GM recall impacts several trucks, SUVs

An issue with a transmission control valve in several trucks and SUVs led General Motors to announce a recall Wednesday of nearly 462,000 vehicles. According to the Associated Press, the recall impacts certain 2021-22 model year Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks, as well as 2021 Cadillac Escalade, GMC Yukon and Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban vehicles.

Documents posted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website indicate that the transmission control valve can wear out, which can cause it to fail and make the rear wheels lock up. If that happens, it can increase the risk of a crash. GM says drivers may notice the vehicle shifting harshly before they notice any wheel issues.

After receiving an owner complaint about the issue in January, GM discussed the problem with U.S. safety regulators before launching an investigation in July. Two months later, a GM investigator found 1,888 reports of wheel lock up that could be related to the issue.

GM is also aware of 11 incidents that could be related to the problem that included drivers veering off the road and causing minor property damage in some cases. Three minor injuries were also reported, however GM says those injuries are not related to a crash.

Bluesky adds 1M users since election

Social media site Bluesky has gained 1 million new users in the week since the U.S. election, as some X users look for an alternative platform to post their thoughts and engage with others online. Bluesky said Wednesday that its total users surged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October.

Championed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky was an invitation-only space until it opened to the public in February. That invite-only period gave the site time to build out moderation tools and other features. The platform resembles X, with a “discover” feed as well as a chronological feed for accounts that users follow. Users can send direct messages and pin posts, as well as find “starter packs” that provide a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow.

The post-election uptick in users isn’t the first time that Bluesky has benefitted from people leaving X. Bluesky gained 2.6 million users in the week after X was banned in Brazil in August, the company said. About 500,000 new users signed up in the span of one day last month when X signaled that blocked accounts would be able to see a user’s public posts.

Despite Bluesky’s growth, X posted last week that it had “dominated the global conversation on the U.S. election” and had set new records. The platform saw a 15.5% jump in new-user signups on Election Day, X said, with a record 942 million posts worldwide. Representatives for Bluesky and for X did not respond to requests for comment.

Supreme Court careful in Nvidia case

US Supreme Court justices signaled they are headed toward a narrow ruling on shareholder lawsuits as they weighed an effort to sue Nvidia Corp. for allegedly misleading investors over its dependence on crypto-mining revenue.

Hearing arguments on Wednesday, several justices questioned whether the court was right to take up Nvidia’s appeal, saying the case didn’t present the kind of broad legal issue that normally prompts Supreme Court review. Chief Justice John Roberts said both sides had made the issues too “black and white.”

Nvidia contends the lawsuit lacks enough specificity to go forward to the evidence-gathering stage of litigation. Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised the possibility the court could order reconsideration by the federal appeals court that said the lawsuit could proceed.

The Nvidia shareholders say that in 2017 and 2018, Chief Executive Jensen Huang hid the fact that record revenue growth was being driven by mining-related sales of the company’s flagship GeForce GPU product rather than by sales for gaming.

Compiled from The Associated Press and Bloomberg.