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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

Richard Lawler joined The Verge as Senior News Editor in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget. He’s been a tech blogger since before the word was invented, and will never log off.

More From Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The NBA suspends Steve Ballmer for a year and takes five draft picks over the Kawhi Leonard scandal.

The NBA has announced penalties from its investigation into cap circumvention allegations around the Clippers, Kawhi Leonard, and a string of companies that inked shady “endorsement” deals with the star: Aspiration, Daktronics, Boingo Wireless, and Lockton Insurance, as detailed in a report from the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

There are also fines ($30 million for the Clippers, $700,000 for Leonard), suspensions for two team execs and Leonard’s uncle, and the investigation is apparently ongoing.

THERE IS EVIDENCE OF THE CLIPPERS FUNDING AN ENDORSEMENT AGREEMENT The foregoing makes clear that the Clippers violated NBA rules in connection with the Boingo, Daktronics, and Lockton endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard. Investigators note, however, that the Clippers’ misconduct may have been even more severe. As set forth above, the timing of the three endorsement agreements with Mr. Leonard coincides with each of the companies receiving multi-million dollar payments from the Clippers, purportedly in connection with business to be provided by these companies to the team. But these payments may in fact have been made principally to fund the endorsement deals with Mr. Leonard. Indeed, a credible witness with direct knowledge told investigators that the consulting agreement one company signed with the Clippers was in fact a ruse, designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard. According to this witness, the company was willing to enter into such a sham consulting agreement based on the promise to win a much larger services contract with the Clippers. This confidential information came to investigators late in the investigation, and additional steps are ongoing to corroborate it.
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Tim Cook’s final Apple Store visit (as CEO).

Before Tuesday’s handover, Tim Cook spoke to the staff in the store at the Apple Visitor Center. He also assured them he would be making many more Apple Store visits in the future, which Bloomberg notes comes with a salary cut, going from $3 million to $2 million annually. An SEC filing from Apple revealed Cook is in line for a compensation package worth around $47 million, while Ternus’ is about $58 million.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Rockstar introduces “the next evolution of GTA V roleplay” with Nopixel V.

Even while developing GTA VI, Rockstar has also had an eye on popular mods and RP communities for its old game, and today it revealed this trailer for Nopixel V. Announced a year ago, it builds on GTA V Enhanced for PC with a heavily modified city and support for extensive editing by players.

A closed beta for invited players opens September 8th, as we continue to wait for details about any future GTA VI multiplayer or PC options.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
John Ternus sets up his twttr.

Apple’s new CEO is jumping onto social media with his registered-in-June X account on day one. No sign of a presence on Instagram or anywhere else yet.

John Ternus is now the CEO of AppleJohn Ternus is now the CEO of Apple
Richard Lawler and Thomas Ricker
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Sony brings free TV to the PS5.

With PlayStation Vue long gone, Sony added a new FAST package today for PlayStation 5 owners in the US and soon in Canada, available under the Media section.

You will need an adult PlayStation account and to set up a Sony Pictures Core account (according to Variety, the same package is coming to Bravia TVs) for channels like The Ringer, Hot Ones, NHL, Sony’s own Crunchyroll, and others with a mix of live and on-demand videos.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Pflugerville, Texas, cancels its Flock contract after a records request found outside agencies searched its data 1.6 million times.

The San Antonio Express-News reports that a request from Pflugerville, TX, resident Sam Aly found that hundreds of unauthorized agencies were searching the city’s Flock data, even though the company claims only two agencies were improperly included. The City Council canceled Flock’s contract last week and covered its cameras.

Aly:

Between February 16 and August 15, 2026, outside agencies searched Pflugerville’s camera data 1,597,918 times. 1.6 million searches in six months. 459 different agencies searched us. That works out to roughly 8,900 outside searches per day, every day. Our own police department ran 5,078 searches in the same period. So for every 1 search by Pflugerville PD, outside agencies ran 315.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
OpenClaw 2.0 launches as Peter Steinberger says, “Local harnesses feel like relics of the past now.”

After the initial hype, the often-imitated OpenClaw is continuing to push new updates, releasing version 2.0 and promising a cleanup that touched every area of the bot’s framework with simplified installs, setup, and a rebuilt browser app.

Founder Peter Steinberger touted the use of shared cloud sessions to work on this update, with “Multiplayer coding + infinite compute” that kept everyone on the team up to date with others’ progress.

Screenshot of OpenClaw’s rebuilt browser app with the message “Welcome to OpenClaw 2.0” typed in the chat box.
Image: OpenClaw