Theme news

Denver and Los Angeles – September 22, 2026 -- Luxury Asset Capital, which has financed over $1 billion in loans backed by luxury assets, has struck a strategic partnership with Timepiece Grading Specialists (TGS) to link watch collectors directly to non-bank financing within 24 hours.

TGS-graded watches now unlock direct loan access across four lending brands

The alliance connects TGS's collector community to Luxury Asset Capital's full brand suite, including Borro, Beverly Loan Company, New York Loan Company, and Palm Beach Loan Company. Collectors who have already used TGS to grade and evaluate their timepieces can leverage those authenticated watches as collateral for short-term capital.

Copenhagen – September 22, 2026 -- ATLANT 3D and the University of California, Berkeley have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore A-HUB California, a facility pairing atomic-scale manufacturing with AI-driven materials research.

ATLANT 3D brings its DALP technology to Berkeley's research ecosystem

The partnership combines ATLANT 3D's programmable atomic-scale manufacturing platform, built on its Direct Atomic Layer Processing (DALP®) technology and NANOFABRICATOR® platform, with UC Berkeley's research infrastructure. The proposed A-HUB California follows the model of ATLANT 3D's existing Copenhagen A-HUB, an autonomous materials foundry that combines AI, atomic-scale manufacturing, and automated testing in a closed loop to discover, validate, and scale advanced materials.

Washington – September 22, 2026 -- 1,000 Dreams Fund (1DF) has pledged to scale its MentorHER Initiative into a global, AI-driven mentorship platform reaching 300,000 young people worldwide by January 2030, under a three-year Commitment to Action unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2026 Annual Meeting.

1DF targets 300,000 young people through a 36-month, three-phase rollout

The commitment was announced during CGI's Leaders Stage session, "Steering AI Innovation towards Impact." The rollout begins with a pilot phase for matching and career-readiness resources, then moves to scaled recruitment through global university partnerships, corporate employee networks, and regional ambassadors. 1DF will report outcomes annually to CGI over the three-year period.

Québec – September 22, 2026 -- Strøm Old Quebec has been named Canada's Best Day Spa at the World Spa Awards for the third consecutive year, STROM Group announced.

STROM Group's 10-destination portfolio underpins repeat award recognition

The award reflects standards applied across STROM Group's 10 wellness destinations, spanning brands including Strøm Nordic Spa, Nord restaurants, the BORÉAL skincare line, AWŪ urban sanctuary, Förena Cité thermale, Sibéria Spa, and Spa Nordic Station. Founded in 2009 in Québec, the Group's network draws nearly one million visitors annually and operates its own media channels, including a magazine and podcast, alongside signature retail collections under the Strøm and AWŪ brands.

Las Vegas – September 22, 2026 -- TCSJOHNHUXLEY and entertainment figure Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson will unveil 50 Cent HeadcrackTM, a licensed live casino dice game adapting the century-old street game Cee-Lo, at G2E Las Vegas 2026. The game debuts at Booth #4439 inside The Venetian Expo from September 29 to October 1, 2026.

Live casino dice game debuts at G2E with a published pay table and licensed rules

50 Cent HeadcrackTM pits the Bank against the Shooter on every hand, with a Tie bet and multiple side wagers on the table: 5-5-6, HEADCRACKTM itself, Any Trips, 1-2-3 Natural Bust, a bundled Cover All wager, and a standalone Four or Better bet. The game retains the classic rules and vocabulary of Cee-Lo, also known as Four-Five-Six, a name derived from the Chinese term for the unbeatable 4-5-6 roll that has anchored the game for more than a hundred years.

Boston – September 22, 2026 -- QuEra Computing and Hewlett Packard Enterprise have agreed to integrate neutral-atom, fault-tolerant quantum computing systems with the HPE Cray supercomputing platform, giving enterprises and national laboratories an on-premises route to quantum capabilities alongside cloud access.

QuEra and HPE target hybrid quantum-classical workflows for on-premise deployment

The collaboration will let HPC centers run classical computation on Cray systems while offloading select subproblems to QuEra's quantum hardware within the same facility. The companies are pursuing integrated testbeds, hybrid algorithm co-design, software interoperability, and system-level performance benchmarking ahead of deployment.

QuEra and HPE have worked together since 2025, and HPE showcased a magic-state demonstration featuring QuEra's technology at HPE Discover Las Vegas 2026.

Louisville – September 22, 2026 -- The TurfMutt Foundation will stage two signature charity events at Equip Exposition 2026 in Louisville, Kentucky, benefiting longtime partner Kentucky Humane Society (KHS).

Mulligan's 5K Fun Run & Walk kicks off October 21 at the TurfMutt Foundation Great Lawn.

Participants will depart from the Great Lawn at Waterfront Park and cross the Ohio River via the historic Big Four Pedestrian Bridge. All registrants receive a commemorative shirt and finisher medal, with proceeds directed to KHS.

The 8th Annual Mulligan's Mutt Madness adoption event runs October 22 at the Kentucky Expo Center.

Held inside Mulligan's Garden Park, a custom-built indoor green space, the event allows Equip attendees to meet and adopt rescue dogs from KHS. Since its launch, Mutt Madness has placed more than 130 dogs with industry professionals and attendees.

Pleasant Hill, Calif. – September 22, 2026 -- Special Olympics Northern California (SONC) has appointed five new members to its Board of Directors as the organization works to strengthen its financial base and expand inclusive sports programming across the region.

SONC recruits finance, law and pro-sports executives for board expansion

The new directors are Colleen Atkinson, Kevin Brown, Richard Rahm, Brian Wentzel, and athlete leader Devon Yoshimine. David Solo, President and CEO of SONC, said the group brings expertise spanning corporate finance, professional sports operations, grassroots coaching and lived athlete experience to support the organization's growth goals.

New York – September 22, 2026 -- Hone Health and BODYBAR Pilates have launched a partnership integrating biomarker testing and physician-guided care into 40+ Pilates studios across seven states, marking a deeper convergence between clinical longevity care and mainstream fitness franchising.

Partnership spans 40+ studios in seven states

The collaboration covers BODYBAR Pilates locations in California, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Utah and Colorado. Hone Health, described as a physician-led longevity clinic, will offer its comprehensive biomarker testing and one-on-one physician consultations to participating BODYBAR members, who can review results, symptoms and health history to receive personalized treatment plans.

Ottawa, ON – September 22, 2026 -- The Federal Aviation Administration has extended its partnership with Solace to modernize SWIM, the national data network that has distributed real-time flight plans, surveillance data, weather events and airspace notices since 2011.

FAA rolls out Enhanced SWIM Cloud Services built on the Solace Platform

The extension supports delivery of Enhanced SWIM Cloud Services (ESCS), an overhaul of SWIM's developer experience and data exchange model. ESCS will enable bidirectional data flow, allowing FAA Data Partners to publish data back into the network and participate directly in collaborative decision-making rather than only receiving feeds.

Oakland – September 22, 2026 -- Fair Trade USA has launched Stories of Impact, a public data platform built on its Impact Intelligence Hub, giving buyers and consumers an interactive view of the supply chains behind Fair Trade Certified products.

Platform launch precedes October's Fair Trade Month campaign

The rollout arrives days before Fair Trade Month, timed to give the public early access to impact data as the organization's annual campaign begins. This year's campaign theme is "Fair Trade Future."

Site combines mapping, producer stories and 2025 metrics

The platform includes an interactive impact map, a producer story library covering 2023 to present, visualized 2025 impact metrics, eco-region overlays showing the environments tied to specific certified products, and cross-regional project themes spanning multiple commodities.

San Francisco – September 22, 2026 -- Teal Health has closed $22 million in Series A funding to scale its at-home cervical cancer screening device ahead of January 2027, when federal guidelines will require most U.S. health plans to cover self-collection HPV testing.

Funding round brings Teal Health's total capital raised to $45 million

The round was led by .406 Ventures, with continued participation from Emerson Collective (managed by Yosemite), Forerunner, and Serena Ventures, plus new backing from Japan-based MPower Partners. The capital will fund hiring across clinical, commercial, technology and operational teams as the company expands partnerships with payors, health systems, employers and providers.

New York – September 22, 2026 -- PulsePoint has launched DTC Explorer, a self-service workspace that lets pharma marketers build and publish clinically-informed consumer audiences in hours instead of the longer timelines previously required for custom segment creation.

New tool cuts audience-building time by connecting clinical claims data to consumer targeting

DTC Explorer draws on PulsePoint's proprietary Bespoke Audiences, which are built from de-identified diagnosis, drug, and treatment claims. Users can filter by consumer demographics, clinical signals, prescribed drugs, insurance provider, geography, or NPI list, reviewing real-time aggregate device and consumer counts as they refine selections before publishing directly to the PulsePoint platform for activation.

Minneapolis – September 22, 2026 -- Perforce Software has launched Delphix Synthetic Data, a tool it calls the first AI-native solution capable of generating realistic, referentially intact test data across enterprise systems on demand.

Perforce says the tool cuts test data wait times from weeks to minutes

The platform automatically scans metadata, schemas, and data relationships across source systems, removing the manual configuration required by legacy synthetic data tools. Developers, testers, and AI agents can describe the data they need using natural language prompts and receive it immediately, according to the company, rather than waiting days or weeks as with prior methods.

Perforce positions the tool for use cases where production data is restricted, incomplete, or unavailable, including new feature development, edge-case testing, and agentic development workflows.

Chicago – September 22, 2026 -- Charter Next Generation (CNG), a North American material science solutions provider, has named Todd Herndon as Chief Financial Officer, bringing more than 35 years of financial, commercial, and operational leadership experience to the role.

Herndon joins from Consilio, a global legal technology and enterprise legal services firm, where he served as CFO

His prior leadership roles include positions at Diversey, now part of Solenis; Gardner Denver, now part of Ingersoll Rand; and Capital Safety. Herndon began his career at S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. and has worked extensively with private equity firms including KKR, Bain Capital, CD&R, and Stone Point Capital.

Beijing – September 22, 2026 -- ADAMA Ltd. (SZSE 000553) has launched Actagon®, a ready-mix pre-emergent herbicide for wheat growers in India, targeting the herbicide-resistant grass weed Phalaris minor.

ADAMA combines two active ingredients into a single ready-mix formulation

Actagon® blends pyroxasulfone and metribuzin in one liquid formulation applied pre-emergence, eliminating the need for on-farm tank mixing. The dual-mode combination is designed to deliver long-lasting control of Phalaris minor along with other grass and broadleaf weeds while supporting resistance management strategies.

Launch targets Punjab and Haryana, India's top wheat-growing states

The rollout focuses on regions where Phalaris minor pressure is highest and farmers face mounting difficulty controlling the weed. Actagon® is registered in India, with commercial launch expected in September 2026.

San Francisco – September 22, 2026 -- The Biological Computing Co. (TBC) has partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring what it calls the world's first neuron-derived AI video model to market, cutting inference costs by 80% and speeding generation by 5x compared to the base open-source model.

TBC's software layer runs on standard AI infrastructure without new hardware

The optimization is delivered through a proprietary software layer derived from measurements of living neural activity. The layer adds less than 0.1% to the underlying model's footprint, requires no biological hardware, and demands no change to existing customer workflows, according to TBC.

San Francisco/Philadelphia – September 22, 2026 -- Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) will add Gopuff to its Marketplace and deploy its Carrot Ads technology across Gopuff's digital storefront, giving more than 9,000 brand advertisers direct access to Gopuff's on-demand customer base in the U.S.

Gopuff will join over 2,200 national and local retail banners already on the Instacart Marketplace, offering Instacart customers delivery in as fast as 15 minutes from a catalog of thousands of groceries, snacks, beverages and household staples. Orders placed through Instacart will be fulfilled directly by Gopuff via its own network of micro-fulfillment centers.

San Francisco – September 22, 2026 -- Handshake, the career network for the AI economy, has launched AI Skills Studio, a free learning hub offering hands-on AI projects to more than one million employers on its platform. The tool was built with partners including Clay, Figma, Gamma, Google, Lovable, Notion, OpenAI, Replit, Salesforce, Southern New Hampshire University, and Vercel.

Job seekers complete AI 'missions' in 10 to 45 minutes using real practitioner tools

AI Skills Studio offers personalized, project-based missions that produce a tangible output, ranging from automated workflows to working software. An AI Skills Instructor guides learners through the process, and early users have built interactive games, data dashboards, personal portfolios, and sales and marketing tools.

McDonough, Ga. – September 22, 2026 -- Piedmont Orthopedics | OrthoAtlanta has added board-certified interventional pain specialist Vic Manocha, M.D., to its Henry County team, deploying him across both its McDonough office and its newly opened Locust Grove location.

New physician strengthens nonsurgical pain treatment capacity

Dr. Manocha treats acute and chronic back pain, neck pain, joint pain and musculoskeletal conditions using interventional techniques including spinal cord stimulation, peripheral nerve stimulation and minimally invasive spine procedures. He also maintains a focus on regenerative medicine and orthobiologic therapies for chronic spine and joint pain, and is the founder of RegenCures, a practice dedicated to orthobiologic treatments.