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Easton, Pa. – September 18, 2026 -- David Wolff of Kressler Wolff & Miller has laid out a benefits strategy for small businesses competing against larger employers with bigger budgets, in a feature published by HelloNation titled "Creating a Competitive Benefits Package for Small Businesses."

The article argues that a competitive employee benefits package does not depend on matching corporate spending levels but on aligning offerings with what workers actually value, including health insurance, retirement savings, and wellness support.

Wolff recommends tiered health plans to balance cost and coverage

The feature outlines tiered health insurance plans, high-deductible options paired with health savings accounts, and network structures designed to contain premium costs while preserving reliable access to care. Transparency about how a plan functions is presented as equally important to employees as the generosity of the coverage itself.

Beverly Hills -- A peer-reviewed narrative review published September 11, 2026, in Aesthetic Surgery Journal Open Forum identifies nutritional deficiencies as an overlooked factor in skin changes among patients using GLP-1 receptor agonists such as semaglutide and tirzepatide for rapid weight loss.

Claims data show one in five patients develops a nutrient deficiency within a year

A large claims analysis cited in the review found that 22.4% of patients received at least one nutritional-deficiency diagnosis within 12 months of starting GLP-1 therapy, including 13.6% diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency. The broader literature reviewed also flags inadequate protein intake and shortfalls in iron, vitamin B12, folate, zinc, and copper as recurring concerns, nutrients tied to collagen synthesis and tissue repair.

Overland Park, Kansas – September 18, 2026 -- Searles Valley Minerals Inc. has agreed to sell substantially all of its operating assets to 5E Advanced Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq: FEAM) in a court-supervised Section 363 transaction combining cash, equity and debt, following a competitive bidding process involving multiple parties.

5E secures Westend and Argus plants alongside 9,000 acres of brine resources

The deal transfers Searles Valley Minerals' Westend and Argus production facilities, approximately 9,000 acres of Searles Lake brine resources, the Trona Railway short-line railroad, and potable water production and distribution infrastructure located in San Bernardino, Kern and Inyo Counties, California. The assets carry permits, licenses and operating rights tied to more than 150 years of continuous mining activity at the site.

Albuquerque, N.M. – – September 18, 2026 -- TXNM Energy and Blackstone Infrastructure have filed a motion with the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) seeking to submit a revised merger application that raises total customer and community benefits to $300 million, more than doubling direct rate credits from the original proposal.

Direct customer rate credits jump to $220 million

The draft revised application increases direct customer rate credits to $220 million, over double the commitment in the initial filing. It also allocates $40 million for workforce and economic development, including job training, scholarships and apprenticeships coordinated with state and local stakeholders.

Cincinnati – September 18, 2026 -- Advantage Technical, a Staffmark Group company, announced that Evan Nedwick, a contract professional placed with Ford Motor Company, has been named a 2027 National Staffing Employee of the Year All-Star for the Engineering, Information Technology, and Scientific sector by the American Staffing Association (ASA).

A decade-long placement outlasted a 2021 restructuring

Nedwick joined Advantage Technical in 2015, initially supporting Ford's Interior/Exterior Prior Approval team after starting his career as a technician at a Ford dealership. When his role was eliminated during a 2021 restructuring, Advantage Technical redeployed him into Ford's mobile service operations, where he has since expanded his responsibilities.

McLean, Va. – September 18, 2026 -- ID.me and Plaid have launched a partnership allowing government agencies to verify a benefits claimant's identity and confirm their linked bank account belongs to them before disbursing funds, addressing a gap that contributed to $5.6 billion in unemployment insurance improper payments in fiscal year 2025.

Improper payment rate hit 14.9% for the fourth straight year

According to the Government Accountability Office, the 14.9 percent improper payment rate for unemployment insurance exceeded the federal standard for four consecutive years. Agencies have strengthened identity verification but lacked equivalent controls over where payments land, allowing claimants to pass identity checks and then enter a bank account that is not theirs.

Bloomington – September 18, 2026 -- R3 Continuum, a provider of workplace behavioral health and organizational resilience solutions, has appointed Brett Hart, Ph.D., as Chief Clinical Officer, tasking him with leading clinical strategy, innovation and outcomes measurement as the company scales its workforce behavioral health offerings.

Hart brings 27 years of executive experience across major health insurers

Hart's background spans clinical and executive leadership roles at Humana, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Centene and Optum. During his career he directed enterprise behavioral health strategies, integrated behavioral and physical care models, and worked to expand access and quality outcomes across large health systems.

Palo Alto – September 18, 2026 -- Delos Data has raised more than $100 million from Matrix, Playground, Socratic Partners, Capricorn's Technology Impact Fund, Matter Venture Partners and IAG to fund its Delos Nonstop AI infrastructure line, the company said, alongside the launch of two new products aimed at agentic AI workloads.

Delos Data adds Data Interface and Reference Architecture to close out its AI infrastructure stack

The company expanded its Delos Nonstop AI portfolio with the Delos Nonstop AI Data Interface and Delos Nonstop AI Reference Architecture, joining previously announced Nonstop AI Clusters and Nonstop AI Server. The additions target low-latency, high-bandwidth, resilient infrastructure for agentic AI systems that run continuously rather than in discrete batches.

Cleveland – September 18, 2026 -- Tiger Pistol has been badged as a TikTok Channel Sales Partner within the Marketing Technology category of the TikTok Marketing Partners Program, extending its automated local advertising platform to short-form video on the platform.

Tiger Pistol Adds TikTok to Its Design-Once, Deploy-Everywhere Model

The badge builds directly on Tiger Pistol's AI-driven Creative Automation Studio (CA-Studio), which already lets franchise and multi-location brands design a single ad and automatically generate location-specific image and video variations. The system inserts store names, local promotions, and regional visuals within brand-approved guardrails, cutting production timelines and creative costs for clients. With the new badge, that engine now extends specifically to TikTok's short-form vertical format, alongside existing capabilities on Instagram and Facebook Reels.

Tulsa, Okla. – September 18, 2026 -- Alliance Resource Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: ARLP) has named the winners of its 2026 Alliance Coal Scholars Program, bringing cumulative awards under the initiative to $627,000 distributed to 283 college-bound students and teachers since 1997.

Top three seniors secure $2,000 renewable scholarships

Emalee Barton of Frankfort Community High School, daughter of Hamilton County Coal, LLC employee Tony Barton, will attend John A. Logan College. Paige Mullis of F.J. Reitz High School, daughter of Matrix Design Group, LLC employee Brett Mullis, will enroll at the University of Southern Indiana. Addy Sutton, a Sutton Homeschool graduate and daughter of CR Services, LLC employee George Sutton, will attend Southeastern Illinois College.

Crystal Springs, Mississippi – September 18, 2026 -- Hitachi Energy will build a $528 million transformer manufacturing facility in Gallman, Mississippi, marking the company's largest single U.S. investment to date and pushing its total American manufacturing commitment to roughly $1.5 billion.

New Gallman plant will more than double transformer output

The facility, located about 6.5 miles from Hitachi Energy's existing Crystal Springs plant, will be more than twice the size of the current site and create over 700 jobs, more than double the area's existing workforce. Construction is set to begin in late 2026, with transformer production scheduled to start in 2029. Once operational, production will shift from Crystal Springs to Gallman, with the older facility repurposed for warehousing and training.

Brooklyn, N.Y. – September 18, 2026 -- First Student and Con Edison have completed the first phase of an electric school bus infrastructure project in New York City, cutting charging infrastructure construction costs by 13% through a trenchless deployment method.

Trenchless charging technology avoids underground trenching costs in dense boroughs

The project's core innovation, First Student's First ChargeTM system, is a trenchless, modular charging infrastructure solution that bypasses traditional underground trenching. The approach reduced construction costs by 13% while minimizing disruption in Brooklyn and Queens, two of the most logistically complex urban environments in the United States for utility work.

San Diego – September 18, 2026 -- Lytx Inc. has launched the Lytx 360 Hub Kit, a hub and auxiliary camera system that adds up to eight HD camera views around a vehicle's sides, rear, cargo area, and blind zones, extending its fleet video platform beyond forward-facing monitoring.

Lytx expands camera coverage to eight HD views per vehicle

The 360 Hub Kit integrates up to four HD auxiliary camera views out of the box, expandable to eight, covering sides, rear, cargo, and blind-zone perspectives. Footage is automatically surfaced in Lytx Video Search and synchronized with the company's existing DriveCam recordings, giving safety teams a single vehicle timeline instead of separate video streams.

Lititz, Pa. – September 18, 2026 -- Listrak has launched Listrak Studio, a Figma plugin that converts email designs directly into ready-to-send, cross-client-tested campaigns, cutting production time and potentially saving retailers over 250 hours a year in email build work.

Listrak Studio removes the manual handoff between design and deployment

The plugin allows marketing teams to design emails in Figma and transfer them directly into Listrak's platform, eliminating the need to rebuild HTML from scratch or wait on developer translation. Designs are converted into responsive emails validated across major clients including Outlook and Gmail, then saved directly into Listrak accounts ready to attach to campaigns.

Roswell, Ga. – September 18, 2026 -- HealthIQ Solutions, LLC and Eirion.ai have entered a strategic technology partnership to embed predictive AI models into remote patient care platforms, targeting early detection of heart attacks, strokes and acute kidney failure before symptoms appear.

Partnership integrates predictive AI into remote monitoring dashboards

The collaboration will fuse Eirion.ai's predictive modeling architectures with HealthIQ Solutions' remote patient care infrastructure, giving treating physicians forward-looking clinical risk alerts rather than post-event data. The joint initiative targets real-time predictive risk scoring embedded directly into provider dashboards used across ambulatory networks and health systems nationwide.

United States – September 18, 2026 -- Mindray North America has launched the SV70 non-invasive ventilator in the United States, targeting respiratory departments left scrambling after Philips withdrew its V60 device, the previous clinical standard in non-invasive ventilation.

Philips V60 withdrawal forces hospitals into fleet-wide equipment replacements

The exit of the V60 from the market has created operational and financial strain on respiratory departments, pushing hospitals into large-scale replacement cycles while they try to preserve clinical familiarity, workflow continuity and patient safety. Mindray designed the SV70 specifically to absorb that transition without disrupting existing clinical routines.

Dallas – September 18, 2026 -- Lightbeam Health Solutions has appointed Thomas P. McCarrick, MD, MBI, as Chief Medical Officer, effective August 31, 2026, bringing more than four decades of clinical and healthcare leadership experience to the AI-enabled population health company.

Physician executive joins with dual informatics and value-based care credentials

Dr. McCarrick is board certified in family medicine, geriatric medicine, and clinical informatics. His background spans primary care, population health, care coordination, and value-based healthcare delivery, according to the company.

Los Angeles – September 18, 2026 -- Planet Nine Private Air will send executives and operational leaders to four aviation industry events this fall, spanning safety training, market economics, and regional networking.

Company Confirms Attendance at NBAA-BACE, SCAA, CJI Miami and Bombardier Safety Standdown

The private jet management and charter operator's fall 2026 schedule includes the National Business Aviation Association Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE), the Southern California Aviation Association (SCAA) Golf Tournament, Corporate Jet Investor (CJI) Miami, and the Bombardier Safety Standdown in Wichita, Kansas.

Bombardier Safety Standdown Marks 30th Anniversary Milestone

Planet Nine team members will attend the Wichita seminar, which marks its 30th anniversary this year, to reinforce crew training protocols and safety culture.

Grants Pass, Ore. – September 18, 2026 -- Becklin Holdings has acquired Chief Avionics, an FAA-certified avionics repair station based at Grants Pass Airport (3S8) in Southern Oregon, adding certified aircraft maintenance capabilities and a physical airport footprint to its aerospace and defense portfolio. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Acquisition adds FAA-certified repair station status to Becklin's growing platform

Chief Avionics' FAA certification authorizes the company to perform specialized maintenance and alterations on aircraft and aviation equipment under federal requirements. The company will retain its name and continue operating from its Grants Pass Airport location, providing avionics installation, upgrades, service, and over-the-counter product sales to general aviation aircraft owners and operators. Its core focus spans navigation, communications, and other advanced aircraft electronic systems.

Silicon Valley – September 18, 2026 -- MapUp, Inc. has expanded its NavGuru navigation platform to embed live truck parking, weigh station, wash and low-bridge data directly into fleet routing screens, aiming to close a compliance gap that costs a 3,000-truck fleet an estimated $5 million a year.

Fuel-plan compliance jumped from 74% to 98% in four months

At one dedicated carrier operating more than 2,500 trucks, fuel-prescription compliance rose from 74% to above 98% within four months of integrating the fuel plan into driver navigation, according to MapUp. The company says a plan followed only three-quarters of the time forfeits a quarter of its projected savings before any results are booked.