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Arsenal sign De Almeida from PSG
The 28-year-old France international arrives after five seasons with PSG and can operate at centre-back or right-back.Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty ImagesElisa De Almeida has joined Arsenal from...
Judge Ends Federal Oversight of Teamsters
The union and federal prosecutors agreed that organized crime groups had been rooted out of union operations, the judge wrote.
Abode Luxury Rentals named 2026 Green Business of the Year
The Park City | Summit County Green Business Program recognized the property management company for its commitment to sustainable operations, waste reduction and visitor education.
Leadership transition for the HAPO Center
The contractor operating the HAPO Center has announced a leadership transition for the venue as owner Franklin County considers diverse options for the facility’s future.
Trump again appeals to Supreme Court on mail voting restrictions as midterms loom
The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to reject an order by a federal judge that halts it from implementing a new rule regulating mail ballots, hours after being unable to tell that judge whether the computer system that would govern the entire project was operational yet.
Science of Speed off to fast start
PITTSBURGH — One month in and Pittsburgh is proving it’s ready to put the pedal to the metal. Since opening Aug. 1, Science of Speed, Powered by Lenovo, at Kamin Science Center has welcomed nearly 10,000 visitors, with 90 percent of racing experiences selling out through the first month of operations. The 21,000-square-foot immersive experience […]
To The Ceiling Entertainment Faces Unpaid Artist Claims
To The Ceiling Entertainment is out at Salem’s Grand Theatre amid unpaid artist claims and more than $100,000 in alleged back rent.
Bravo Greater Des Moines grant applications due Sept. 25
Bravo Greater Des Moines is accepting applications for its operating and public art grant programs. The operating grant program provides general operating support to eligible arts, culture and heritage organizations in Greater Des Moines to support administrative expenses and day-to-day costs of running an organization. The public art grant program supports comprehensive public art projects…
Smart Glasses, Smarter Small Businesses: AI Wearables Are Becoming an Entrepreneurial Tool - Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
By Karen Kerrigan – For entrepreneurs and small businesses, valuable technologies eliminate friction. Various digital tools are helping small businesses eliminate steps, and accomplish a task or project more efficiently, in less time, and at lower cost. AI-powered smart glasses are helping small business owners eliminate operational downtime, automate content creation, and improve workplace accessibility, […]
Polk County releases Iowa Events Center RFP
Proposals are due on Oct. 30 for organizations interested in serving as the next operator of the Iowa Events Center. Polk County is looking for either a single company or two companies to operate the facilities and provide food and beverage services. The Iowa Events Center comprises the Casey’s Center, EMC Expo Center and the…
Caroline Baratta Promoted To Assistant AD/Business Operations
Former Marist Student-Athlete Has Worked in Department's Business Office Since 2023
LM Workboats Builds Aluminum Research Vessel For Chesapeake Bay Science Ops
LM Workboats has been contracted to construct a 59-foot aluminum research vessel for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, designed to conduct multi-mission, year-round operations on the Chesapeake Bay and near-coastal Atlantic waters. The vessel will be built to US Coast Guard Subchapter T and UNOLS standards at Lyman-Morse facilities in Maine.
Palantir Expands PwC Strategic Alliance to Scale Enterprise AI Across Core Business Operations
The expanded collaboration targets enterprise AI deployment, M&A transformation and ERP modernization, giving Palantir Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:PLTR) a broader route for embedding its platforms into complex corporate workflows.
Kustom Entertainment Provides Strategic Roadmap and Anticipated Operational Synergies for Pending Acquisition of TFL, LLC
Follow-up Release Details TFL’s Multi-Channel Revenue Streams, Expected TicketSmarter Alignment, Festival Integration, and Casino/Resort Expansion...
LW Entertainment Expands 'Phantom of the Opera' Licensing Program
LW Entertainment announces new global and regional licensing partners across fashion, accessories, stationery and collectibles.
Kenya's President William Ruto orders crackdown on foreigners operating small businesses
It comes amid concerns over the growing number of traders from neighbouring countries.
As sports betting surges, Virginia weighs how to curb gambling harms
As college football season gets into full swing over Labor Day weekend, sports betting companies, public health experts and Virginia lawmakers are confronting a question that has grown more pressing since wagering moved into smartphones: How can the industry keep gambling from becoming an addiction?Representatives from those groups gathered Wednesday at the Hilton Richmond Downtown for a Responsible Gaming Roundtable hosted by the Sports Betting Alliance, an advocacy organization representing bet365, BetMGM, DraftKings, Fanatics and FanDuel — five of the nation’s largest online sports betting operators.
Google Won't Have To Break Up Its Advertising Business, Federal Judge Rules
Google will not have to break up its advertising operations, a federal judge has ruled, though it will have to alter its business practices.
US military fended off Iranian drones as it escorted a record amount of oil through Strait of Hormuz, sources say
The US military escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, marking a wartime high as Iran and the US exchanged a new round strikes on Tuesday, two US officials familiar with the operations told CNN.
Google spared from ad-business breakup, but judge orders changes to how it operates
Google has dodged an effort to break up its ad business, but a judge said Wednesday that the company will need to adjust its business to benefit competitors.
Lori Harris named Chief Nursing Officer of Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital
As CNO,Harris will be the senior nursing leader at VPH, overseeing nursing operations and helping shape the hospital’s strategic direction.
The family business experiences: Loyola University Chicago
Students in Kathy McCauley’s MGMT 377 course are learning firsthand what it’s like to operate a family business and helping shape the future of family business.
Fort Bragg Veteran celebrates expansion of high-end experiential entertainment brand
Photo provided by EscapologyAfter 15 years as an Army officer at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville resident Dan Cooke transitioned to business ownership to bring high-end experiential entertainment to North Carolina, applying strict military operational systems to scale his footprint across the state.Cooke got his start in the Army’s Boots to Business program.“Boots to Business was instrumental in preparing me to start a company. The program taught me how to develop a business plan, conduct market and financial analysis and critically evaluate whether a business concept was actually viable,” shared Cooke. “What made the program particularly valuable was that the instructors and mentors had real-world business experience…At the end of the course, I had to present and defend that plan. From there, they directed me to SCORE, where mentors helped me further refine the plan. I eventually presented it to a bank, which was impressed with the level of preparation, and I secured the financing necessary to build the business.”As Cooke neared the end of his military career, he began to wonder what would come next. Through his faith and some valuable mentors, he found the right avenue for his entrepreneurial interests.“While working on my instrument pilot rating, my flight instructor happened to tell me about escape rooms and the economics behind building them. He thought they could make for an interesting business. I took the analytical skills I had developed in the military, along with what I learned through Boots to Business, and began comparing the escape-room model against other opportunities I was considering,” explained Cooke. Cooke opened his first Escapology location in Fayetteville in 2019.“My approach was to start small and prove the model. Fayetteville made sense because I was already there, understood the market and could minimize my initial risk. It also became clear very quickly that I needed a partner that could provide the creative design, branding and industry knowledge that I did not have. After researching a number of options, Escapology became that partner,” added Cooke.Following the success of his initial venue in Fayetteville and a venue in Charlotte that opened in 2023, Cooke recently expanded into Raleigh with his third Escapology venue at Crabtree Valley Mall.His North Carolina footprint now includes:Fayetteville: A 5-room venue launched right after his Army transition in 2019.Charlotte: A 10-room venue opened in 2023, doubling his original operational footprint.Raleigh (Crabtree Valley Mall): A 6-room venue opened in May 2026, with plans to expand to 10 full rooms.Beyond his venues, Cooke expanded his local footprint by launching Jade Solutions in Aberdeen, N.C., an OEM manufacturing business that now builds prop and technical solutions for Escapology venues systemwide.Cooke shared that his long-term goal is to continue expanding Escapology in a healthy and sustainable way while enjoying the journey. “I actually did not start an entertainment business because I personally loved escape rooms. I started a business because I love the game of business itself. Growing up, I loved military simulation games and business tycoon games. I eventually had the opportunity to experience the first of those in the real world — I went to war, led troops and played my part in the military. Today, I would much rather apply that same drive to the real-world game of building businesses.I don't play business computer games anymore. I get to wake up and do it for real every day,” shared Cooke.
Spanberger's ICE restrictions dealt major setback as judge warns other blue states
A federal judge blocked a key part of Gov. Abigail Spanberger's law restricting local 287(g) cooperation with ICE as Republicans say they warned her.
37% of Business Leaders Are Losing Nearly a Full Workday to This Hidden 'Operational Tax'
How simplifying routine purchasing helps business leaders reclaim time and focus on growth
Modding Platform Nexus Mods Now Owns SteamDB
Nexus Mods said the community-led SteamDB site will operate as it always has, while becoming stronger and better resourced.
Small Business Focus: The Wandering Shelf
For Tessa Cannon, books are more than stories. They’re a way to build community. As the owner of The Wandering Shelf, an independent mobile bookstore that launched in Arlington in May 2025, Cannon brings books directly to readers across the community. Operating out of a bookstore van, she sells new and used books for all
Trump’s first midterm ads are heavy on ‘me’
President Donald Trump’s extremely well-heeled political operation has begun an advertising campaign ahead of the 2026 midterm elections that Republicans have been eagerly awaiting.
New Jersey asks US Supreme Court to assess power to regulate sports bets on Kalshi
New Jersey authorities on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether states have the power to police sports betting that occurs on prediction markets operated by Kalshi and competing platforms.
New Jersey Asks US Supreme Court to Assess Power to Regulate Sports Bets on Kalshi
Sept 2 (Reuters) - New Jersey authorities on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve whether states have the power to police sports betting that occurs on prediction markets operated by Kalshi and competing platforms. The state asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower ...
Nearly 550 employees face layoffs as healthcare services company ends VCU Health contract
Nearly 550 employees are expected to be laid off when a healthcare services company ends its operations at VCU Health in Richmond in late October.
Rubio urges partners to stop 'business as usual' with Nicaraguan government
The U.S. urges international partners to immediately stop "business as usual" operations with Nicaragua's government, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that Washington remains committed to addressing violations of human rights by the government.
Rubio Urges Partners to Stop 'Business as Usual' With Nicaraguan Government
WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. urges international partners to immediately stop "business as usual" operations with Nicaragua's government, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that Washington remains committed to addressing violations of ...
Select Medical and Corewell Health Form Joint Venture to Build New Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital in Southeast Michigan
Select Medical Corporation and Corewell Health today announced a joint venture partnership to build and operate a new 84-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital in Sterling Heights, Mich., next to Corewell Health Beaumont Troy Hospital.
From Pandemic Prevention to Pharmaceutical Resilience: Why Health Security Should Be Part of US-Taiwan Economic Security Cooperation
As strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region intensifies, Washington increasingly views Taiwan as both a reliable partner for democracy and regional stability, and as a critical contributor to supply-chain resilience and technology security. However, one important area has room for improvement: health security and pharmaceutical resilience.
Rural Internship Teaches CALS Student the Business of Bison
Through the CALS Rural Works! Internship Program, animal science major Lauren Schulte-Hock got firsthand experience in both business operations and animal care at Sunset Ridge Bison Ranch in Roxboro, North Carolina.
NOAA announces priorities to promote science-based American seafood dominance
Today, NOAA announced priorities for advancing reforms within NOAA Fisheries to move towards regulations grounded in science that support American seafood dominance. These agency-level actions follow the Regional Priorities guidance that was released on July 2, 2026, to apply the same standard of accountability to NOAA’s own opera
This environment is antagonistic to local business
Last week, The News-Gazette reported on a real estate covenant gumming things up for a potential locally owned and operated pharmacy in Urbana. As you may recall, both the Walgreens and CVS on Philo Road ...
News | Aimbridge's new labor forecasting tool applies AI and data science to staffing
The proprietary LIFT platform is available at all managed hotels
The amazing USB-C gadgets that play old Nintendo cartridges
The Epilogue SN and GB Operator are dream gadgets for Nintendo cartridge collectors.
Riverhead OKs $1.95 M offer for Long Island Science Center site
Riverhead Town’s acquisition of 111 E. Main Street moved forward Tuesday as the Town Board authorized a $1.95 million offer to The Place for Learning, the property’s owner and operator of the science…
Topgolf, Family Entertainment Group team up to create exceptional guest experiences
Family Entertainment Group, a national developer and operator of entertainment experiences, is partnering with Topgolf to create exceptional guest experiences through customized entertainment solutions and operational excellence. The phased rollout follows a successful pilot program at seven Topgolf venues, according to a press release
Inside a Conservative Operation to Hijack Your Social-Media Feed
A service run from Latvia offers payment for short, social-media-friendly clips designed to look like grassroots GOP support.
America first, global health last?
The US is reshaping global health aid through bilateral deals and stricter conditions – raising concerns over funding gaps, sovereignty and whether a transactional model can replace decades of multilateral cooperation
August Monthly Review: ChatGPT In Epic
Death, taxes, another frontier lab healthcare launch inspiring truly insane LinkedIn takes. As much as I want to stay away, I repeatedly am the crewman unplugging his ears whenever we pass these sirens. So it’s not the first and probably not the last time we dial up the typewriter rather than tie ourselves to the mast. The full blow-by-blow timeline: Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe The End of the Standalone PHR (Jan 8): ChatGPT Health arrives for consumers, at the time powered by b.well. I was bullish on the approach in that the best way for the PHR to finally solve distribution was to meet consumers were they already are (i.e. When Horizontal Meets Healthcare (Jan 9): OpenAI for Healthcare puts out the shingle for enterprises, with SharePoint ingestion standing in for the EHR integration the product actually needed. Another One: Anthropic’s Healthcare Debut (Jan 16): Claude's version, on HealthEx rails instead of b.well, with Agent Skills for FHIR development as the one true vertical-specific investment. ChatGPT for Clinicians: The Trap Sprung (Apr 24): OpenAI filled in the missing GTM middle with a free product for verified clinicians, effectively peeling the enterprise wrapper off ChatGPT for Healthcare and taking the PLG fight directly to OpenEvidence. OpenAI’s Second Attempt at Health (Jul 31): a relaunch of their patient specific app, now branded Health in ChatGPT, where the privacy partition came out, the connectors thinned, and b.well disappeared in favor of first-party FHIR work against a smaller network Beyond a Shingle So what was announced now? Today, we’re introducing a new electronic health record integration that brings authorized patient context from Epic into ChatGPT for Healthcare, along with the Healthcare Public Data plugin for direct, structured access to official healthcare datasets like PubMed, DailyMed, and CMS Coverage. Together, these capabilities bring ChatGPT closer to the systems and sources healthcare teams trust, while supporting the controls and compliance healthcare work requires. The core portfolio is unchanged from prior announcements we delineated and discussed (aside from the relaunch of patient-facing). Since trade publications still seem to be confusing them by using the wrong names: Enterprise sales motion: ChatGPT for Healthcare Protecting their core product / PLG: ChatGPT for Clinicians Consumer/patient-facing product: Health in ChatGPT So really, this is a feature release (specifically for ChatGPT for Healthcare when it comes to EHR integration). What’s cool about it, though, is that we are moving beyond just putting out a shingle. Everything in the January enterprise launch was horizontalizable: Horizontal tech companies thus generally start verticalization with their “putting out a shingle phase”. Telling the world you’re open for business as a horizontal tech company reliably attracts early inbound interest from buyers who are already trying to force-fit horizontal tools into domain-specific workflows and are eager for any signal that the vendor intends to support their use case more directly. Nothing was really vertical specific, which is exactly what you'd expect from the ultimate hypergrowth horizontal company dipping their toes into specific industries. But eventually you have to stop changing the sign on the door and start changing the product. Can you guess where the horizontal product was going to run out of road? This is the core dilemma writ large: verticalization requires differentiation, while scale economics of consumer and horizontal push toward unification. I’ve buried the lede so deep here it will be painful to some readers, but what should be shocking to no one is that my perspective is that EHR integration is the only path that meaningfully resolves this tension for ChatGPT for Healthcare. Integration with Microsoft Sharepoint is fine, but it is categorically insufficient for any product that hopes to influence clinical decision-making. SMART Money Well here we are, eight months later! Real vertical investment has begun, which surprised a few people. One friend in the industry messaged me: “Absolutely no way Epic gave ChatGPT API access.” Looking forensically at the announcements, the integration is notably read-only across appointment notes, laboratory results, medications, and specialist documentation. So while I’m not a betting man, I'd wager the house this is a SMART on FHIR launch: That sounds a lot like USCDI! The recommended path for the workflow they outline would be SMART on FHIR Their Health AI lead’s post is evocative of both standalone and EHR launch SMART, which another termed “ChartGPT” and “EHR Plugin” The implementation burden for SMART on FHIR is the lowest of the available integrative paths This is the team who literally did patient-facing SMART on FHIR with Epic last month Most importantly, if you’re a horizontal company, you generally still haven’t taken the full plunge and thus (overly) value reusability. SMART on FHIR is the logical compromise: healthcare-specific enough to matter, but standardized enough to reuse. Nobody Asked Judy Another friend asked “I thought they had to go to each health system, or did they go direct to Epic and now health systems opt in?” Given the trust paradigms in healthcare, this functionally cannot be Epic hoovering up all the data for OpenAI and shoving ChatGPT in their customers’ faces (or they would revolt). However, I do believe the aforementioned terrible coverage by TechCrunch and other outlets is probably responsible for that question, given the 325 million reference. When using FHIR as a business associate to an Epic customer, there is no EHR gatekeeping to speak of, as that isn’t how fhir.epic.com works: You register an app You pick your APIs You test against the sandbox APIs You list as “Ready for Production” Hospitals pick your app You test and go live with them Bluntly, nobody had to say yes or no in Verona (nor were they given the chance). Vendor Services (their next developer tier up that I doubt OpenAI is using quite yet in this initial release) certainly has contractual paperwork that some resent, but even there, the twin pressures of mounting antitrust and information blocking make outright gatekeeping increasingly fraught. My friend’s sentiment is, to me, representative of a broader industry neurosis, perhaps a sort of scar tissue of prior eras: people assume the gate is still there and never actually try the door. There are certainly other ways Epic (and any EHR) can put its thumb on the scale, but they are not so dumb as to stand in front of a federally mandated API and play bouncer at this exact moment in time. So I think they can and probably should go deeper, as this release is at best parity and at worst behind vertical-specific competition. OpenEvidence did a basic SMART launch with Sutter Health in February, allowing for more convenient evidence search by providers. They then add patient-context (the equivalent SMART on FHIR flow to what we see here) when Cedars-Sinai went enterprise-wide in May. UpToDate has four distinct applications across deeper workflows like patient engagement listed in Epic Showroom and announced a partnership with Epic to power Art at UGM Abridge and other ambient scribes have invested deeply into the deepest bidirectional clinical copilot workflow with integrations well beyond SMART on FHIR. In that light, the “Who is OpenAI primarily targeting here?” is clear. This release brings them into striking distance of OpenEvidence, but not the others quite yet. They are the only one of the three you can reach without building something truly Epic-specific. When will they go further? Competition is a great motivator to overcome the horizontal demons and start building things that can’t be reused: not across industries, not across EHRs, maybe not past the customer you built them for. That’s the price of actually verticalizing. The question is if and when OpenAI will be willing to pay it. Month in Review Here is the monthly review. As a reminder, this is a regular round-up of the month’s posts and other content to surface things you may have missed across regulation, litigation, interoperability, and beyond. AI assistance is used in these bullet summaries so I can focus on articles. Articles Published: None this month Video Content: The Information Exchange: Standards-based Thruple Edition (Aug 14): Back to school for us too, with Brad reporting in from the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem’s one year anniversary in DC. We get into the January CMS-0057 deadline, the fall rulemaking reading list, and why enrollment still keeps most apps off FHIR. The Information Exchange: Epic Dúnadan Edition (Aug 25): A UGM roundup with Ryan Brickner joining for the first time to check our takes against what the building actually thinks. Rangers, Ergo sitting on top of EHI, and a down-market lineup that needs some cuts. Regulatory: Stacked Deck, Bad Hand (Aug 05): ONC’s website refresh took the entire HIT Policy Committee record with it, so I rebuilt the archive and went looking for the regulatory capture story everyone assumes is buried in there. Stacking the deck and winning the hand turn out to be very different things. The Sixth Generation of Patient Access (Aug 19): A quick catalog of the five generations of patient access we’ve layered on since HIPAA, and the two candidates now competing to be the sixth. One is planned. The other is the market routing around the plan entirely. Court cases: Three Cases Walk Into a Docket (Aug 06): Two surprise settlements cleared the board in a single week, and then Judge Maddox dropped ninety-four pages on Vyne v. Henry Schein. The sleeper is a DMCA holding that makes direct-to-database a considerably riskier business model. Epic v. Health Gorilla: Into the MDL (Aug 10): Nine class actions are headed to Miami, and the Panel signaled it wants to bring the case that spawned them along too. That would leave Epic arguing the requests were obviously fraudulent in one courtroom and unknowable in the other. Amazon v. Perplexity: Agents Are Legalized! (Aug 11): The Ninth Circuit vacated the injunction against Comet, holding that the user is the one accessing the servers rather than the company that built the agent. A real win for agentic access, and a much narrower one than the headline suggests. Veeva v. Epic: Come At Me, Bro (Aug 26): Epic’s response brief wants the dismissal affirmed and, unusually, wants the opinion published as precedent. Buried in it is Epic’s own description of what its non-competes actually prohibit, which current and former employees should read closely. EHRs: The Contract Epic Would Never Sign Today (Aug 04): A 1999 SEC exhibit catches Epic licensing nearly its entire product line, Tapestry included, to the company that became TriZetto. The marketing services menu attached to it is the part that will make you blink. Forecast from Verona (Aug 07): The Epic Almanac makes one argument six different ways: the AI is only as good as the networks behind it. Emmie headlines, Art’s context stack is the most ambitious part, and Penny finally gets an autonomous coding date on the calendar. Works With Epic MyChart (Aug 17): Epic’s first new Showroom category since the death of Workshop certifies hardware instead of software, badge on the box and all. Made for iPhone, but for blood pressure cuffs, and rough news for anyone selling the RPM stack sitting in between. UGM Hot Takes 2026 (Aug 20): Everyone else covered the AI announcements, so I went after Savvy deleting the payment gateway, Rangers as Boost with the timer removed, and a down-market lineup with too many entries. Plus the Health Grid tidbits I cannot help myself on. MyChart Central Grows Up (Aug 24): Device data and Emmie turn Epic’s identity hub into a full consumer platform, which is both a logical answer to ChatGPT and a bit of a mistake. It also happens to be the best scraping target Epic has ever shipped. Industry Analysis: The Wrong Yardstick (Aug 12): Vertical software keeps getting judged against Superhuman and Notion, which is the wrong bar entirely. Your user is comparing your product to a whiteboard and forty phone calls before lunch. Primitives vs. Abstractions (Aug 27): Developers want building blocks, systems of record prefer to hand out business logic, and both sides have a real case. There’s no test from the outside that separates the engineering reason from the competitive one, which is why this keeps ending up in court. Cross-industry Comparisons: The Two Kinds of Platform Power (Aug 18): Attention power and record power are different problems that keep getting handed the same regulatory toolkit. Congress’s latest swing at Big Tech shows both what’s possible and where it falls apart. The Dogs of (Platform) War (Aug 21): A CourtListener alert turned up a property management fight with healthcare’s exact shape and none of the Cures Act. Shell prospects, ghost accounts, a notetaker bot that came back to haunt someone, and a lawyer arguing both sides of the same theory in two states. Fractals All the Way Down (Aug 31): Yardi dominates property management right up until you zoom into one segment, where AppFolio owns it outright and Yardi doesn’t appear at all. Where you draw the line around a B2B software market is about to decide an awful lot of cases. Other News: If Judy Had the Courage (Aug 13): A short eulogy for the era when software was allowed to look insane: WinAMP, bold colors, and everything the grey chatbot era has taken from us. External Media: Portland Monthly Health Tech Meetup: Erin O’Brien channeled my own feelings - maybe it’s just because it’s August and beautiful, but the monthly edition of the PDX Health community meetup was a ripper. Make sure to reach out if interested to join for the next one. STAT’s Coverage of Epic This Month: Brittany Trang of STAT did a fantastic job of breaking the FTC investigation that’s been lurking, as well as UGM related coverage, so I had to give her her wish of a meme. Fall Conferences: I’m pumped to be kicking off my fall conference season in NYC at Nabla Accelerate next month, which Chrissy provided the link to apply for. Here’s the rest of my schedule in case you want to meet up: Commonwell (Redwood Shores, CA): Oct 13-14 Open@Epic (Madison, WI): Oct 21-22 eHealthExchange (Austin, TX): Oct 27 Sequoia Project (Austin, TX): Oct 28-29 HLTH (Vegas): Nov 15-18 RSNA (Chicago): Nov 29-Dec 3 Posts I Liked: HTI-6 Should Unbundle API Certification: Josh Mandel makes the case that HTI-6 should split (g)(10) into separate authorization and data certifications, so a PACS or a genomics platform can certify only the role it actually performs. Imaging is the urgent example, but the structure solves a much bigger problem. On implementing ePrior Auth with Epic: Scott Rossignol’s field notes from a live ePrior Auth build on Epic, including the two app registrations nobody warns you about and the CPT mapping problem waiting at the end. CMS-0057 implementations are going to be such a beast. Healthcare point solutions are starting to look a lot like streaming services: Spencer Dorn runs the cable-to-streaming arc against health IT and lands squarely on the bundling half of the cycle. Bundling can be good! It can also be bad! Life is nuanced. Health API Guy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe
The Next Wave of Business Growth Won’t Come From AI Software Alone. It Will Reshape Real-World Operations
The early AI era is over. The established AI “brain” is about to get a “body.”
Two Years In, Texas Business Court Finds Successes, Growing Pains
In a series this week, The Texas Lawbook dives into the Texas Business Courts’ first two years of operation and what changes may come during the next legislative session.
New research: For lower costs without worse outcomes, vertically integrate healthy health systems with certain health plans
Hospital-operated Medicare Advantage plans can help streamline post-hospitalization care of discharged inpatients while cutting episode-of-care costs and maintaining good patient outcomes.
WakeMed loses two top executives as proposed merger with Atrium looms
Thomas Gough, WakeMed’s chief operating officer, has been named COO at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida. Seth Brody, WakeMed’s chief physician executive, has joined UNC Health.
Chevron to expand Venezuela operations, says U.S. official
President Donald Trump last week announced an ambitious deal to develop Venezuela's oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits
Santa Cruz County business filings: Week of Sept. 1
Businesses operating in Santa Cruz County must register with the county clerk. Lookout Santa Cruz reviews the public filings from local businesses to report on new businesses starting in the area.
US military carries out new strikes on Iranian targets
The US military conducted additional strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran on Tuesday, in response to recent attempted attacks against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and American troops deployed to the region, according to US Central Command.
How SBGA Helps Small Businesses Build Operations That Keep Up With Growth
. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small businesses account for the vast majority of American companies and employ nearly half the private-sector workforce.
LZ Sees Surprising Result in Search for Dark Matter
Key Takeaways Dark matter is the mysterious substance that accounts for the vast majority of matter in our universe. LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) is a world-leading dark matter detector and specializes in searching for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. A new LZ study found one particle interaction that is difficult to explain with known background processes and could potentially have been caused by a WIMP. LZ continues to run to see if additional data strengthens or weakens the hint of a dark matter interaction. For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected. Determining exactly what it is remains one of the biggest questions about our world. Now, a new analysis from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment has recorded a single particle interaction that researchers have great difficulty explaining with known background signals from normal matter. The result does not yet meet the statistical threshold required to claim a discovery, but is the most compelling hint of dark matter reported by the experiment to date. LZ is an international collaboration of 250 scientists and engineers from 39 institutions. The detector is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and operates nearly one mile below ground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in South Dakota. The experiment uses 10 tonnes of ultrapure liquid xenon to search for dark matter and is optimized to look for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. The results were presented in a scientific talk at the 2026 TeV Particle Astrophysics conference in Japan. The paper will be released on the online repository arXiv and submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters. “We’re very intrigued to see this event in the data, in the region where we expect dark matter to show up and the competing backgrounds are very low,” said Rick Gaitskell, a professor at Brown University and the spokesperson for LZ. “With only one event, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We are not claiming to have seen dark matter. But we have seen something interesting that we want to share with the scientific community for their input.” The LZ collaboration studies experimental data in batches. In the new result, researchers analyzed 220 live days of data collected between March 2023 and April 2024. The collaboration had previously searched this dataset for faint signals from the simplest kinds of WIMP interactions. The new analysis searched for a broader range of possible WIMP interactions that could deposit more energy in the detector. LZ is particularly sensitive to such signals while also minimizing false positives. “This was a detailed study in a region we hadn’t explored within this dataset, and we spent months of additional effort to understand all the possible causes of background events,” said Sam Eriksen, a senior research associate at the University of Bristol in the U.K. and lead author of the study. “We understand our detector and the backgrounds so well that even a single outstanding event, like the one we found, is important. We expect dark matter events to be extremely rare, so only a handful could mark the first detection of WIMP dark matter.” If the anomalous event was caused by dark matter, the WIMP that generated it would likely have a mass of at least 200 GeV/c2 (gigaelectronvolts), or more than 200 times the mass of a proton. It would also suggest a specific type of interaction between WIMPs and ordinary matter beyond the simplest model. The LZ results have not reached “5-sigma” significance, the statistical threshold considered a discovery in physics. The new analysis is 2.6 sigma, meaning there is approximately a 0.5% chance that the event could be explained by known backgrounds. With additional data, researchers can test whether the finding continues to grow in significance or fades away. LZ has already accumulated the world’s largest dark matter dataset and will continue to accrue WIMP search data at SURF, substantially improving their search statistics. LZ searches for dark matter by looking for signature flashes of light from energy deposited in the detector. The collaboration leverages multiple methods to prevent or account for particle interactions caused by normal matter. This includes the mile of rock that shields the detector from cosmic rays from space, a water tank and outer detectors that protect the central detector from background neutrons, and a suite of computational tools that disentangle particle interactions and reject dark matter mimics. “Outlier events in the data are not unexpected, but they usually stand out as a background of some kind when you look at them deeper,” said Aaron Manalaysay, a physicist at Berkeley Lab and the chair of LZ’s Institutional Board. “This is the first example in any experiment I’ve worked on of an outlier that appears valid in every way. Of course, we’re still twisting our brains trying to think if there’s a rare background mechanism we could’ve missed, but it’s thrilling to wonder if this could be the first hint of a dark-matter observation.” LZ is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science user facility. LZ is also supported by the Science & Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology; the Swiss National Science Foundation; the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics; and the Institute for Basic Science, Korea. Thirty-nine institutions of higher education and advanced research provided support to LZ. The LZ collaboration acknowledges the assistance of the Sanford Underground Research Facility. ### Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to groundbreaking research focused on discovery science and solutions for abundant and reliable energy supplies. The lab’s expertise spans materials, chemistry, physics, biology, earth and environmental science, mathematics, and computing. Researchers from around the world rely on the lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 17 Nobel Prizes. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, Inc. to Report Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results on September 14, 2026
DALLAS, Sept. 01, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc., (NASDAQ:PLAY), ("Dave & Buster's" or "the Company"), an owner, operator, and franchisor of entertainment and dining venues, today announced that it will report financial results for its second quarter ended August 4, 2026 after the market closes on Monday, September 14, 2026. Management will host a conference call to discuss these results on Monday, September 14, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. Central Time (5:00 p.m. Eastern Tim
Family Entertainment Group Expands Hospitality & Entertainment Portfolio Through Strategic Partnership with Topgolf
/PRNewswire/ -- Family Entertainment Group (FEG), one of the nation's premier developers and operators of entertainment experiences, today announced a new...
Grace Meat + Three closing September 13 in the Grove
Grace Meat + Three (4270 Manchester), the nine-year-old restaurant inspired by the Southern tradition of pairing a choice of meat with three side dishes, will close after service on September 13, owners Rick and Elisa Lewis announced. With its lease in The Grove coming up for renewal, the husband-and-wife team chose to consolidate operations at […]
Air monitor in South Memphis now operational, health department says
The air monitor is now feeding data to the EPA's AirNow.gov website.
REE Medical's "Operation Onward" Branded Entertainment Series Reach Exceeds 715,000 in Under 30 Days
/PRNewswire/ -- Refuel Agency today announced early results from Operation Onward™, an eight-episode branded entertainment series for REE Medical that brings...
Oxfordshire science facilities protected from funding cuts
The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory says its world leading facilities are still operational.
‘Most’ of Star Wars Zero Company studio Bit Reactor was furloughed ahead of launch
Last week was meant to be a moment of triumph for Bit Reactor, the Maryland-based game studio founded in 2021 with ambitions to create a great new tactical combat game. On Thursday, August 27, Bit Reactor’s debut title, Star Wars Zero Company, released to stellar reviews. And, from the Gamescom show in Cologne, Germany, studio co-founder Greg Foertsch was giving interviews discussing what the studio’s next game may be. But for many developers on the game, launch has been bittersweet. Fans love it. Critics prefer it to most recent Star Wars games. Zero Company, which is out for PS5, Xbox Series consoles and PC, is the top-selling game on Steam. Much of the team that made it, however, is currently going without pay. They were furloughed, just weeks ahead of the game’s launch. A rep for Bit Reactor confirmed to Game File today that the studio had furloughed many of its workers prior to the game’s release. They said it was a difficult decision and one that had been made before it was clear how launch would go. The rep emphasized that the call to do this was Bit Reactor’s alone (meaning not from publisher EA nor Star Wars license holder Disney). While the rep declined to comment on the scale of the furloughs, a previously unreported lawsuit brought by studio co-founder Alison Kelly in 2024 noted in a filing from August 12 of this year that Bit Reactor “has furloughed most of its employees and terminated contractors…” One source told Game File the furloughs impacted 80% of the team; another referred to there only being a skeleton crew left on Bit Reactor’s active payroll, ready to address any of Zero Company’s post-launch bugs. The issue is that Bit Reactor, a studio formed in 2021, had run out of most of its money just ahead of the launch of its first game. Over the weekend, Zachariah Scott, a senior technical artist who worked at Bit Reactor from early 2023 until an acrimonious exit this past May, said on LinkedIn that the studio was “concealing the fact that the team was Furloughed weeks ago.” Reached by phone today, Scott told Game File that he spoke to nearly a dozen Bit Reactor workers over the weekend. “Everybody has essentially the same story, which is, ‘Yeah, I got furloughed three weeks ago.” The Bit Reactor rep told Game File that the studio hoped to bring furloughed workers back, suggesting that a successful launch of the game could be impactful. Scott told Game File that workers he spoke to were less confident that even if there were returns, that all who were furloughed would get their old jobs again. A heated dispute Bit Reactor’s mid-2026 was almost even more tumultuous. The lawsuit by co-founder Alison Kelly that first revealed the furloughs was initially slated to go to trial in June. The suit is a she-said/he-said about whether Kelly, until 2024 the chief operating officer of Bit Reactor, was a co-owner of the studio or whether it was solely owned by Greg Foertsch. In July 2024, Kelly sued, saying she was pushed out by Foertsch. She first sued in federal court and later refiled in Maryland’s Baltimore County, alleging breach of contract and that Foertsch had unjustly enriched himself. Kelly cited damages of over $20 million, on the basis of Bit Reactor allegedly being worth more than double that. Foertsch’s side has said Kelly was never a co-owner and has countered with claims about her job performance (which she has denied). The June trial was postponed until early 2027, as both sides have been deposing witnesses and filing more claims and denials along the way. Amid all of that, filings in the lawsuit reviewed by Game File paint a picture about Bit Reactor’s origins, early aspirations around tactics games, the team’s breakthrough in drawing the attention of Electronic Arts with the help of a pitch tied to one of EA’s non-Star Wars franchises, and early fractures among its co-founders. The real story about the company behind Zero Company
NASA’s Swift telescope is back, but time is running out
NASA has brought two of Swift’s telescopes back online after technical problems derailed a commercial mission intended to rescue the aging observatory by raising its orbit. With atmospheric drag pulling the spacecraft downward faster than expected, scientists may have only another month or two before Swift falls below a critical operating altitude.
Nonbank lender finds niche in airport concession business
Los Angeles-based Lendistry recently received a $100 million credit facility from East West Bank to support loans to airport concession operators.
NC father at center of US Senate ad says he was ‘swindled’ by GOP political operatives
Ronald Hayes was cautious when he talked to a reporter this week about the political TV advertisement he appears in, talking about the death of his son Shemar, a college football player who was murdered in Charlotte in March 2024 at age 23.
Hochul announces $36M in additional funding for victim services statewide
The announcement follows advocates speaking up for weeks about not receiving enough funding to operate their programs for their upcoming year.
Greenagers founder named Southern Berkshire’s Business Person of the Year
Will Conklin, founder of Greenagers, has been named the 2026 Business Person of the Year by the Southern Berkshire Chamber of Commerce and Pittsfield Cooperative Bank.
After 45 years in business, this West Menlo Park institution is slated to shutter
Lutticken’s Deli and After 5 Restaurant, a sandwich shop and restaurant that has operated in unincorporated West Menlo Park since 1981, is set to close at the end of September.
Arrow Sports Club closed in Weston; seller’s permit invalid
By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review WESTON — Arrow Sports Club is closed, and Village of Weston officials say the business cannot operate
Jeff Rehberger and the Business of Betting Big on Illinois
Jeff Rehberger looked at that landscape and saw something else: a regulated, scalable market that would reward whoever built the right infrastructure to operate inside it seriously.
MAD: Omnicom Combines Mediahub, Hearts & Science
The new agency network operates across 40 markets and represents approximately $9.1 billion in 2025 billings. It will be led in the U.S. by Nicole Estebanell, who previously served as CEO of Mediahub U.S.
U.S. Special Envoy for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli’s Meeting with Uzbekistan's Minister of Sports and National Olympic Committee
U.S. Special Envoy for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli’s Meeting with Uzbekistan’s Minister of Sports and National Olympic Committee Tashkent, Uzbekistan – August 31, 2026 – U.S. Special Envoy for Global Partnerships Paolo Zampolli met with the leadership of the Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Uzbekistan to discuss the current state of the U.S.-Uzbekistan sports cooperation and prospects for its continued growth. Discussions focused on strengthening international sports cooperation, advancing the Olympic movement, and identifying promising joint projects. Special Envoy Zampolli congratulated Uzbekistan on its selection as the host of the 2027 World Fencing Championships and welcomed Uzbekistan’s possible participation in a planned World Robotics Organization. Special Envoy Zampolli also congratulated the people of Uzbekistan on the 35th anniversary of the country’s independence. “Sport brings people together like nothing else,” said Special Envoy Zampolli. This engagement builds on Special Envoy Zampolli’s prior meetings with Uzbekistan’s national sports leaders and teams and reflects the United States’ sustained commitment to sports diplomacy as a bridge for cultural exchange and international cooperation.
Fisher-Lochhead group to play at Opera House
The Danny Fisher-Lochhead Large Ensemble will bring its unique sound to the Stonington Opera House on Friday, Sept. 11, at 7 p.m.
Veterinary science building opens
Utah State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine began its second year of operation this week, with first-year and second-year students…
Ancon Construction Receives 2026 Governor’s Half Century Business Award
Ancon Construction has been named a recipient of the 2026 Governor’s Half Century Business Award, recognizing the company for 50 years of continuous operation in Indiana and its longstanding …
Global Markets and Technologies for Electronic Health Records to Reach $52.2 Billion by 2030, Driven by Rising Chronic Disease Burden and Digital Health Adoption
“The global EHR market is projected to grow from $36.5 billion in 2025 to $52.2 billion by 2030 at a 7.4% CAGR as healthcare providers accelerate cloud deployment, interoperability and AI-enabled clinical workflows.”Boston, Aug. 31, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global market for electronic health records (EHR) is projected to expand from $34.2 billion in 2023 to $52.2 billion by 2030, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4% during 2025–2030, according to the BCC Research report Global Ma
The dance group helping with addiction and mental health issues
The dancers are preparing to perform a sold-out show at the Royal Opera House in London.
Radiologists develop calculator for predicting imaging no-shows
Outpatient radiology no-shows can delay timely diagnoses and exacerbate healthcare disparities, resulting in significant operational and financial burden, experts wrote Aug. 27 in JACR.
Star Entertainment warns tough conditions to persist after annual loss
By Nichiket Sunil and Keshav SinghChundawat Aug 31 (Reuters) - Australian casino operator Star Entertainment reported a bigger-than-expected annual loss on Monday and warned that conditions would stay
Philippines’ richest billionaire agrees to buy African port operator spanning three countries
Enrique Razon-controlled ICTSI has agreed to acquire an African port operator with businesses in South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia
Japan-South Korea business panel launched to address low birth rate
The group aims to enable the two countries to share knowledge and experiences in seeking solutions to their demographic challenges through private-sector cooperation.
Star Entertainment warns tough conditions to persist after annual loss
Australian casino operator Star Entertainment reported a bigger-than-expected annual loss on Monday and warned that conditions would stay tough as weak New South Wales table gaming revenue and a pending regulatory penalty weighed on its outlook.
Star Entertainment (ASX SGR) casino operator reports $307.3 million loss
The casino and hotel giant is separately facing a fine of $400 million next month for anti-money laundering failures, putting more pressure on finances.
Is PENN (PENN) Using Its New Orleans Rebrand To Quietly Redraw Its Capital Allocation Map?
PENN Entertainment recently announced it will invest about US$195 million to relocate its Boomtown Casino & Hotel New Orleans riverboat operations to an adjacent landside site and rebrand the property as Hollywood Casino New Orleans, pending regulatory approval, with plans including 140,000 square feet of new development, roughly 875 slot machines, 45 table games, a retail sportsbook, and multiple dining options. This move, which continues PENN’s pattern of shifting riverboat assets ashore...
Trump urges Canadian companies to immediately move to US, says ‘I don’t want Canadian anything’
Trump says Canada has been “ripping" the U.S. off for decades as he defends tariffs and urges Canadian companies to move operations south of the border.
Aon closes in on another blockbuster insurance deal
The insurance giant, whose North American operations are headquartered in Chicago, could announce the acquisition as soon as Monday, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Nearby business owner describes damage, calls for safety answers after explosion
A business owner near the site of an explosion says the force of the blast damaged his building, shut down operations for a day and raised concerns about the sa
Nearby business owner describes damage, calls for safety answers after explosion
A business owner near the site of an explosion says the force of the blast damaged his building, shut down operations for a day and raised concerns about the sa
Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices
Hey all, Jason here. When this hits your inbox, I should be en route to the airport — not to go anywhere myself, just to pick up my better half. I must admit, it’s been strange to be home alone (well, with two dogs) for two weeks! Really lets me “optimize” to spending more time on reading/writing/working, whether that’s healthy or not! Looking forward to getting back into a (somewhat) more balance routine. Subscribe or Support by Upgrading Compare Notes With the People Who Built Modern Fintech Partner content: Remitly CEO Sebastian Gunningham. Increase founder Darragh Buckley. Linda Du, Co-founder & President at Valon. They’ll unpack the decisions behind building and scaling major financial products: what they got right, what broke, what they would do differently, and how AI and new infrastructure are changing the operator playbook. Most events tell you where fintech is going. NerdCon puts the people who built the present in the room and asks them what comes next. Expect an operator-led conversation grounded in real products, real trade-offs and lessons earned the hard way. Fintech Business Weekly readers save 20% on Regular tickets with code FBW20 before standard pricing ends September 11. Meet the Builders Things To Know & Other Good Reads Advent and Stripe Abandon $50 Billion Pursuit of PayPal (Bloomberg) Trump Family’s New Crypto Bank Is Backed by Abu Dhabi Sheikh (Wall Street Journal) The multiplying risks of financing data centres (FT) Let the Bond Market Speak (Wall Street Journal) Did we waste a crisis? Modest proposals to reform deposit insurance. (Fintech Takes Banking) Untangling Guggenheim: How Private Credit Built Its Own Universe (Net Interest) The Hater’s Guide To Circular Financing — Part One (Ed Zitron) Fiat Ventures Rebrands to FGV Capital, Announces $35M Oversubscribed Fund II (BusinessWire) Socure Announces Strategic Growth Investment at $5.2B Valuation and Acquires Agentic Operations Platform Fravity (Socure) Listen: When Consumer Protection Disclosures Work Too Well (Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast) Colorado Sues EarnIn For “Immoral, Unethical, Oppressive and Unscrupulous” Business Practices When Andreessen Horowitz led EarnIn’s $39 million Series B in 2017, Alex Rampell, a partner at the storied venture capital firm, described EarnIn’s small-dollar advance product as “free,” relying on “entirely on voluntary contributions instead of fees.” Rampell favorably compared EarnIn’s approach to typical payday loans, writing, “Payday loans historically have had the potential to be a slippery slope for consumers into financial distress: opaque systems and steep fees that are hard to repay and set individuals back further than where they started. For many Americans living paycheck to paycheck, that kind of slide into debt can be extremely difficult to recover from.” But EarnIn’s product — which, the company says, isn’t a “loan,” legally speaking — ends up being anything but free for most users. While it is technically possible to take a no-fee advance from the company, most users incur “Lightning Speed” (instant funding) fees and/or ostensibly optional tips that combined can equate to annualized percent rates that can reach over 1,000%. With an average term of 9.77 days, even fees and tips that are small on an absolute dollar basis are equivalent to high APRs on an annualized basis. A lawsuit filed last week by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser against EarnIn describes the company and its product and business practices quite differently than Andreessen’s Rampell; “EarnIn’s business practices are unfair because they are immoral, unethical, oppressive and unscrupulous,” the complaint, filed in District Court in Denver, Colorado, says. EarnIn’s marquee product, Cash Out, isn’t a loan, the company says, as Cash Out is not “[f]orward [l]ooking” because “[t]he money is transferred based on earnings to date,” does not carry a mandatory fee to access funds, and is “non-recourse,” meaning EarnIn cannot pursue recovery from users who don’t repay advanced funds. EarnIn is sometimes referred to as an “Earned Wage Advance” service. Though, unlike some others in the broader category, EarnIn does not integrate with employers’ payroll or time and attendance systems. Rather, EarnIn attempts to verify a user’s income and employment, by examining direct deposit transaction data in their linked external bank account, by using GPS location and Bluetooth data to estimate a user’s time spent at work, if they work in a fixed location, and/or by having a user provided a work email address. While repayment is theoretically optional, as EarnIn would have no recourse, such as reporting non-payment to the credit bureaus or a collections agency, this is anything but clear to users of the EarnIn app, Colorado’s complaint argues. During the process of taking a Cash Out, users must agree to a preauthorized debit of the amount advanced, plus any expedited funding fee and/or tips. Though users technically can revoke this ACH authorization, the fact that they have this right isn’t presented to users during the Cash Out process, but rather is included in linked terms and conditions few users are likely to actually read. And users who do wish to revoke their ACH authorization must do so three or more days before the scheduled transaction date by emailing EarnIn’s customer support. Similarly, EarnIn’s marketing claims that it carries “no interest” and “no mandatory fees” is technically true, but is not the reality for many of the app’s users, the Colorado complaint argues. Further, EarnIn has extensively marketed to users the ability to “access your pay today,” to get “instant” funds, and to get funds “the same day you work” — when, in reality, this speed of access was only possible by paying the additional, undisclosed Lightning Speed fee. The Colorado complaint highlights this contradiction specifically, noting: EarnIn tells consumers that they can ‘Make any day payday with EarnIn’ and that there no ‘hidden’ or ‘mandatory fees.’ For a consumer to access their pay on the same day requested, they would have to pay the Lightning Speed fee. In the fine print of the advertisement EarnIn discloses that ‘[f]ees apply to use Lightning Speed,’ a direct contradiction to the larger text of the advertisement, and a fact that would not be immediately understood by a consumer as ‘Lightning Speed’ is not defined nor explained. Like other small-dollar lending services, rather than explicitly charge interest, EarnIn collects a markup on the optional Lighting Speed fee, which, given the nature of the transactions, many users opt for, as well as offering users the option to leave “tips.” EarnIn leverages either Real-Time Payments (RTP) rails or push-to-card via debit rails if a user opts for the optional Lightning Speed. But while these capabilities cost EarnIn, on average, $0.075 or $0.20 per transaction, respectively, EarnIn charges users significantly more. Initially, EarnIn charged as little as $1.99 for Cash Outs up to $24. But EarnIn has hiked these fees multiple times, and now charges $4.99 for Cash Outs up to $75 and $6.99 for those over $75. According to the Colorado complaint, EarnIn leverages “dark patterns” to manipulate users and to make it more difficult to avoid tipping. Examples of these “road blocks” highlighted in the complaint include: As of 2023, in the EarnIn app, a consumer attempting to get a loan under the default settings had to make at least eighteen separate taps to complete the transaction and reduce the tip to $0. There is an alternative method to leave a $0 tip, via the “Custom tip” feature, but EarnIn made this option difficult to access by visually deemphasizing it and positioning it near devices’ “home” button. Using language and imagery such as “Tip to pay it forward,” “Your generosity supports the service + helps,” “Your tips make a difference,” and “[t]he APR for this cash out is 0%. Your tips help support us.” While Lightning Speed and tipping are, in theory, both optional, in practice, users nearly always ended up paying something. According to the Colorado suit, users were charged either a tip or an expedite fee for more than 92% of transactions, with an average APR of nearly 388%. And, although the advances are “non-recourse,” EarnIn successfully collects on nearly all transactions — 99.18%, according to the complaint, which, Colorado argues, “demonstrat[es] that EarnIn’s advances function as high cost loans, not voluntary payments.” The share of EarnIn users incurring fees — despite the product being marketed as 0% APR — is hard to reconcile with Andreessen investor Rampell’s favorable description of EarnIn vs. “opaque systems and steep fees” associated with payday loans, which, Rampell says, can be “extremely difficult” for borrowers to extricate themselves from. According to Colorado’s suit, EarnIn’s Cash Out product “trapped many consumers in extreme cycles of high-cost reborrowing.” The suit gives an example of one consumer in the state, who took out a whopping 1,151 loans, paying a total of $4,038.50 in Lightning Speed expedited funding fees on loans that averaged the equivalent of 1,421% APR. Another Colorado user, the suit says, took out 1,033 loans, paying $8,561.22 in tips and fees at an average APR of 1,539% . These types of usage patterns demonstrate “the severe and repeated financial harm caused by EarnIn’s illegal lending model,” the Colorado complaint argues. In aggregate, from January 2023 through July 2025, EarnIn extended 3.1 million loans to 56,778 users in Colorado — an average of nearly 55 transactions per person during the time period. EarnIn lent more than $300 million and collected more than $16 million from Colorado users in Lightning Speed fees and in tips. Ultimately, the Colorado complaint argues that “EarnIn’s Cash Outs are loans under Colorado law, and EarnIn’s contention that its product is not a loan based on its disclaimer of any legal repayment obligation lacks any real-world significance given how the Cash Out transactions actually operate in practice.” Colorado further argues that “EarnIn was not working with companies here in providing consumers with funds but acted as a third-party lender and charged illegally high rates, used deceptive design strategies to extract some charges, and trapped consumers in repeat borrowing. Colorado will continue to stand up for consumers and hold companies accountable when they violate our credit laws or attempt to evade them through misleading practices.” Colorado’s suit alleges EarnIn assesses finance charge in excess of that permitted by Colorado law, that EarnIn failed to make legally required disclosures to Colorado borrowers, that EarnIn made supervised loans to consumers without obtaining the requisite license, that EarnIn violated the state’s Deferred Deposit Loan Act, that EarnIn engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices, and that EarnIn made false or misleading statements concerning price. The suit seeks a court order enjoining EarnIn from violating relevant Colorado laws, for EarnIn to refund amounts charged in excess of state law, fees, costs, and penalties, and other relief the court deems to be just. Fintech Business Weekly is made possible by the generous support of paying subscribers — bringing you independent analysis of banking, fintech, and crypto without fear or favor. You can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber if you aren’t already. Paying subscribers enjoy: access to the entire archive of nearly six years of newsletters extended versions of the weekly newsletter, with additional content and analysis and (for founding member tier) quarterly personal 1:1 fintech Q&A / strategy calls with me, tapping into my unparalleled knowledge of the intersection of banking and fintech and experience working in the sector, including helping to launch Goldman Sachs’ retail bank Marcus Support Fintech Business Weekly You can also support Fintech Business Weekly by sponsoring a newsletter or podcast, putting you in front of 93,000+ of the most influential decision makers in banking, fintech, and crypto. Learn more about sponsor opportunities or request a media kit by dropping me an email. Q2 Quarterly Banking Profile: Five Quick Takeaways The FDIC released its quarterly banking profile, which is always worth a read, for the second quarter. The profile provides an aggregate snapshot about the overall health of the 4,238 institutions whose deposits are insured by the FDIC, who, collectively, hold more than $26 trillion in assets and saw a total net income of more than $90 billion in the second quarter. Net income was up 12% vs. Q1 2026, with lower provisions and realized gains on securities helping to drive the improvement, somewhat offset by increases in non-interest expense and applicable income taxes. Overall net interest margin was basically flat quarter over quarter (up 1 basis point vs. Q1 2026), though community banks saw NIM grow by 10 basis points, to 3.81%. Unsurprisingly, given that interest rates haven’t changed, unrealized losses on securities changed little, edging up slightly to $326.7 billion vs. $325.1 billion in Q1 2026. Aggregate credit quality has remained benign, with asset quality actually improving slightly in Q2. Overall, institutions reported a 9 basis point decline in their past-due and non-accrual rate, to 1.44%. Net charge off rate also declined by 2 basis points, to 0.57%. And finally, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund stands at $161.1 billion, making the DIF reserve ratio 1.48% — above the statutory minimum of 1.35%, but still below the designated target reserve ratio of 2%. [Paid Subscriber Exclusive] Nissan Withdraws ILC App, State Associations Plan BankChain Alliance, FDIC Defines “Unsafe or Unsound Practice” For First Time Automaker Nissan withdrew its application to charter a Utah industrial loan company and its corresponding application to the FDIC for deposit insurance last week, on August 19th. Nissan’s application had been outstanding for more than a year, as it originally applied in June 2025. Recent applications to the OCC to form national banks have been decisioned, one way or the other, substantially more quickly than has historically been the case.
For Houston restaurant operators, crayons and papers are serious business
Crayons are serious business.
Before JWST began science operations, a dust-sized particle struck one segment of its 6.5-metre mirror at hypervelocity and left an uncorrectable deformation — damage revealed because Webb can detect nanometre-scale changes in its own optical surface.
Webb detected a permanent deformation on mirror segment C3 through nanometre-scale wavefront sensing, corrected part of it and remained well inside requirements.
Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. Acquires Shares of 183,455 Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. $PLAY
Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in Dave & Buster's Entertainment, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLAY - Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 183,455 shares of the restaurant operato
KIII 3 News
KIII 3NEWS is the ABC affiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas, operating to serve, inform and improve communities in the Coastal Bend. The station began broadcasting in South Texas on May 4, 1964. Today, KIII 3NEWS dominates one of the fastest-growing markets in Texas. The station’s service to the community and commitment to local news and weather coverage has consistently made it the Coastal Bend's news leader for decades.
Turkiye summons Ukraine ambassador over Black Sea attacks
Two Turkish-operated vessels have been struck this week as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Ala. health system opens operations center with plans for up to 250 jobs
Huntsville Hospital Health System and Marshall Medical Centers opened a 32,000-square-foot operations hub in Arab to support scheduling, billing, customer service and other health care functions
How Investors May Respond To Flutter Entertainment (FLUT) After Sports Bets Are Ruled Not Swaps
A Ninth Circuit appeals court recently ruled that sports bets are not swaps, easing a potential regulatory burden for sports-betting operators including Flutter Entertainment and its US platform operations. This clarification strengthens the legal foundation for traditional sportsbooks relative to prediction-market platforms, potentially reshaping how different wagering formats are regulated and compete in the US market. We will now examine how this regulatory clarification around sports...
San Diego ramps up Gaslamp enforcement, but businesses say more must be done
San Diego police are increasing their presence in the Gaslamp Quarter through “Operation Last Call” to combat rising violence and disorderly conduct, though some local business owners a…
Florence and Aiken healthcare providers HopeHealth and Rural Health Services to merge
Nonprofit healthcare provider HopeHealth and Rural Health Services (RHS) announced plans to merge operations into a single community health center to serve Flor
Trump says U.S. has entered deal with Venezuela to control 65 billion barrels of its oil reserves
The announcement of the deal comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.
Mission Health, Monarch, Gurwin Execs Weigh In on Hiring Drivers in the Nursing Home Sector
Survey changes, value-based care and other regulatory updates are shaping how operators hire and build clinical teams. As regulatory priorities shift and