MoneyWatch

Tesla reported Wednesday that its first-quarter net earnings were over seven times greater than a year ago, powered by strong sales despite global supply-chain challenges and pandemic-related production cuts in China.  The electric vehicle and solar panel company made $3.32 billion from January through March. Revenue for the quarter was …

Shortly after moving to South Florida for a new job with the U.S. military, Shannon Kaufman and his wife, Wendy, signed up for another mission: buying a home. After visiting 200 listings and making offers on 15 homes that ultimately didn’t pan out, the Kaufmans finally found a home that …

U.S. safety regulators have opened an investigation into electric and hybrid vehicle batteries after five automakers issued recalls due to possible defects that could cause fires or stalling. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the probe covers more than 138,000 vehicles with batteries made by LG Energy Solution of …

The U.S. government is suing Intuit, alleging that the owner of the widely used tax filing software TurboTax is lying to customers by claiming the product is free and then steering them toward paid services and products. The Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint on Monday in the Northern District …

A trio of unexpected losses during the NCAA March Madness tournament this week have shattered more than half the brackets wagered and frustrated millions of college sports gamblers nationwide. Most fans who completed a bracket picked the University of Kentucky — a high-achieving college hoops school — to defeat the …

Americans already grappling with surging inflation must also now contend with record-high gas prices after they jumped on Tuesday to  $4.17 per gallon. That’s expected to cost motorists thousands more to fuel up their vehicles annually. With oil analysts predicting that prices at the pump could stay elevated for months, here …

Ford is recalling nearly a quarter-million heavy duty pickup trucks in the U.S. because the drive shafts can fracture and cause a loss of power. The recall covers certain F-250 and F-350 Super Duty pickups from the 2017 through 2022 model years. The trucks have gasoline engines and aluminum drive …

The Texas Attorney General is suing Facebook’s parent company, saying it collected biometric data on Texans for commercial purposes without their informed consent. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit Monday in a state district court. The suit claims Facebook parent Meta has been “storing millions of biometric identifiers” — …

The stock market tumbled on Thursday after Facebook-parent Meta reported disappointing quarterly results and said it lost users for the first time in its history. The social media giant’s value plunged by about $237 billion — the biggest one-day loss for a publicly traded company in stock market history.  The …

Last week on Twitter, Jack Dorsey trashed the buzzy tech trend known as Web3, telling consumers to be wary and dismissing it as a tool for venture capitalists hyping cryptocurrency. Tim O’Reilly, the author who coined the phrase Web 2.0 back in 2004, also warned this month it was too early to get …