Regulatory Compliance

Washington – September 19, 2026 -- The Institute for Portfolio Alternatives (IPA) has named 21 leaders as recipients of its 2026 IPA Awards, recognizing executives from firms including Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Blackstone for their contributions to the alternative investments sector.

IPA honors 21 executives across five award categories at Atlanta conference

The awards were presented during IPAVision in Atlanta before more than 550 professionals representing asset management, wealth management and the broader alternatives ecosystem. Honorees were selected across five categories: Outstanding Service, Policy Leadership, Rising Voice, Emerging Champion and Lifetime Achievement.

Carrollton, Texas – September 19, 2026 -- Seventy-six percent of consumers say they have entered a business they'd never visited before based solely on its exterior signage, according to data cited by FASTSIGNS, the global custom signage franchise. The company is publishing guidance for business owners navigating a fragmented exterior signage market that spans channel letters, monument signs, pylon signs and wayfinding systems, each carrying distinct cost, zoning and visibility trade-offs.

Sixty percent of shoppers avoid businesses lacking clear signage

FASTSIGNS data shows 68% of consumers associate signage quality with product and service quality, while 60% say unclear signage actively deters them from entering a business. Theron Andrews, FASTSIGNS Vice President of Marketing, said signage decisions hinge on visibility, brand identity, location, budget, property type and local regulations rather than aesthetics alone.

Singapore – September 19, 2026 -- Trip.com Group Limited swung to a net loss of RMB2.4 billion (US$361 million) in the second quarter of 2026, reversing from net income of RMB4.9 billion a year earlier, after China's State Administration for Market Regulation imposed a RMB5.2 billion (US$763 million) anti-monopoly penalty on the travel platform operator.

San Francisco – September 19, 2026 -- San Francisco Health Plan (SFHP) has earned a 4.5-star rating in the 2026 NCQA Health Plan Ratings, the highest score in its history, as the Medi-Cal insurer covers more than 172,000 residents.

NCQA places SFHP among the nation's top-rated health plans

NCQA classifies plans scoring 4.5 or 5 stars as among the highest-rated in the country, basing the evaluation on clinical quality, member experience, and accreditation status. SFHP, created by the City and County of San Francisco, is the city's leading Medi-Cal provider, offering preventive care, specialty care, hospitalization, prescription drugs, and family planning services.

San Francisco – September 19, 2026 -- Harness Web Application & API Protection (WAAP) scored a 99.8% Security Efficacy rating and 98.2% Operational Efficiency rating in SecureIQLab's Cloud WAAP v5.0 CyberRisk Validation Comparative Report, earning Leader status among 12 tested vendors.

Harness is one of only five vendors meeting both Secure by Design and Secure by Default criteria

SecureIQLab tested 12 leading Cloud WAAP vendors, with just six achieving Leader status. Harness was among only five vendors to satisfy both the Secure by Design and Secure by Default criteria, a distinction it also held in 2025 when its solution was evaluated under the Traceable by Harness name in the Cloud WAAP v4.0 report.

Washington – September 19, 2026 -- The Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADLM) has formally recommended that artificial intelligence tools used in clinical laboratories remain subject to the same validation, quality-system, and monitoring requirements that govern traditional laboratory testing under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA). The recommendation was submitted in a comment letter responding to a federal request for information on potential updates to CLIA, the regulatory framework that has governed U.S. clinical laboratory testing since 1992.

New Smyrna Beach, Fla. – September 19, 2026 -- Florida gubernatorial candidate Frank J. Russo has called on Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg to personally commit $250 million and help raise an additional $1 billion from Florida billionaires to modernize the state's data center infrastructure.

The challenge expands Russo's Florida Data Center Community Responsibility Act, proposing a voluntary Florida Data Center Modernization Fund structured as a public trust independent of government control. Russo cited Zuckerberg's reported $170 million South Florida home purchase as justification for the ask, framing it as a matter of civic responsibility tied to residency.

Amsterdam – September 19, 2026 -- OCI N.V. (Euronext: OCI) has published its formal Position Statement in response to a cash takeover offer from NNS Holding (Cyprus) Limited for all issued and outstanding shares in the company, as required under Section 18 of the Dutch Decree on public takeover bids.

NNS formally launched its cash offer on September 19, 2026

NNS announced the launch of the Offer via publication of its offer memorandum, prompting OCI to issue its required Position Statement the following day, September 19, 2026, under Section 18 paragraph 3 of the Besluit openbare biedingen Wft.

Chattanooga, Tenn. – September 19, 2026 -- Tennessee American Water will begin service line material verification work in parts of its Citico Service District the week of September 28, targeting lines currently listed as unknown in company records across Chattanooga, East Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Red Bank and Rossville, GA.

EPA rule requires full lead line replacement by 2037

The verification project supports updated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules on lead and copper. Both the U.S. EPA and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation require all water utilities to confirm service line materials, including visual inspection, to build a baseline inventory ahead of the federal mandate to replace all lead service lines by 2037.

Atlanta – September 19, 2026 -- E-cigarette directory laws in Alabama, Oklahoma and Louisiana produced no sustained reduction in flavored e-cigarette sales, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers from the CDC Foundation. The research, using retail scanner data from January 2021 through April 2025, marks the first rigorous evaluation of how these state registries affect nicotine sales and product availability.

Alabama and Oklahoma directories showed no measurable effect on sales

Researchers found no significant change in per-capita nicotine sales or product availability in Alabama or Oklahoma after directory implementation, using comparison states without such laws as controls.