Orange County – October 13, 2026 -- More than 465 County of Orange public sector workers, represented by Teamsters Local 952, have launched an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike after contract talks with the county failed.

Strike threatens services for more than 3 million Orange County residents

Local 952 members work in OC Public Works, OC Waste and Recycling, OC Community Resources and other county operations. The union expects the walkout to delay road and flood channel maintenance, landfill operations, and parks and beach maintenance. Repairs to county and first responder vehicles are also expected to slow.

More than three million Orange County residents depend on these services, according to the union.

Thousand Oaks – October 13, 2026 -- California Lutheran University's Center for Nonprofit Leadership will hold a three-hour virtual workshop on social media strategy for nonprofit growth on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, from 9 a.m. to noon, with support from the Santa Barbara Foundation.

Marketing Maven CEO Lindsey Carnett will lead the Zoom session

Carnett, founder and CEO of Marketing Maven, will teach "Strategic Social Media for Nonprofit Growth and Engagement." The session targets nonprofit leaders, communications and marketing staff, and board members. She has more than two decades of marketing and public relations experience, and her specialties include public relations, social media, reputation management, search engine optimization and digital advertising.

Carnett is a Cal Lutheran alumna and a faculty lecturer for the university's Center for Nonprofit Leadership.

Beijing – October 13, 2026 -- Likang Life Sciences, whose lead cancer vaccine candidate LK101 holds clinical trial authorization from China's NMPA (2023) and U.S. FDA IND clearance (2025), will sponsor and exhibit at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit 2026 on October 20–22 at the ADNEC Centre.

Likang co-founder joins October 21 oncology panel

Shannon Cheung, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman of Likang, will speak on the panel "The Future of Cancer" on October 21. The session will cover precision oncology and the translation of innovative cancer treatments into clinical practice. It forms part of the summit's Abu Dhabi Blueprints series and will examine the roles of research, investment, policy, and international collaboration in getting new therapies to patients.

Tokyo – October 13, 2026 -- NTT DOCOMO, INC. and Boston-based Abside Networks, Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding on October 13, 2026, to jointly study high-altitude platform station (HAPS) communications and AI-driven network control for next-generation infrastructure.

Joint studies target wide-area, high-capacity HAPS connectivity

The two companies will examine wide-area, high-capacity and massive-connectivity communications via HAPS, along with network control and data utilization. The MOU covers joint technical study toward future collaboration. It does not specify financial terms, deployment timelines or commercial commitments.

High Point – October 13, 2026 -- S&H Rugs, a designer and wholesaler of hand-knotted rugs, has unveiled its Fall 2027 Collection at High Point Market (HPMKT) Fall 2026 in North Carolina, with all rugs shown on its website listed as in stock and ready to ship immediately.

S&H Rugs blends sustainable materials with traditional weaving in the new line

The collection combines sustainable materials with traditional weaving techniques. It uses organic textures and a palette of earth tones. The company says each piece is designed for modern living spaces.

Senior partner Ori Wilbush said the line aims to connect buyers to nature through touch and color.

San Jose – October 13, 2026 -- Compal Electronics (TWSE: 2324) will show an eight-GPU, liquid-cooled NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra server alongside Rubin-based and Vera CPU systems at OCP Global Summit 2026. The company is pitching shorter time-to-AI to cloud service providers, enterprises and AI infrastructure operators.

Compal's 4U OG430-2-L1 server packs eight Blackwell Ultra GPUs

The OG430-2-L1 is a 4U direct liquid-cooled server built on the NVIDIA HGX B300 platform with eight NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs. It targets AI training, reasoning, inference and HPC workloads. Compal bundles platform engineering, liquid cooling, system validation, rack integration and manufacturing readiness to cut the engineering effort between buying new accelerators and running them in production.

Tianjin – October 13, 2026 -- Researchers at Tianjin University have developed an all-organic mixed-matrix membrane that raised CO2 permeability by an order of magnitude in simulated flue gas tests, a new record, with a preliminary capture cost estimate of about $38 per tonne of CO2.

The study appeared online in Nature Energy on Oct. 7 under the title "All-organic mixed-matrix membranes with single-crystal covalent organic frameworks for carbon capture."

Weak-interaction inlaying targets the filler-polymer compatibility problem

Mixed-matrix membranes pair the processability of polymers with the molecular transport of porous fillers. Development has been limited by compatibility problems between the two components. Porous particles can aggregate or settle within the polymer. Overly strong filler-polymer interactions can restrict polymer movement or block transport pathways.

Parker – October 13, 2026 -- Wecom Fiber has completed a $45 million fiber network across the Town of Parker, Arizona, connecting 15,000 homes and businesses and 124 Community Anchor Institutions.

Network serves residents, carriers and government entities

The network will deliver high-speed internet to residents, businesses, carriers and government entities. The 124 Community Anchor Institutions include libraries, schools and public safety facilities.

Wecom Fiber funds $35M of $45M project alongside $10M state grant

Governor Hobbs and local leaders broke ground on the project in November 2023. It is backed by a $10 million Arizona Broadband Development Grant and spans Mohave and La Paz counties. Wecom Fiber invested $35 million, bringing total project investment to $45 million, so the company supplied roughly 78% of the capital.

San Diego – October 13, 2026 -- Optro is co-investing capital directly into partner-led marketing, enablement and practice-building through a new Partner Growth Funding (PGF) program, part of an expansion of its Optro Partner Connect program that also adds two partner tracks and annual awards starting in 2027. The company announced the changes at its Partner Forum at CRX, its annual user conference, held this year in San Diego.

Technology and Distributor tracks widen Partner Connect

The Technology Partner Track has two tiers and targets independent software vendors and developers. Participants receive API tools, sandbox access and dedicated support to co-develop integrated workflows with Optro that automate data movement.

Global – October 13, 2026 -- Microsoft's October 2026 security release includes an actively exploited Windows Shell zero-day (CVE-2026-96951, CVSS 8.8), 20 Critical remote code execution flaws in Office applications and five CVSS 9.8 vulnerabilities in Outlook. Several of the flaws can be triggered by viewing a file or email in a preview pane, which removes the click-to-compromise barrier many enterprises rely on.

Windows Shell zero-day strips Mark of the Web protections in live attacks

CVE-2026-96951 is an Important security feature bypass that Microsoft confirms is being exploited in the wild. It lets an attacker evade Mark of the Web (MOTW), the trust tag that triggers Protected View in Office and SmartScreen warnings for downloaded executables. Once the tag is stripped, SmartScreen, Office Protected View and Application Guard no longer apply.