales in France.

"In previous years, we could see fast food was gaining ground, but this is the first time it has overtaken restaurants where you are served at the table," Julien Janneau of Gira Conseil, told French newspaper Nouvel Observateur.

Consumption at casual eateries serving burgers, sandwiches, pizza and other fast food has increased 14 percent in the last year alone, according to the survey.
While McDonald's has been in France since the 1970s, many industry observers say it wasn't until the turn of this century that outlets for both American and European fast food chains really began proliferating. The fast food market is now so ripe that Subway says it has opened some 400 stores in the past decade, and Burger King, which shut its 39 French restaurants 16 years ago, recently re-entered the market with great success.

"We are the second-biggest consumer of fast food, after the U.S.," Camille Labro, a food blogger for Le Monde, tells The Salt.

The rise of fast food has come as the French have grown lax about their notoriously rigid food culture rules. Frdric Maquair, who co-founded Cojean, a Parisian chain of healthy fast food outlets, in 2001, notes that meals never used to be a solitary activity. "Before, people didn't dare go by themselves to a restaurant, eating alone, reading a magazine," he tells The Salt.

Nowadays, he and others say, the French have come to see fast food as freedom from the rigid gastronomical rules that used to bind them to sitting at a table, with other people, at specific times, for multiple courses.

But there's another, more practical concern encouraging the fast food trend: a shrinking lunch break.

The French lunch hour has collapsed from 80 minutes back in 1975, to just 22 minutes, according to a 2011 study by insurer Malakoff Mederic . That, in turn, has hurt business at traditional cafes, where offerings — like the typical 13 euro ($15) multi-course lunch — are still geared toward leisurely eating habits that are, increasingly, a relic of the past.

The number of cafes in France has dropped from more than 200,000 after World War II to just 32,000 today, according to estimates from Gira Conseil.

"The offer has not changed," says Gira Conseil's Devanne Julien, "but the consumer is different." Cafes, he says, "have not been able to adapt and compete with fast food."

Indeed, adaptation has been a key to fast food's success in France — where offerings tend to be healthier than in other parts of the world. There's less emphasis on fried, and more focus on fresh ingredients and local tastes.

At British chain Pret A Manger, known for its sandwiches, a third of the menu is dedicated to French classics like apple tart and the beloved jambon-buerre, or ham and butter — which might be called the French national sandwich.

And as we've previously reported, McDonald's has risen to the top of the fast food pack in France, with more than 1,200 outlets, precisely by fine-tuning its menu to fit the local culture (think grass-fed beef burgers). The company even opened salad-only cafes, called McSalad, 2011, which managed to win over Le Monde's Labro, a firm fast-food opponent. "The dressing was made with hazelnut and balsamic vinegar," she recalls, "just like I make at home."

But American chains like McDonald's and Subway also attract French fans for the ways in which they depart from local customs — at least when it comes to wait staff, says Labro.

French waiters tend to be "so mean and unserviceable that the American way of doing things in fast food places is almost pleasant, even if the workers aren't happy," says Labro. "I'd rather have an automated experience than a waiter ready to throw food in my face. It's more relaxing."

The signing ceremony looked rather simple, but the celebrations seemed joyous Tuesday in Amsterdam as Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands handed over the crown to her son Willem-Alexander.

He becomes, as we wrote Monday, the first Dutch king since Willem III's death in 1890.

There was orange everywhere in Amsterdam, as this Associated Press video shows. The Dutch royal family line is known as the House of Orange-Nassau.

By abdicating, the 75-year-old Beatrix is following a recent tradition. The BBC notes that "Queen Beatrix's mother Juliana resigned the throne in 1980 on her 71st birthday, and her grandmother Wilhelmina abdicated in 1948 at the age of 68."

The new king just turned 46. According to his official bio, "Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand was born in the University Hospital, Utrecht, on 27 April 1967." The new queen is Mxima, "born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 17 May 1971 as Mxima Zorreguieta."

The royal couple have three daughters: "Their first child, Princess Catharina-Amalia, was born on 7 December 2003. Their second child, Princess Alexia, was born on 26 June 2005, and their third child, Princess Ariane, on 10 April 2007."

Being king does not mean Willem-Alexander can weigh in on affairs of state: "Since 1848, the Constitution has laid down that the monarch is inviolable. This means that the monarch is politically neutral and the ministers are accountable to Parliament for government policy."