Beck Diefenbach/Reuters

Maybe corporate America finally got too greedy for its own good.

Michael Edwards

Plus-size fashion blogger Gabi Gregg designed a collection of swimwear for women sizes 10 through 24. She talks to Claire Stern about her new line, the “fatkini” trend, and her Spring Breakers-inspired photo shoot.

Gabi Gregg may not have invented the term “fatkini”—an amalgam of the words “fat” and “bikini”—but she can certainly be credited for taking the burgeoning trend to new heights.Last May, when the plus-size fashion blogger, better known by her pen name GabiFresh, created an online fatkini photo gallery of 31 voluptuous, bikini-clad women for lifestyle website xoJane.com, the two-pieces went viral.One year later, Gregg has partnered with Swimsuits for All, an online retailer of plus-size women’s swimwear, to create a fatkini line of her own.

Marco Beck Peccoz

Welcome to Wikihouse: the site for collaborative, buildable homes.

The Internet goes wild.

JCPenney just can’t catch a break. A recent billboard from the flailing department store features a teapot that looks curiously like Adolf Hitler. The $40 piece of kitchenware has sparked an Internet frenzy, with users on Reddit even speculating that the chain purposely promoted the Nazi teapot to get people talking—not the first time a conspiracy theory was hatched on Reddit. JCPenney responded to individuals via twitter, calling any likeness unintended and said, given its druthers, the company would have gone with a puppy or snowman. Check out the picture at Reddit.

Read it at Gawker

Jack Guez/AFP/Getty

It was Israel’s best-hope electric-car startup, and it just filed for bankruptcy. Daniel Gross on why the land of milk and honey isn’t quite ready for a battery-powered future.

It’s not all coming up green in the electric car industry. Sure, Tesla is making money and just managed to pay back its government loan. But Better Place, the Israel-based startup that raised and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build an electric car system, has filed for bankruptcy. The brainchild of software entrepreneur Shai Agassi, a former top executive at SAP, Better Place attracted a lot of attention and capital—but not many customers.

Makani Power/Andrea Swenson Dunlap

The search giant has extended its investments in green power by buying a California startup that deploys robot-piloted kites to generate electricity from wind.

Google, going beyond its investments in clean energy, has bought an intriguing wind-power company called Makani Power and brought it into the fold of its mysterious Google X research program. Founded in 2006 by some entrepreneurial kite surfers, Makani makes flying wind turbines. They’re essentially giant robot-piloted kites that fly in circles, collecting energy using wing-mounted turbines and transferring it back to earth using a conductive tether.

Matthew Eisman/Getty

Wall Street cash and global plutocrats are driving rents in the Hamptons to record levels.

by Robert Frank If you think your rent is high, consider summer rentals in the Hamptons.Brokers say there are now at least a half dozen homes and estates in the Hamptons that are renting for around $1 million—just for the summer. That works out to $9,803 per day, or $408 an hour. And the $1 million lease doesn't include utility bills or other charges, which can run in the tens of thousands.Brokers say the number of million-dollar rentals marks a new record.

Fred Bauer notes what may be the single biggest difference between 2007 and today when it comes to immigration reform: Democrats have come around to guest worker programs. That comes at a cost:The 2007 bill’s guest-worker program differs in a variety of ways from the Gang of Eight’s program. But some of the major concerns remain constant. The current guest-worker program could further drive down wages in both high- and low-skill sectors. It could empower the politically connected at the expense of the average worker.

Spencer Platt/Getty

Consumer confidence at a five-year high.

Traders came back from the long weekend rested—and ready to buy. The U.S. stock market got off to a flying start on Tuesday thanks to reports that suggest the economy is continuing to power forward. The Case-Shiller housing index showed that between March 2012 and March 2013, housing prices rose an impressive 10.9 percent. And the Conference Board reported that its measure of consumer confidence surged to a five-year high. At midday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 150 points, or about 1 percent.

Read it at CNBC

Best in seven years.

The S&P/Case-Shiller index is out, and single-family home prices gained 1.1 percent in March, beating the expectation of 1 percent. Year over year, the prices were up 10.9 percent, the largest increase since 2006. The overall gain for the first quarter, 3.9 percent, is much higher than the 2.4 percent of the final quarter of 2012, an indication of the returning strength of the housing market.

Read it at Reuters