--Facing an uncertain U.S. economy and a flailing Europe, Italian fashion house Prada is planning to open 260 stores in the next three years to capture consumers in emerging markets who are hungry for luxury goods, a report says.

The Milan company, which owns Miu Miu and Church's in addition to its marquee Prada brand, is planning fresh outlets in countries such as Turkey, China and Brazil, according to Bloomberg.

Prada Chief Executive Patrizio Bertelli (also husband of head designer Miuccia Prada) told Bloomberg that the company will add 100 new stores this year and 160 stores the following two years.

"We are expanding in Morocco, Istanbul, Beirut, Dubai and Qatar," Bertelli said. "Brazil is also a big market we're looking at."

--British online retailer Asos reported a sizable jump in profit in the last fiscal year as shoppers snapped up more of its stylish yet affordable clothes.

For the 2012 fiscal year, the clothier raked in a profit of 40.9 million pounds (about $64 million), up 43%...

Less than 24 hours after a historic docking, astronauts aboard the International Space Station clambered into SpaceX's unmanned Dragon spacecraft and began unloading supplies that were packed inside.

Wearing oxygen masks as a precaution, the astronauts opened the hatch, slid the door open, and took delivery of the 1,014 pounds of food, water and clothing aboard Dragon.

"Like the smell of a brand new car," said NASA astronaut Don Pettit, after going inside.

Live coverage of the momentous hatch opening, which included some of the first video footage from inside the cone-shaped Dragon, started Saturday shortly before 3 a.m Pacific on the Hawthorne company's website and NASA TV.

Delivering cargo wasn't SpaceX's key mission -- the space station is well-provisioned. The main purpose was to demonstrate that the Dragon space capsule could rendezvous with the $100-billion orbiting outpost and link up with the space station's onboard computers.

Those goals were achieved when the Dragon docked with...

The car: 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth

The power: 160 horsepower and 170 pound-feet of torque from a 1.4-liter, inline, turbocharged four-cylinder engine routing power to the front wheels via a five-speed manual transmission.

The photos: 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth

The speed: Zero to 60 mph in 6.6 seconds, according to Road & Track.

The bragging rights: Peppiest little squirt on the road.

The price: $22,700 is the base entry fee; $26,050 as tested.

The details: Looking to add a little spezia to its diminutive 500 and perhaps steal away a few sales from the slightly larger Mini Cooper S, Fiat has introduced to the U.S. a little terror called the 500 Abarth (ah-bart). A similar version has been gnashing at the roads in Europe since 2008, but our example lands with more power and a single transmission choice, so if you like your shifts done for you, this isn't your car.

The Abarth gets its "go" by taking the 500's 1.4-liter engine and adding a prodigious 59 horsepower and 72 pound-feet of torque...

SACRAMENTO -- A Bay Area technology firm specializing in electric vehicles is suing state energy regulators, accusing them of giving a monopoly over charging stations to an out-of-state power company.

In March, the California Public Utilities Commission and Gov. Jerry Brown announced that the state settled a decade-old claim against Dynegy Inc. Dynegy at the time co-owned a fleet of power plants with NRG Energy Inc. that had allegedly overcharged the state for electricity during the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.

In the settlement, NRG agreed to pay a $20 million penalty to the state and invest an additional $102 million in a network of more than 10,000 fast-charging and plug-in charging stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles Basin and San Diego.

"The settlement will dramatically expand California's electric vehicle infrastructure, helping to clean our air and reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Brown said at a ceremony in Santa Barbara County...

A new report shows Las Vegas metro area prices rose year-over-year in April for the first time since June 2010.

The median home price for the region was up 2.5% from April 2011 and 4.3% from the prior month to hit $119,000, according to research firm DataQuick of San Diego. The median is the point at which half the homes in the area sold for more and half for less.

It was the first year-over-year gain in nearly two years. Last time the median was rising year over year, sales stemming from a popular tax credit were peaking. Sales and prices fell once the boost from that tax credit evaporated.

These days, a lack of homes on the market appears to be putting a floor underneath prices. Sales last month were lower than what is typical for an April, according to DataQuick. A total of 4,409 new and previously owned homes and condominiums sold last month, down 12.2% from the prior month and a 1.8% decline from a year earlier.

Foreclosures have been popular properties for investors. Last year, the...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration may be getting tougher with China on trade, but its approach in dealing with Beijing on the thorny currency issue remains patient diplomacy.

The Treasury Department, in its semiannual report Friday on exchange-rate policies, once again refrained from labeling China a currency manipulator -- an accusation that would embarrass Beijing and trigger negotiations and possibly even lead to U.S. sanctions.

The Treasury report made plain that U.S. officials believe that China’s currency, the yuan, remains “significantly undervalued.” An artificially cheaper yuan gives Chinese exporters an extra price advantage in selling their goods in the U.S. But Treasury still declined to cite China, saying that the Chinese have made progress in correcting currency and related imbalances and also have assured the U.S. that they would move more quickly to adopt a more flexible, market-based exchange-rate system.

Treasury officials didn’t say...

Investors are still asking what Facebook is really worth. But a more apt question might be: What's the average CEO worth?

The head of a typical public company pocketed $9.6 million in compensation last year, according to some number crunching from the Associated Press.

This represents a more than 6% increase from the previous year and is the highest average figure seen since the AP began tracking executive compensation in 2006.

To put things in perspective, consider the case of David Simon, chief executive of Simon Property. He received a pay package worth more than $137 million.

A minimum-wage worker making $7.25 per hour -- as some workers at Simon malls are paid -- would have to work nearly 9,096 years to make what the boss made in a single 12-month period. Someone earning the national median salary of $39,312 would have to work 3,489 years.

Let's say Simon, as an industrious CEO, puts in a 60-hour week. That means he's pulling down $43,963.64 per hour, or $732.73 per minute.

Put another...

It’s not looking good for the Spanish banking system. Standard & Poor’s just slashed the credit ratings of five banks and said the country is headed into a double-dip recession. One of them, Bankia, just asked the government for 19 billion euros in aid - a roughly $23.8 billion boost.

That makes it the largest bank bailout in Spain’s history. Combined with escalating concerns that Greece is about to execute its so-called Grexit from the euro currency, the news is doing nothing to alleviate the heightened anxiety in the euro zone.

Standard & Poor’s, which caused market shockwaves last summer when it downgraded U.S. debt, said the Spanish banking sector was vulnerable to turbulence in capital markets because it relies heavily on foreign funding.

The ratings agency dropped Bankia, Bankinter and Banco Popular Espanol into junk status, all with a BB+ score. Banca Civica and Bankia’s parent company, Baco Financiero y de Ahorros, also were lowered.

S&P downgraded...

For the first time in a year, Californians consumed more gasoline in a month than they had during the same period a year earlier, according to the State's Board of Equalization.

It happened in February, which is the Equalization Board's most recent full month of statistics. California gasoline consumption rose 2.1% that month, to more than 1.15 billion gallons, compared with the same month in 2011. Board officials said that the end of the streak was significant.

For one thing, California as a state had led the nation in reducing the amount of gasoline it was using, even though it added 1.8 million licensed drivers between 2002 and 2012, according to statistics from the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.

Board officials chose to emphasize a different point. The increase in gas consumption came in spite of the fact that gasoline prices in the state reached an average of $4.03 a gallon in February, which was 12.6% higher than a year earlier.

Equalization Board Chairman Jerome E. Horton...

Groupon subscribers this week are getting an email from the daily deals site informing them that they might be eligible to get a chunk of a proposed $8.5 million settlement.

Last month, without admitting fault or wrongdoing, Groupon Inc. settled a class-action lawsuit that had taken issue with the company’s use of expiration dates.

Illegal and hidden restrictions on certain discounts and bargains included stipulations that the coupons be used up in one visit or within a too-small time frame, according to the lawsuit -- an amalgamation of 17 individual suits rolled into a unified filing and sent to California district court last year.

Anyone who bought a U.S. Groupon deal or was given one between Nov. 1, 2008 and Dec. 1, 2011 is eligible to make a claim. But the payout will likely be measured in pennies.

A sizable portion of the proposed $8.5-million disbursement -- which is set to go before a judge for approval in late June -- will go toward lawyers fees. Each of the original...