Bloomberg UK house prices rose unexpectedly in February, continuing a surge fueled by a temporary tax relief on purchases and Covid-induced shifts in people’s lifestyles. Values increased 0.7% from January to an average of 231,068 pounds ($321,000), Nationwide Building Society said. They climbed 6.9% from a year ago, accelerating from the 6.4% pace registered a month earlier. Housing boomed last …

Bloomberg Swedish house prices soared to the highest level ever recorded, as a growing number of people make use of unprecedented central bank stimulus to upgrade into bigger homes. “From a credit perspective, one can only conclude that the market has been gripped by hysteria, which is connected to central banks pumping money into the system,” said Carl Johan Lagercrantz, …

Bloomberg Google is under growing pressure to pay for information that, for two decades, the search provider snipped from the web — and made a mint from — without paying a penny. Australian and French efforts to force Google to compensate news publishers are only the latest examples of a trend spanning the globe. Canada is considering a similar requirement …