SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last month announced that it selected the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and the Association of Bay Area Governments as awardees of a $13.9 million grant to restore and enhance some 1,500 acres of tidal wetland habitat known as Strip Marsh East along the State Route 37 corridor in Solano County.

Restoration work at Strip Marsh East is expected to begin in 2028.

Flanked by a flood-prone stretch of Highway 37, Strip Marsh East, is nestled within the San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge and is vulnerable to habitat loss due to poor drainage conditions resulting in cycles of months-long ponding and evaporation, drowning wetland plants that leave super saline soils behind. This cycle of flood and salt has resulted in the loss of 800 acres of emergent marsh since 2000, reducing habitat for local species, including those listed as endangered.

"By enhancing our shoreline wetlands, we improve habitat for sensitive species and add resilience to vulnerable infrastructure and the communities and emergency services that rely on them," said Jeanette Weisman, State Route 37 Corridor Program Manager for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The low-lying marsh is particularly vulnerable to flooding and a lack of drainage, leaving little habitat to support the local wildlife that relies on it. In addition, ongoing erosion and sediment loss contribute to native plant loss, such as pickleweed, which would otherwise help hold the marsh together. Therefore, the project design will include lowering intake berms, dredging a four-mile-long tidal channel, and the reuse of that dredged material to increase the elevation of Strip Marsh East and create dozens of high-tide refugia mounds. Through the restoration of Strip Marsh East, the marsh will once again be able to provide habitat for endangered and listed species, including the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, Ridgway's Rail, Longfin Smelt, and juvenile Chinook Salmon.

"The tidal marshes of San Francisco Bay are unsung heroes of our ecosystem – they are critical for our future climate resilience, are essential to protecting the region's biodiversity, and providing much-needed habitat for vulnerable wildlife, including over 100 bird species, like the secretive and endangered Ridgway's Rail," said Casey Skinner, San Francisco Bay Program Director for Audubon California. "Audubon is proud to be part of this innovative cross-sector project that will serve as an important example of how to design climate-smart infrastructure hand-in-hand with environmental restoration."

As large-scale weather and ocean events such as El Niño occur more often, projects like this are important for providing insight into how large-scale restoration efforts can improve the resilience of communities within the Bay Area. To better understand these benefits and advance the regional application of nature-based solutions, this project will undertake extensive monitoring and develop a case study of the State Route 37/Strip Marsh East project. The case study will demonstrate how major restoration initiatives can provide nature-based shoreline protection while enhancing the resilience of critical transportation infrastructure.

"Strip Marsh East is the first large-scale Nature Based Solution integrated into a transportation project in the Bay Area," said James Muller, Acting Director for the San Francisco Estuary Partnership. "This project pilots a funding, permitting, and construction framework that can be replicated through the region to adapt our vulnerable infrastructure while improving environmental conditions."

This grant will also fund an upper estuary sediment dynamics analysis that will provide critical new insights into the long-term sediment supply being delivered to the San Francisco Bay from the Delta that is needed to sustain and restore tidal wetlands throughout San Francisco Bay. Through stakeholder engagement, public outreach, and technical recommendations, the analysis will help advance sediment reuse strategies, support wetland resilience, and improve the effectiveness of nature-based adaptation efforts across the Bay Area.

The San Francisco Estuary Partnership/ABAG is working in partnership on the project with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Caltrans, National Audubon Society, San Francisco Estuary Institute, San Francisco Bay Joint Venture, and the University of California, Davis.

SOURCE Association of Bay Area Governments

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Project Eleven and Quantus Plan Strongpoint Integration With Quantus Joining as a Development Partner

Quantus joins as a development partner for Strongpoint support on the Quantus Network, helping shape institutional key management, governance, and transaction workflows for the post-quantum blockchain.

NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Project Eleven and Quantus today announced plans to integrate the Quantus Network with Strongpoint, Project Eleven's institutional custody platform built for the post-quantum and AI era. Quantus joins as a development partner for Strongpoint support on the Quantus Network, helping shape the integration for institutional users.

As blockchain networks begin adopting post-quantum cryptography, they are unlikely to converge on a single signature scheme, migration path, or timeline. For institutions, that creates a growing infrastructure challenge: supporting different cryptographic standards across multiple networks while maintaining consistent security, governance, and operational controls.

Strongpoint is designed to address that challenge through a crypto-agile architecture that separates institutional controls from the cryptography used by the underlying network. Authentication, policies, approvals, key management, and audit operate through a common control layer while the cryptographic algorithms and network-specific requirements beneath them can change independently.

The planned integration will extend that architecture to Quantus. Quantus provides post-quantum security at the protocol level, while Strongpoint will enable institutions to secure Quantus keys and approve transactions through institutional hardware, policies, approval processes, and audit controls.

"Quantus is taking a forward-looking approach by building post-quantum security directly into its architecture," said Alex Pruden, Co-Founder and CEO of Project Eleven. "As more networks adopt new cryptographic standards, institutions will need infrastructure that can support those changes without forcing them to rebuild their security and operational workflows each time. Strongpoint is designed to provide that consistent layer."

As a development partner for the integration, Quantus will work with Project Eleven to help shape Strongpoint's support for the network and the requirements of institutions operating on it. The companies expect to collaborate on technical integration, key-management workflows, transaction support, and other infrastructure required to bring Quantus into institutional custody environments.

"Quantus was designed around the security requirements of a post-quantum world," said Christopher Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Quantus. "For institutions, adopting new cryptography should not mean replacing the security, governance, and operational systems they already rely on. Working with Project Eleven will make it easier to support Quantus within existing key-management and transaction approval workflows, helping reduce the operational friction that can come with adopting a new cryptographic standard."

Once support is available, institutions will be able to manage Quantus alongside other digital assets while maintaining a consistent approach to key security, transaction governance, and operational controls.

The collaboration is part of Project Eleven's broader work with blockchain networks and institutions as it develops Strongpoint ahead of general availability.

Quantus support is targeted for Q1 2027, with final availability details to be announced ahead of launch.

About Project Eleven

Project Eleven builds resilient infrastructure and tooling for the post-quantum era. The company develops scalable solutions that strengthen security across a rapidly evolving quantum threat landscape. With deep expertise in cryptography, blockchain, and financial systems, Project Eleven bridges advanced post-quantum research with real-world implementations that prepare the digital asset ecosystem for the future. For more information, visit www.projecteleven.com.

About Quantus

Quantus is quantum-secure encrypted money. It's a layer 1 proof-of-work blockchain with a 21 million supply cap and post-quantum security, and it is private by default. Quantus uses ML-DSA for key generation and transaction signatures, plus zero-knowledge proofs for scaling and privacy.

Quantus also built migration.fail, a public tracker of how much of the crypto industry is still vulnerable to quantum computing.

Media Contacts

Aubrey Strobel / Elena Nisonoff, Halcyon Communications

[email protected]

SOURCE Project Eleven

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Anyflo emerges from stealth with acquisition of Native, to simplify stablecoin payments for enterprises

- Led by Lola Oyelayo-Pearson, formerly of Shopify, Capital One and Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui

- Bolstered by the acqui-hire of Native, a top five Sui Overflow 2025 project

- Enters private alpha in October with production preview and liquidity onboarding

SINGAPORE, Oct. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Anyflo, a stablecoin payments orchestration service built to make new payment rails work for enterprises, has today emerged from stealth at Sui Basecamp during TOKEN2049 Singapore.

Incubated within Mysten Labs, Anyflo was founded by CEO Lola Oyelayo-Pearson, former GM Product at Mysten. Anyflo is built on the premise that stablecoin payment rails need to become more accessible to the wider business world beyond crypto. Anyflo acts as an orchestration layer, offering access to stables across multiple chains, while handling the complexity of blockchain networks, liquidity and routing. Anyflo helps its customers stay focused on what matters to them: business outcomes.

The company enters the market bolstered by the acqui-hire of Native. Prior to acquisition, Native raised just under USD 2 million, built a market-ready Bitcoin lending platform on Sui and ranked among the top five out of 630 projects at Sui Overflow 2025. Native co-founder Robert Zaremba and team bring existing engineering expertise, cross-chain IP and a readiness for scale into the business.

Lola Oyelayo-Pearson, Founder and CEO of Anyflo, said: "Most businesses aren't asking for stablecoins. They're asking how to reduce the cost of moving money, protect margins and build better experiences for their customers. The rails may be changing, but the business challenges haven't. Anyflo is built to meet customers where they are. Our job is to abstract away the ego, complexity and hype, and make the new payment rails make business sense."

The move brings together Lola's experience building products at Shopify Money, Capital One and Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui, with Native's blockchain infrastructure expertise. Anyflo is entering private alpha in October, with a production preview and liquidity onboarding, followed by beta in Q1 2027.

Embedded finance is changing who moves money. Marketplaces, neobanks, payroll and other businesses are increasingly building payments directly into their products, meaning the economics of moving money now sit inside the business model. Anyflo sees the missing layer as orchestration. The goal is to make an increasingly complex payment infrastructure work in the context of the business using it.

In addition to incubating Anyflo, Mysten Labs has invested USD 1 million in the company. The relationship gives Anyflo early backing from the team behind Sui, along with access to deep blockchain infrastructure expertise, built for mass adoption.

Kevin Boon, President of Mysten Labs, said: "Anyflo was born from the combination of deep technical expertise and a clear understanding of what businesses actually need, based on hard-won, first-hand experience. Lola and the Native team are building around a real challenge: making blockchain-based payments work for businesses without requiring them to become blockchain experts."

About Anyflo

Anyflo is a payments infrastructure provider that allows enterprises to make cross-border payments using stablecoins. Originally incubated within Mysten Labs, the team behind the Sui blockchain, Anyflo abstracts away the complexity of chains, liquidity and routing so customers can focus on the business outcomes they want to achieve. For more information, visit https://anyflo.io/

SOURCE Anyflo

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Disney Believe to Debut World's First "Encanto" Musical, All-New "Frozen" Family Feast and More in December 2027

General bookings will open on October 19, 2026 for the new Disney Cruise Line ship setting sail from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale

CELEBRATION, Fla., Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Disney Cruise Line will invite guests on a journey inspired by courageous Disney characters who believe in themselves, in their dreams, and in the promise and possibility of new horizons when the fleet's new ship, the Disney Believe, sets sail December 18, 2027, from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The Disney Believe will introduce brand-new, can't-miss experiences, including the world's first stage adaptation of Walt Disney Animation Studios "Encanto," a family dining venue that expands the "Frozen" universe with an all-new setting and experience, a Grand Hall inspired by the vibrant world where the sky meets the sea from "Moana," and more.

The Disney Believe will offer four- and five-night sailings from south Florida to the Caribbean and The Bahamas, making stops at one or both of Disney Cruise Line's island destinations, Disney Castaway Cay and Disney Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point. Continuing Disney Cruise Line's unprecedented growth which will see the fleet expand to 13 ships in late 2030, Disney Believe will be the fourth in the Wish class, joining its sister ships Disney Wish, Disney Treasure, and Disney Destiny.

See the Line Where the Sky Meets the Sea in the Grand Hall

The Grand Hall, the Disney Believe's central gathering space, will embrace the spirit of exploration and the power of nature with an architectural meeting of the sky and sea as a statue of Moana, along with her trusty companions Pua and Heihei, guide visitors on their upcoming voyage. This heart of the ship will incorporate influences from the film's Pacific Islands setting and design elements inspired by the sea itself, including an ocean-hued carpet adorned with bioluminescent colors and a chandelier modeled after the sea's fluid movement with the heart of Te Fiti hidden within.

We DO Talk About Bruno

The Disney Believe will blend brand-new entertainment offerings from the worlds of "Encanto" and "Zootopia" with classic Disney Cruise Line experiences, bringing families into beloved stories and worlds, all with that signature Disney touch.

"Disney Encanto" will debut exclusively on the Disney Believe, adapting the Academy Award-winning Walt Disney Animation Studios film for the Walt Disney Theatre stage. Following Mirabel on a quest to save her loved ones and their miraculous home, this production is inspired by diverse Colombian cultures with vibrant costuming, creative scenic design and joyful, traditional dance styles, along with Disney Legend Lin-Manuel Miranda's hits from the movie like "We Don't Talk About Bruno" and "Surface Pressure."

A hit show from the Disney Magic, "Tangled: The Musical" joins the theatrical lineup on the Disney Believe with a reimagined set design and special effects exclusive to the new ship. "Disney Seas the Adventure," an original show for the Wish class featuring beloved Disney and Pixar characters and iconic songs, rounds out the Broadway-style shows coming to the Disney Believe.

Beyond the Walt Disney Theatre, guests will discover Gazelle, an entertainment hub inspired by the bustling metropolis from Disney Animation's "Zootopia" films. By day, this location will be home to a variety of fun for families, such as trivia, games and immersive character encounters, but as nighttime comes around, cruisers can try everything with adult-exclusive entertainment, silent discos and variety acts. And for the first time onboard Disney Cruise Line, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde from "Zootopia" will star in a new family show that will ask guests to help them solve their latest case.

Additionally, the Disney Believe will spotlight several fan-favorite entertainment experiences the whole family can enjoy:

- Pirate's Rockin' Parlay Party, a nighttime spectacular across the ship and sky that will feature a live rock band and Disney Cruise Line's famous fireworks at sea;

- Hero Zone, a futuristic sports arena that will be filled with a wide array of games, free-play sports, and family competitions;

- Disney Uncharted Adventure, an interactive experience in which guests will use their mobile devices to unlock hidden quests throughout the ship;

- The boutique Wonderland and Never Land Cinemas, which will feature complimentary showings of classic and first-run films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and more.

Dining, Sweets, and Sips Where Everyone is Family

Aboard the Disney Believe, a brand-new restaurant will bring the family together for dinner, joining two returning venues from the Wish class. 

- Everyone has a seat at Oaken's Table: A Frozen Family Feast, a brand-new, untold chapter in the "Frozen" story featuring favorite characters like Oaken, Anna and Kristoff. Set in a sommerhus courtyard deep within the forest, Oaken and his family will invite guests to dine together while enjoying the musical stylings of his cousins, who will play their own reimagined renditions of famous tunes from the popular "Frozen" soundtracks.

- Returning from its sister ships, 1923 will celebrate the legacy of Disney animation with over 1,000 drawings, props and other animation tools pulled directly from the Walt Disney Archives, highlighting beloved stories like "Lilo & Stitch," "Alice in Wonderland," "Toy Story" and "Peter Pan." The Disney Believe will also welcome guests back to Worlds of Marvel for "Marvel Celebration of Heroes: Groot Remix" where the entire family can eat to the beat of an "awesome mix" along with Rocket and Groot.

- After dinner, families can create new memories and choose from specialty sweet treats, available for purchase, at Inside Out: Joyful Sweets. The sweet shop will feature new characters from Pixar's "Inside Out 2," with larger-than-life sculptures of Joy, Sadness, Anxiety, Envy, and the "Sense of Self" structure. This playful sweet shop, styled after Riley's emotions' command center, will leave visitors feeling joyful after indulging in a reimagined menu of treats, including nearly 20 flavors of gelato and ice cream, daily handcrafted gelato specials and a colorful lineup of signature sweets.

- Two new cafes – Big Hero Sips and Café Kakamora – will debut onboard the Disney Believe, both featuring a delicious array of coffee, tea and specialty beverages. Big Hero Sips will be a warm and inviting coffee shop inspired by San Fransokyo from Disney Animation's "Big Hero 6," while Café Kakamora – named after the curious piratical coconut creatures that are both friend and foe to Moana – will draw inspiration from Motunui, the storied island.

- On the upper decks, guests will find Mickey and Friends Festival of Foods, an open-air food court with themed food stalls, including barbeque, cantina bowls and salads, pizza, burgers and soft-serve ice cream. Exclusively on the Disney Believe, hungry cruisers will be able to try the brand-new Pluto's Pita Platters, which will join the tasty lineup of food stalls with a Mediterranean-inspired menu bursting with flavorful culinary treats, including mouthwatering kebabs and pitas with an assortment of garnishes and dips.

The Fairest Adult Venues of Them All

While on the Disney Believe, adults will be able to enjoy venues, offerings and entertainment tailored just for them, offering a delightful mix of fun and relaxation. Several of the bars and lounges on the Disney Believe will feature brand-new designs and menus inspired by the powerful stories that ignite imaginations and quench curiosity, all with a touch of sophistication.

At Sea Notes, guests will venture into an iridescent piano lounge inspired by Ariel's grotto. Here, chic, contemporary design blends with whimsical artistry from the beloved Disney Animation film, "The Little Mermaid." The centerpiece of the space is an elegant pearlescent piano, one of the forgotten treasures from Ariel's secret grotto. Patrons will enjoy nostalgic melodies while sipping from an expertly crafted menu of dreamy cocktails and non-alcoholic beverages.

Adults will step into a vintage storybook at Wishing Well, a centrally located gathering space taking cues from Disney Animation's 1937 film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Guests will be invited into an enchanting castle courtyard under a canopy of white blossoms and red apples, with furnishings draped in the bold colors of Snow White's gown, and hand-carved wood framing on the stage that will nod to the Seven Dwarfs cottage. The ornate bar, featuring a beautiful stained glass art piece, will evoke a gothic castle. Throughout the sailing, the lounge will host a variety of activities and feature live musical performances to enjoy while serving up a selection of mocktails, cocktails, spirits, and coffees.

Skygazers will be a venue where time stands still. Within this magical observatory-themed pub, dreamers and wish-makers will gather beneath the story-filled evening sky. Towering bookshelves, astronomical instruments and celestial maps, including props and nods to classic Disney stories, will adorn the walls of this astronomer's laboratory. Whether viewing live sports broadcasts or pondering dreams, guests will sample from a thematic menu of custom-made craft brews, specialty cocktails and light bites.

Returning to the Disney Believe is the popular Disney Cruise Line experience, the Haunted Mansion Parlor, a fully immersive bar inspired by the iconic Disney Parks attraction. Foolish mortals will be welcomed to sip on an all-new menu of spirited craft cocktails and mocktails developed exclusively for the Disney Believe.

In the news release, Vesta Home Appoints 15-Year RH Veteran Michael Brown to Lead Luxury Furnishings & Design, issued 05-Oct-2026 by Vesta Home over PR Newswire, updates have been made. The complete release follows:

Vesta Home Appoints 15-Year RH Veteran Michael Brown to Lead Luxury Furnishings & Design

Former RH executive joins Vesta Home as Chief Creative Officer, bringing decades of experience building successful design businesses and creating highly considered interiors

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Vesta Home, the nation's leading luxury home staging, interior design and furnishing company, today announced the appointment of Michael Brown as Chief Creative Officer, marking a significant step in the continued growth of the company's luxury home furnishings and interior design business.

Brown joins Vesta Home following more than 15 years at RH, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President for RH Interior Design, one of the most influential brands in luxury home furnishings.

As Chief Creative Officer, Brown will develop Vesta Home furniture collections, drawing inspiration from the spaces we design, the clients we serve and the way people live. He will also lead the continued expansion of Vesta Home's luxury interior design division, defining its creative vision and shaping projects across markets. Working alongside CEO Julian Buckner and Vesta Home's leadership and design teams, Brown will bring his vast experience creating highly considered interiors and building interior design capabilities at scale.

"In addition to Michael's distinguished career at RH, he is also a published and tenured interior designer, and that was incredibly important to us," said Buckner. "He understands that great interior design starts with how someone wants to live, and that the furniture, materials, art and objects all have to be in harmony to tell that story. He also has a rare combination of creative instinct, operational savvy and an ability to turn ambitious ideas into scalable, profitable businesses. As we deepen Vesta Home's interior design offering and continue to develop our own collections, Michael brings his proven creative leadership and perspective to help define where we go next."

At RH, Brown also helped launch several of the company's interior design innovations, including its embedded design offices and ateliers, its first standalone RH Interior Design studio in Palm Desert and Bespoke RH Interior Design, a full-service residential interior architecture and design offering operating independently from RH galleries.

Before joining RH, Brown co-founded Los Angeles-based design-build firm Custom Lime, where he designed and renovated residences and created custom furniture for high-net-worth and celebrity clientele. Together, those experiences have shaped a design philosophy rooted in the relationship between architecture, interiors and furniture, and in creating homes around how people actually live.

"Vesta Home is at a dynamic and pivotal point in its evolution," said Brown. "High-end interior design is where I have spent so much of my career and where I see an enormous opportunity. What excites me about Vesta Home is that it already has this extraordinary window and early access into how people want to live, often before the home is even purchased. We're inside thousands of homes, seeing firsthand what people respond to and what makes a space feel personal. We can take that insight and build an even more elevated furniture collection and interior design service around it. I'm thrilled to work with Julian and the team to create furniture collections and considered interiors that will further establish Vesta Home as a luxury design authority."

Brown's appointment comes as Vesta Home continues to expand beyond its staging roots into a broader luxury design and furnishing platform. The company completes approximately 2,500 projects annually across New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Palm Beach, San Francisco, the Hamptons and other major luxury markets. In 2025 alone, Vesta Home staged more than 5.2 million square feet of real estate, representing approximately $13.7 billion in transactions. Its work spans luxury residential, commercial and hospitality spaces, with a portfolio that includes multimillion-dollar estates, celebrity homes and some of the country's most significant properties, including the $149 million penthouse at Central Park Tower. Today, Vesta Home's platform encompasses staging, full-service interior design, custom furniture manufacturing, furniture sales and turnkey furnishing.

About Vesta Home

Vesta Home is a full-service luxury design and lifestyle brand transforming spaces through thoughtful design, exceptional furnishings and elevated experiences. Vesta Home completes over 2,500 residential projects a year across New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Palm Beach, San Francisco, the Hamptons and other major luxury markets, working with homeowners, developers and real estate professionals. Its vertically integrated platform spans interior design, luxury home staging, custom furniture manufacturing, furniture sales and turnkey furnishing. In 2025, Vesta Home staged more than 5.2 million square feet of real estate representing approximately $13.7 billion in transactions.

Media Contact:

Gaby Harris

[email protected] 

Update: Language regarding Michael Brown's role at RH has been updated.

SOURCE Vesta Home

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"Red Lobster is building for long-term growth, and that means having leaders who can strengthen both how we connect with our guests and how we enable our restaurants and teams," said Red Lobster Chief Executive Officer Damola Adamolekun. "Andy has spent his career helping restaurant brands grow and adapt while staying true to what guests already love, and his years as a strategic agency partner to Red Lobster give him a deep understanding of this brand and our guests. Jon has already made a meaningful impact advancing the technology, data and systems that support our restaurants and teams. With Andy and Jon in these leadership roles, we're better positioned to evolve the brand with greater focus, cohesion and discipline."

Andy Pitts: Chief Marketing Officer

As chief marketing officer, Pitts will lead Red Lobster's marketing and brand strategy, with a focus on deepening guest relationships, advancing the company's digital and marketing capabilities, and strengthening how the brand connects with guests across channels.

Pitts has led Red Lobster's marketing efforts as interim chief marketing officer since January 2026, helping drive the company's digital transformation and the launch of Red Lobster Nation, a reimagined loyalty program designed to deepen guest engagement and give members more choice in how they interact with the brand and earn rewards. He brings nearly two decades of restaurant marketing experience, having worked with leading brands including Wingstop, Smoothie King, Fogo de Chão and Dairy Queen.

Jon Tryzbiak: Chief Information Officer

As chief information officer, Tryzbiak will lead Red Lobster's technology transformation, with responsibility for modernizing the company's technology foundation and advancing its data, analytics and restaurant systems capabilities. He will also lead efforts to leverage AI and emerging technologies to drive innovation, operational excellence and stronger support for Red Lobster restaurants and teams.

Since joining Red Lobster earlier this year, Tryzbiak has brought greater focus to how the company prioritizes and delivers technology across the organization, with an emphasis on simplification and stronger execution. He brings nearly 20 years of technology leadership experience, including roles with Brinker International, FB Society, Checkers & Rally's, Bloomin' Brands and Landry's.

Pitts and Tryzbiak build on a series of executive additions at Red Lobster this year. The company previously named Brad Hill Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Transformation, and Kristen Briede Chief Global Development Officer, reflecting a deliberate effort to assemble the leadership team and capabilities needed for Red Lobster's next phase of growth.

About Red Lobster

Red Lobster is the world's largest and most-loved seafood restaurant company, headquartered in Orlando, Florida. With a decades-long heritage, the company is focused on serving the highest quality, freshly prepared seafood that is traceable, sustainable and responsibly sourced. For more information, visit www.redlobster.com or follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, Threads and TikTok.

Media Contact:

Michele Cortes

[email protected]

SOURCE RL Investor Holdings LLC

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Rencore extends its governance platform beyond Microsoft 365 to govern every enterprise AI from one control plane

New AI & Agents capabilities bring Claude Enterprise, with ChatGPT Enterprise to follow, under the same identity-anchored governance as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio and SharePoint agents

MUNICH, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Rencore, the Germany-based provider of Microsoft 365 and AI governance tools, today announced multi-AI governance in its AI & Agents module. For the first time, IT and security teams can govern Microsoft 365, Microsoft Copilot, Copilot Studio, agents, and Claude Enterprise from one platform, under one set of policies, anchored to the identities they already manage in Microsoft Entra ID. Claude Enterprise governance is now available in preview, and ChatGPT Enterprise governance follows later in October 2026.

The preview is opt-in. Organizations can request preview access and help validate use cases with Rencore's product team.

The launch answers a shift most enterprises did not plan for. "Copilot was maybe the plan, but multi-AI is the reality," Rencore CEO Matthias Einig said at Rencore's launch webinar. Analysts like Gartner confirm this development, finding that two-thirds of organizations deploy at least two other enterprise generative AI assistants alongside Microsoft 365 Copilot, even advising customers to resist defaulting to a single vendor (compare "Microsoft 365 Copilot and Agents: Assessing Impact and Value in 2026", Gartner, 2026, doc ID 856639). Governance, meanwhile, has stayed split across one administration layer per provider.

Four consoles, one person

Employees now use several assistants side by side: Claude for deeper research and coding, Copilot for quick everyday tasks, ChatGPT or Gemini elsewhere. Each has its own management function, and each governs only itself. The same end user appears as unconnected accounts in four systems, often under slightly different email addresses, and no tool sees across them.

The data has not moved. It still lives predominantly in Microsoft 365. But since early 2026, ChatGPT and Claude have added Microsoft 365 connectors that read from, and in Claude's case write to, SharePoint, OneDrive and Outlook. Every assistant connected this way inherits the oversharing and sprawl already present in the tenant.

Compliance and cost add pressure. Provider audit logs are kept for a short time, as little as 30 days, so evidence for an incident review can be gone before anyone asks for it. Consumption pricing makes spend harder to predict: Microsoft moved Copilot Cowork to pay-per-use in July 2026. And McKinsey finds that while nine in ten organizations use AI, only 6 percent achieve significant value from it, because pilots stall when nobody can say what the AI can reach and who owns it (compare "The State of AI in 2025: Agents, Innovation, and Transformation", McKinsey, 2025).

One control plane, built around identity

To Rencore, a new AI is another inventory. Customers connect each platform through its provider's own API, such as Anthropic's Compliance API for Claude Enterprise, and Rencore keeps that inventory current, as it already does for Microsoft 365. Microsoft Entra ID is the anchor: every AI account is matched to a person, through single sign-on where it exists and through email and pattern matching where it does not. IT and platform admins see the person, not four separate consoles, and can write policies that cross service boundaries.

With the AI & Agents module, organizations can:

- Inventory every AI estate: for Claude Enterprise, more than 400 event types covering users, groups, roles, projects with owners and collaborators, chats, Claude Code and Cowork sessions, artifacts, skills, connectors and plugins, plus 46 organization settings. For ChatGPT Enterprise, workspaces, custom GPTs, agents, service accounts, canvases, library files, and per-project connectors.

- Find the risks that matter: artifacts or projects shared publicly, external users and contractors with AI seats, and orphaned accounts that remain active in Claude after the user is deactivated in Entra ID.

- Track seats and spend: see usage, token consumption, and cost by user, group, department, or cost center, and spot unused licenses to reassign.

- Keep the history: Rencore pulls activity continuously, building a record that outlasts Claude Enterprise's 30-day window.

- Act on findings: use out-of-the-box policies, including 35 for ChatGPT Enterprise, and trigger automations such as deleting a project or unpublishing an agent, with optional approval.

- Keep end users in Teams: owners manage access, approvals, and reviews in the Rencore Teams app, the same way they already handle Microsoft 365 requests.

Rencore provides operational governance, not runtime guardrails. It reads metadata only and never reads, stores, or displays message bodies, session transcripts, or file content. It works alongside Microsoft Purview and supplies the up-to-date inventories, ownership and lifecycle data that audits under the EU AI Act, GDPR, NIS2 and DORA depend on.

"If you only govern Copilot, you are governing a minority of the AI your employees actually use, and you cannot govern the whole picture if you only see part of it," said Matthias Einig, CEO of Rencore. "Governance is the enabler for AI. When people know they are working within the right guardrails, they have the confidence to adopt AI, and IT stays in control."

"We are extending a product that is already proven at enterprise scale, with the same interface, policies, automations and access reviews customers run for Microsoft 365 today," said Tiina Rytkönen, VP of Product and Engineering at Rencore. "Entra ID is our anchor. Instead of looking into each AI service separately, you are looking at the person."

Availability

Multi-AI governance is part of the AI & Agents module, an optional paid module on Rencore's Premium and Enterprise plans. Claude Enterprise governance is in preview now, and the ChatGPT Enterprise preview opens later in October 2026. Further AI services will follow based on customer demand. On the Microsoft side, Rencore is adding support for Agent 365 and Agent Builder, plus cost analysis for Copilot Cowork until the end of 2026.

The launch webinar, "Your company uses multiple AIs already. Why do you only govern one?", with Matthias Einig and Tiina Rytkönen, including a live product demo, is available on demand at rencore.com.

About Rencore

Rencore helps organizations govern Microsoft 365 and the AI built on it, and now the AI beyond it. The Rencore Governance platform gives IT, security, and compliance teams visibility, policy automation, and remediation across Microsoft 365, Copilot, agents, and enterprise AI platforms. Rencore is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and is ISO 27001:2022 certified and SOC 2 Type 2 attested. Learn more at rencore.com.

SOURCE Rencore

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- XPENG's Next-Gen AI Flagship SUV G9L has successfully completed its production trial at Magna's complete vehicle facility in Graz, Austria, becoming the fourth XPENG model to be produced in Europe after the G6, G9 and P7+.

- Following the successful production trial, the first European G9L will travel 1,324 kilometers from Graz to Paris ahead of its global premiere at the Paris Motor Show on October 12, demonstrating the vehicle's safety, charging and driving dynamics under real-world conditions enabled by the cutting-edge AI technologies.

- The G9L marks another step in XPENG's European localization strategy, combining local manufacturing in Europe with global vehicle development and standards.

GRAZ, Austria, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- XPeng Inc. ("XPENG" or "the Company,"NYSE: XPEV; HKEX: 9868), a leading global Physical AI company, today announces that its Next-Gen AI Flagship SUV G9L has successfully completed its first production trial at Magna in Graz, Austria, marking a new milestone in its European manufacturing expansion.

The G9L is the fourth XPENG model to undergo production at the Austrian facility, where XPENG's G6, G9 and P7+ are actively being produced. The milestone comes one year after XPENG and Magna began local production in Graz and signals the latest expansion of their European manufacturing partnership.

The first pre-production G9L will now travel 1,324 kilometers from Graz to Paris ahead of its global launch at the Paris Motor Show on October 12, putting the vehicle through a real-world journey focused on charging, safety and driving performance before it is displayed at XPENG's stand.

The milestone builds on XPENG's accelerating growth in Europe. The company has delivered more than 100,000 vehicles overseas to date, including over 60,000 in Europe. In France alone, more than 6,000 vehicles have been delivered since entering the market two years ago. In the second quarter of 2026, XPENG's overseas deliveries surpassed 20,000 units for the first time, up 81% year-on-year, with overseas markets contributing 25% of first-half revenue at an average selling price exceeding €40,000.

A Global Vehicle Built to Global Standards

The G9L is being developed as a global model, with plans to launch across 64 countries and regions. The vehicle has been developed and validated against global standards from the outset, and its global validation program has covered 26 countries and regions over three years, with approximately 6.74 million kilometers of road testing.

The G9L has completed 192 crash tests and more than 110 testing protocols, including validation for both left- and right-hand-drive configurations. It is engineered to meet four major global five-star safety standards (E-NCAP, A-NCAP, C-NCAP and C-IASI) and incorporates active and passive safety systems alongside redundant safety architecture.

The testing program also included an industry-first seven-stage "720-degree" safety challenge spanning land, water and air conditions.

Next-Gen AI Technology Meets Advanced Driving Dynamics

The G9L combines XPENG's latest AI capabilities with a chassis system designed to balance ride comfort and driving dynamics. Its standard chassis specification includes dual-chamber air suspension, intelligent variable damping and rear-wheel steering with up to 15 degrees of steering angle.

The rear-wheel steering system is designed to improve maneuverability at low speeds while supporting vehicle stability during higher-speed driving.

Deepening Local Manufacturing in Europe

XPENG's collaboration with Magna marks the company's first European local manufacturing program. Production at Magna's Graz facility officially began in the third quarter of 2025. One year into the partnership, the two companies are expanding their cooperation to support XPENG's growing portfolio of vehicles for European and global markets.

The G9L will be manufactured at Magna's Graz facility, a site with a long-standing track record in producing vehicles for premium automotive brands, combining Magna's experience in high-end vehicle manufacturing with XPENG's advanced electric vehicle and AI technologies.

"The G9L marks another important milestone in our collaboration with XPENG," said Roland Prettner, President of Magna Complete Vehicles. "It demonstrates how strong teamwork can translate XPENG's product vision and technical requirements into robust production processes, supported by our vehicle manufacturing expertise and a shared commitment to quality."

"The latest production milestone represents an important step in our journey from entering Europe to building for Europe. By combining global vehicle development and AI technology with established local manufacturing expertise, we are bringing the next-gen XPENG vehicles closer to customers in Europe and around the world," said Zhang Li, Vice President of Global Manufacturing at XPENG.

From Graz to Paris for the Global Premiere

The first European pre-production G9L will leave Graz for Paris ahead of its global debut on October 12. The 1,324-kilometer journey will provide a real-world demonstration of the vehicle's charging capability, safety systems and driving performance across Europe.

At the Paris Motor Show, XPENG will officially unveil the G9L to global audiences and open orders for its Next-Gen AI Flagship SUV, representing the latest step in its expansion of its European manufacturing and product portfolio as the company continues to develop vehicles to global standards and produce them locally to serve customers worldwide.

If you are interested in XPENG's Paris Motor Show event, please contact:

[email protected] 

XPENG Paris Motor Show Press Kit:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I8SLTqDREdDCzeY5YUu8LjLe7jlPI6e2

About XPENG

XPENG is a leading global Physical AI company, dedicated to bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world to reshape future mobility and smart living. Through in-house R&D, XPENG has developed a full-stack Physical AI architecture spanning Turing AI chips, world foundation models, and highly integrated software and hardware applications. This unified technology foundation of XPENG powers an expansive product portfolio of smart EVs, robotaxis, and humanoid robots, advancing the deployment of Physical AI at scale. Headquartered in Guangzhou, China, XPENG is dual-primary listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. With global capabilities across R&D, manufacturing, sales, and services, XPENG drives continuous technological innovation and fosters an open Physical AI ecosystem, making life smarter, safer, and better for users worldwide. For more information, please visit https://www.xpeng.com/.

SOURCE XPENG

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Nuix Neo Generative AI Framework

Governed, Enterprise-Grade Gen-AI Orchestration Layer for Unstructured Data Intelligence

SYDNEY, Oct. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Nuix (ASX: NXL) announces the Nuix Neo Generative AI (Gen AI) Framework, which directly addresses the governance, confidence, and auditability concerns that have limited the use of large language models (LLMs) and Gen AI in high-stakes legal, risk and investigation matters.

Nuix Neo's Gen AI Framework is a governed orchestration layer for putting Gen AI to work on organisations' structured and unstructured data, with the auditability, guardrails and cost control that enterprise use demands. It brings together audit-grade telemetry and policy-enforced guardrails to support evidentiary integrity and corporate usage controls for LLMs. It monitors and meters token usage to prevent runaway token costs as well as intelligently managing the context window to ground answers and strengthens the reliability of AI outputs.

The framework enables the responsible, auditable connection of a customer's selected LLM to enterprise data that is forensically and defensibly curated by the Nuix Neo platform. The Nuix Neo platform leverages over 25 years of R&D to deliver forensic-grade processing of an organisation's unstructured data and in doing so, provides a curated and forensically defensible data intelligence layer relied upon by hundreds of the world's most high-profile and high-stakes organisations. The Nuix Neo Gen AI Framework leverages this data intelligence layer and further tailors the experience to operationalise the application of customers' selected LLMs, for the kind of responsible and auditable application of Gen AI demanded by high-stakes organisations.

Under the Nuix Neo Gen AI Framework, customers retain the flexibility to choose the LLM and provider that best suits their requirements, with that flexibility designed to support the customers' choice of strategic goals, business objectives and innovation appetite. Nuix provides the governance framework that securely connects that model to the curated data intelligence layer delivered by the patented data processing engine in the Nuix Neo platform.

This enabled the LA County District Attorney's Office, for example, to select the AI models best suited to their business and then seamlessly integrate them into their Nuix Neo workflows.

Powerful application of the Nuix Neo Gen AI Framework

The Nuix Neo Gen AI Framework supports the delivery of two powerful capabilities known as Nuix Neo BYO AI and the Nuix Neo AI Agent, both of which leverage the framework's comprehensive enterprise-grade infrastructure to operationalise LLMs in a manner demanded by high-stakes organisations.

Nuix Neo BYO AI

Nuix Neo BYO AI leverages the Nuix Neo Gen AI Framework and further tailors it to enable thorough AI analysis across every item in a dataset. Rather than relying on other approaches that prioritise or sample subsets, it applies repeatable workflows to systematically process every item and then crafts structured reports, with links back to source items and citations for rapid and forensically defensible action, all the while providing clarity and control over key issues like token usage.

"With Nuix Neo's latest AI, we can move quickly to implement targeted solutions to digital evidence challenges and investigative bottlenecks, while satisfying our unique compliance needs. Being able to leverage the latest AI advancements while staying confined within our own environment is an accelerator," said Donn Hoffman, Chief Privacy Officer and Deputy District Attorney at Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Nuix Neo Agentic AI

The Nuix Neo AI Agent, a conversational investigation capability built on the Gen AI Framework, is available for Early Adopter participants, via the Nuix Responsible Innovation Framework. The AI Agent extends the Nuix Neo platform, allowing analysts to interrogate their data with reasoning across text, metadata, and images, with access to the full power of Nuix's APIs, including enhanced context from a curated knowledge graph, in a consistent, auditable way. The AI Agent is fully integrated into Nuix Neo, allowing analysts to follow any lead, in a fully managed, controlled and secured fashion.

In addition to Nuix Neo's powerful data processing and deterministic AI capabilities, the Gen AI capabilities provide flexibility and choice to customers to apply the most appropriate tool for solving enterprise use cases. Like Nuix Neo BYO AI, the AI Agent operates on that curated, forensically processed dataset in the Nuix Neo platform. As with any Gen AI capability, outputs remain probabilistic and must be verified against source material and are intended to support, not replace, the judgement of qualified investigators, analysts, reviewers, and legal professionals.

Organisations interested in the Nuix Neo Responsible Innovation Framework program, or in seeing the Gen AI Framework in action, can contact their Nuix representative or visit nuix.com/nuix-neo for more information.

About Nuix

Nuix is a leading provider of investigative analytics and intelligence software, that empowers customers to be a force for good by finding truth in the digital world. We help customers collect, process and review large amounts of structured and unstructured data, making it searchable and actionable at scale and speed, with forensic accuracy.

For further information, please visit nuix.com

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WuXi AppTec Earns EcoVadis Gold Medal for Third Consecutive Year, Ranking Among Global Top 5% for Sustainability

SHANGHAI, Oct. 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- WuXi AppTec, a leading global pharmaceutical CRDMO (Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization), has received a Gold medal from EcoVadis for the third consecutive year, reflecting the Company's consistent commitment to sustainability.

EcoVadis is a leading sustainability rating agency for global supply chains. Its ratings assess companies based on 21 sustainability criteria across four main themes: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement. Under the EcoVadis assessment framework, medals are awarded based on a company's percentile ranking, with Gold reserved for the top 5% of companies globally.

"We are honored to once again receive the EcoVadis Gold Medal. This recognition reflects the significant progress we have made in implementing sustainability and responsible business practices throughout our entire value chain," said Dr. Steve Yang, Co-CEO of WuXi AppTec and Chairman of WuXi AppTec's Sustainability Committee. "We will continue to support the sustainable development of the global pharmaceutical industry, enabling our customers to bring more life-changing medicines to patients around the world and advancing our vision that 'every drug can be made, and every disease can be treated."

As an enabler of innovation, a trusted partner, and a contributor to the global pharmaceutical and life sciences industry, WuXi AppTec integrates sustainability throughout its operations in alignment with the values of its customers and partners. The Company holds some of the highest ratings awarded by leading global agencies, including an "AAA" rating from MSCI; an "A List" CDP ranking in Climate Change, Water Security, and Supplier Engagement; selection for Dow Jones Best-in-Class World Index and S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook; a position in the FTSE4Good Index Series; and a "Prime" award from ISS ESG Corporate Rating.

Furthering its sustainability commitments, WuXi AppTec's near-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The Company is also a participant in the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), supporting its ten principles, and serves as a supplier partner to the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI).

About WuXi AppTec

WuXi AppTec is a trusted partner and contributor to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries, providing R&D and manufacturing services that help advance healthcare innovation. With operations across Asia, Europe, and North America, we offer integrated, end-to-end services through our unique CRDMO (Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization) platform. We are privileged to work alongside partners across 30+ countries, supporting their efforts to bring breakthrough treatments to patients. Guided by our vision that every drug can be made and every disease can be treated, we are committed to advancing breakthroughs for patients—one collaboration at a time. Learn more at www.wuxiapptec.com.

SOURCE WuXi AppTec

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