Welcome back to another week of Robertson’s Reportings! Tesla is recalling over half a million cars due to the “boombox function” which can play sounds over an external speaker, obscuring audio warnings for pedestrians. This is Tesla’s fourth recall in the past two weeks; two recalls resulted from violations of federal car safety regulations while the other two were errors with software. The latter two involved a recall of 800,000 cars that may not make noise when the driver is not buckled and a recall of 27,000 cars that may defrost the windows too slowly. The most recent recall involves certain models from 2017 to 2022. Safety hazards are nothing new to Tesla: In December, Tesla disabled a function that allowed drivers to play video games on the touch screen while the vehicle is in motion. 

The Winter Olympics in Beijing has been taking place for over a week, but figure skating medalists have not received their prizes yet for a failed drug test by Russian skater Kamila Valieva. Valieva, a 15-year-old athlete who made history for landing two quadruple jumps, tested positive for trimetazidine, a drug that boosts endurance and blood efficiency. Russia was set to take the Olympic gold medal with the United States and Japan following behind, but with the doping scandal it’s possible that Russia’s win will be revoked. If that happens, the United States will take the gold with Canada earning a place on the podium. 

Novavax, a biotechnology company, released a protein-based vaccine that is 82% effective in 12 to 17-year-olds. This vaccine is similar to ones created to fight against diseases such as hepatitis B; however, Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine uses a different technology than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. While this vaccine has been cleared for use in teens, vaccine shipments have recently been delayed, causing only a small portion of the vaccine to be shipped and consequently Novavax’s stock to fall. 

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Photo Credits: MassLive.com