128 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
Skip to main content

Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    NASA shows off the first images and data from its new asteroid samples.

    During a press conference on October 11th, NASA administrators and scientists showed off the initial results from their analysis of the sample capsule returned from the OSIRIS-REx mission that grabbed bits of the asteroid Bennu and brought them back to Earth last month.

    While the larger rocks in the craft’s Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) have yet to be evaluated, here are a few images from the livestream showing what they’ve found in the canister lid and base around the TAGSAM.

    1/5
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Ghostwire: Tokyo is free for Amazon Prime subscribers this month.

    No, it’s not part of the big Prime Day shenanigans, and yes, it means adding one more title to gaming backlogs that are already busting at the seams.

    But if you have Amazon Prime (and an Epic Games Store account), then consider hitting this Prime Gaming promotional page before November 2nd to acquire Ghostwire: Tokyo for free., Andrew Webster called the 2022 title “a mix of action, adventure, and scares in a tight package that can be wrapped up in less than 20 hours.”

    1/5
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Maybe it’s the new haircut?

    Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly is sporting a jailhouse haircut during his fraud trial over FTX’s failure, and observers, including this NPR reporter and CNBC, note that his ex, Caroline Ellison, needed a little time to find him in the courtroom.

    According to CNBC and the New York Times, once her testimony began, she wasted little time:

    “Sam directed me to commit these crimes,” she said. He “directed us to take customer money to pay loans.”

    Expect a full report from Liz Lopatto later today.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    He’s over there...

    Former Alameda Research CEO and ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried Caroline Ellison has begun testifying in the fraud trial against SBF.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    True, yet misleading.

    On the stand today during Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial, Gary Wang dove into his evolving explanation of the infamous (and now-deleted) SBF tweet saying that “FTX is fine. Assets are fine,” that he posted the day before Binance’s acquisition announcement, which is when things truly came apart.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The Sam Bankman-Fried fraud trial continues.

    The Verge reporter Liz Lopatto is back in a New York City courtroom today, as Sam Bankman-Fried’s friends turned cooperating witnesses continue to take the stand in the case against the fallen FTX boss.

    We broke down FTX CTO Gary Wang’s testimony / code review on Friday, and today the case restarted with him still on the stand, and former Alameda CEO and SBF ex Caroline Ellison is expected to make her appearance later today. Stay tuned here for all of the latest updates from the crypto exchange fraud trial.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    BAYC layoffs.

    Yuga Labs, the $4 billion outfit behind the Bored Apes and other NFT projects, announced recently “that a number of roles have been eliminated across the company,” with restructuring cutting jobs in the US and leaving international roles under evaluation.

    Now Yuga’s going “all-in on our Otherside strategy,” referring to its metaverse gaming land grab.

    Meanwhile, someone continues to trade the tokens at prices of more than $40,000, and despite the NFT market’s ongoing slide, projects like Starbucks Odyssey and Nike’s .SWOOSH keep trying to make it catch on.

    On Today's News

    [Yuga Labs News]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Vermont power company’s plan to ‘end outages’ by 2030 includes installing lots of batteries.

    The New York Times and WCAX 3 in Vermont report on a regulatory filing submitted by Green Mountain Power Company asking to spend $280 million to bury power cables, add spacers to cables that can’t be buried, and install more battery backup storage units for customers in the most remote rural areas.

    NYT:

    Green Mountain would control the batteries, allowing it to program them to soak up energy when wind turbines and solar panels were producing a lot of it. Then, when demand peaked on a hot summer day, say, the batteries could release electricity.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Important Information to Share with Chinese Government.

    That is the title of a Word document allegedly created by Joseph Schmidt, a former US Army Sergeant with Top Secret clearance.

    After his separation from the military, Schmidt allegedly reached out to the Chinese Consulate in Turkey and later, the Chinese security services via email offering information about national defense information.

    The FBI affidavit details info collected from his Google, Apple, and Microsoft accounts, showing he searched topics like “can you be extradited for treason,” and visited “What Do Real Spies Do and How are they Recruited – Reddit,” as well as this AMA by a former CIA intelligence officer.