Baton Rouge – September 19, 2026 -- The Inner Circle has named Asia Alexus Alexander, M.S.M., a Pinnacle Professional of The Year for her work in marketing education. Alexander teaches marketing at Southern University and A&M College, where she structures coursework around live case studies, industry guest speakers, and analytics-driven projects to replicate the pace of modern marketing agencies.
Pittsburgh – September 19, 2026 -- An inventor from Nampa, Idaho, has developed the Hike & Hide, a multipurpose attachment that combines a trowel, stake driver, and trekking pole accessory into a single lightweight tool, according to a submission filed with InventHelp.
The invention adds a trowel head to a standard trekking pole, allowing users to anchor and remove tent stakes, retrieve dropped stakes or poles, dig a cat hole, extinguish campfires, and garden without bending. The design eliminates the need for a separate hammer when driving stakes into the ground.
Scottsdale, Ariz. – September 18, 2026 -- Axon Enterprise Inc. (Nasdaq: AXON) has priced $1.0 billion in aggregate principal amount of 0% convertible senior notes due 2031, with underwriters holding an option to purchase up to an additional $150.0 million to cover over-allotments.
The sale to underwriters is expected to settle on September 18, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions. The public safety technology maker will direct $99.9 million of net proceeds, or $114.9 million with the over-allotment, toward capped call transactions, with the remainder earmarked for general corporate purposes including potential acquisitions of, or investments in, other businesses.
Chicago – – September 18, 2026 -- Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE: ORI) has entered a national charitable partnership with the American Red Cross through its Disaster Responder Program, committing advance funding to strengthen the humanitarian organization's emergency-response capacity.
The American Red Cross responds to roughly 60,000 disaster events each year nationwide, delivering shelter, meals, emotional support, relief supplies and recovery resources to affected families. The Disaster Responder Program pools advance contributions from corporate members to fund the personnel, infrastructure, supply chains, technology and training the Red Cross needs to mobilize quickly when disasters strike.
Cincinnati and Indianapolis – September 18, 2026 -- L2 Aviation has appointed Jason Marshall, former Director of Business Development at AMETEK, as its Vice President of Sales and Business Development, tasking him with converting qualified opportunities into bookings across commercial, business, military, and special-mission markets.
In his new role, Marshall will direct business development efforts, strengthen customer and partner relationships, and align sales strategy with L2 Aviation's engineering, manufacturing, certification, aircraft modification, repair, and field-support capabilities. His mandate extends to Advanced Air Mobility, a vertical the company is targeting alongside existing commercial and defense markets.
Oklahoma City – September 18, 2026 -- Continental Resources, Inc. has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) to operate and develop the Ayacucho 2 Block in Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt, a region holding an estimated 30 billion barrels of resource in place.
The Ayacucho 2 Block sits north of the Orinoco River in Anzoátegui state. Upon execution of a long-term Contrato de Participación Productiva (CPP) agreement, expected in the coming weeks, Continental will hold a 100% working interest and operate the block directly.
Austin, Texas – September 18, 2026 -- LeanDNA has named 26 finalists for its second annual APEX Awards, expanding the program from four to six categories as it recognizes measurable supply chain transformation across its manufacturer customer base.
LeanDNA introduced the APEX Architect Award, honoring individual power users of its newest platform capabilities, and the APEX Synergy Award, recognizing teams that unified departments around APEX as a single source of truth. For the first time, nominations were opened beyond LeanDNA staff to the broader customer community, allowing customers to nominate themselves, peers, and teams.
San Francisco – September 18, 2026 -- Aristotle, a voice-first AI tutoring platform, has closed $5 million in seed funding led by True Ventures, with participation from Wicklow Capital and angel investors from Anthropic, OpenAI, Sierra, Ramp, and Cognition.
The startup is launching nationwide after a closed beta in which more than 1,000 students completed over 1,500 hours of one-on-one tutoring sessions. The platform targets students ages 13-18 across STEM subjects, standardized testing, and language learning.
Boca Raton, Fla. – September 18, 2026 -- The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) has designated Florida Atlantic University (FAU) as an Innovation & Economic Prosperity (IEP) University, placing it among just over 90 higher education institutions nationwide to hold the credential.
The designation followed an independent, rigorous review process that engaged more than 1,000 internal and external stakeholders, including students, alumni, faculty, community partners, local employers, entrepreneurs, nonprofits and public agencies. The IEP status recognizes universities that collaborate with public and private sector partners to drive economic development through innovation, entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and workforce development.
Washington – September 18, 2026 -- The National Press Club will host a screening of "Contaminated: The Carpet Industry's Toxic Legacy" on September 30 at 6:00 p.m., spotlighting a joint investigation into PFAS chemical contamination linked to carpet manufacturing across Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina.
The documentary was produced by FRONTLINE (PBS), The Associated Press, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Post and Courier and AL.com. The investigation draws on thousands of pages of documents and court depositions, alongside interviews with former regulators, industry insiders, doctors and scientists studying illnesses linked to PFAS exposure.
Pittsburgh – September 18, 2026 -- InventHelp has submitted a new patent-pending cigarette butt disposal invention, the 4-BUTTS, to its National Sales Office and made the design available for licensing or sale to manufacturers and marketers.
The 4-BUTTS is designed to mount on multiple existing structures -- including trash cans, light poles, flag poles, fence posts and trees -- giving smokers a dedicated disposal point wherever they are. The design can also help secure a trash bag to a can, according to the filing.
Kansas City – September 18, 2026 -- Conexon's Conexon 100 Club now counts nearly 50 electric cooperatives across 13 states that have delivered fiber broadband to 100 percent of their members, following the induction of seven new co-ops in 2026.
The 2026 inductees -- Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative (Oklahoma), Central Florida Electric Cooperative, Glades Electric Cooperative, Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative (all Florida), and Grady EMC, Habersham EMC and Satilla REMC (all Georgia) -- finished on-system fiber-to-the-home construction between the second half of 2025 and the first half of 2026.
New York – September 18, 2026 -- Kohler has returned as the official kitchen & bath and plumbing partner of the 2026 Kips Bay Decorator Show House New York, joining 22 designers and architects transforming a historic Greenwich Village townhouse at 80 Washington Place.
The 1839 Georgian townhouse, spanning six levels with grand entertaining spaces, private terraces, a dedicated wellness level, and a rooftop deck overlooking Washington Square Park, opened to the public on September 16 and runs through October 13, 2026. Kohler products integrated into the residence include the Synthos workstation sink, Numi 2.0 Smart Toilet, Kohler x Remedy Place Ice Bath, Artifacts faucet collection, Occasion collection, Components collection, Memoirs collection, and a cast iron Porto Fino sink.
Dallas – September 18, 2026 -- Vega Upstream JV, LLC has completed its acquisition of Toklan Oil and Gas Corporation and affiliated entities for a net purchase price of $15 million, adding 28 producing wells across roughly 7,000 net acres in the Western Anadarko basin.
Beyond the operated acreage, Toklan brings a non-operated interest portfolio spanning more than 250 wells, with combined operated and non-operated net production of approximately 500 BOE/d. The transaction also transferred West Thomas Field Services, which owns and operates the Deer Greek Gathering System and associated surface acreage, giving Vega JV midstream infrastructure alongside its upstream position.
Pittsburgh – – September 18, 2026 -- Two inventors from Waldron, Ark., have developed the EASY-PULL PULLING EYE, a device designed to speed up horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operations by enabling pullback directly with an HDD hammerhead.
The tool removes the need to pull an entire bore out of the ground and swap heads before pulling back pipe, a step that currently consumes time and labor on trenchless drilling projects. By allowing pullback directly with the hammerhead while maintaining proper tension, the design targets a reduction in downtime during HDD operations.
St. Petersburg, Fla. – September 18, 2026 -- CCI Insurance, a Higginbotham Partner, has rebranded its proprietary CompCorrect platform as RiskCorrect and opened it as a standalone offering to companies outside its existing client base facing complex risk profiles and significant claims exposure.
Since launching in 2020, the technology has grown from a workers' compensation claims-management tool into a broader system linking incidents, safety activity, root-cause analysis, corrective action and underwriting strategy in a continuous risk cycle. Tobin Robeck, Higginbotham | CCI Managing Director and Regional Sales Director who co-founded the platform, said RiskCorrect now helps companies identify loss drivers, connect claims and incidents, and demonstrate that corrective changes are working.
Bridgewater, N.J. – September 18, 2026 -- OneSchool Global (OSG), a school network operating 122 campuses across 20 countries, has received a Silver A' Design Award for its Learning to Learn framework, an education design model applied to its 8,000-student system.
The A' Design Award and Competition, one of the world's largest international design programs, evaluates submissions through a blind peer-review process involving academics, design professionals and international press members. OSG's Learning to Learn framework was recognized for its innovation, functionality and impact within the education design category.
Washington – September 18, 2026 -- CTIA, the trade group representing U.S. wireless carriers, is pressing the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to launch a study of the 4 GHz band within 60 days, calling it a cornerstone for securing American wireless and AI leadership ahead of the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027 (WRC-27).
A new CTIA report identifies the 4 GHz band as capable of delivering 400 megahertz of contiguous spectrum, aligning with existing 5G and 6G standards. The band sits alongside Upper C-Band, 2.7 GHz and 7 GHz in the spectrum pipeline already flagged by the Administration and Congress. "Beginning work this fall is our best chance at freeing up the spectrum needed to meet surging AI demand, fuel innovation, expand access to affordable broadband, and reassert America's global wireless leadership," said Ajit Pai, President and CEO of CTIA.
Carlsbad, Calif. – September 18, 2026 -- Hall of Fame quarterback and broadcaster Troy Aikman has taken an ownership stake in Qualia Life Sciences, a supplement brand founded in 2015 that has built its reputation on human clinical studies conducted on every formula prior to release.
Aikman, a three-time Super Bowl champion and current broadcaster on the third most-watched television show in America, said he has historically turned down endorsement offers from nutritional brands due to skepticism about efficacy. He credited Qualia's supplements with personally sustaining his energy, fitness, and mental sharpness at age 59, stating the results convinced him to join the company's ownership team rather than simply lend his name.
Exton, Pa. – September 18, 2026 -- Kibow Biotech's redesigned website, KibowBiotech.com, has been named Best Science Website in the 2026 WebAward Competition, run by the Web Marketing Association across seven judging criteria including design, innovation, content and ease of use.
The company's flagship product, Renadyl®, a clinically studied probiotic dietary supplement built on gut-kidney axis research, is now sold worldwide, with an upcoming expansion into Canada marking the latest step in Kibow's international access strategy.
The company is developing RenaphilTM, a kidney probiotic formulated specifically for cats and dogs, applying nearly 30 years of gut-kidney research to companion-animal health.