Bipartisan legislation now heads to the President’s desk ahead of the September 30 expiration

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Today, ALS Network celebrates the final congressional passage of the Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies (ACT) for ALS Reauthorization Act of 2026 (H.R. 8205). Following passage by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate approved the legislation, sending it to the President’s desk for signature.

The bipartisan reauthorization effort was led by Representatives Mike Quigley and Ken Calvert in the House and Senators Lisa Murkowski and Chris Coons in the Senate. Once signed into law, it will extend key ACT for ALS programs through 2031, sustaining progress in ALS research, shared research infrastructure, and expanded access to investigational therapies.

ALS Network extends special gratitude to the advocates in our community, including people living with ALS, their families, and caregivers across the country. Their sustained engagement, personal stories, meetings, emails, phone calls, and heroic efforts kept the urgency of reauthorization before policymakers and helped build the bipartisan support needed for final passage.

ALS Network was deeply engaged throughout the reauthorization process, working directly with congressional leaders and national partners to help shape and advance the legislation. The organization provided policy recommendations, brought advocates to Capitol Hill, mobilized the ALS community, and participated in congressional briefings and public events supporting reauthorization. Sheri Strahl, MPH, MBA, president and CEO of ALS Network, also joined congressional champions at a Capitol Hill press conference to underscore the need for timely reauthorization.

“Final congressional passage is a major win for people living with ALS and their families, and a testament to what sustained, collective advocacy can accomplish,” said Strahl. “ALS Network has been deeply engaged throughout this process, working directly with congressional leaders, shaping policy recommendations, bringing the lived experience of people with ALS to Capitol Hill, and mobilizing advocates across the country. We are proud of the role we played alongside partners throughout the ALS community, and are deeply grateful to Representatives Calvert and Quigley, Senators Murkowski and Coons, and every advocate whose persistence helped carry this legislation across the finish line.”

ACT for ALS established a patient-centered approach to accelerate progress on two urgent fronts: advancing research and expanding access to investigational therapies for people who are unable to participate in traditional clinical trials. These programs are especially important for a rapidly progressive disease in which time is limited and effective treatment options remain few.

Final passage comes just before the current authorization is scheduled to expire on September 30, 2026. Reauthorization will help prevent disruption to programs that support evidence-generating expanded access, natural history and biomarker research, shared data resources, and coordination across the ALS research community. The law also supports work benefiting people with other rare neurodegenerative diseases.

ALS Network looks forward to the President signing the reauthorization into law so this critical work can continue without interruption.

About the ALS Network
The ALS Network partners with the ALS community to drive the discovery of prevention strategies, treatments, and cures for ALS; provide access to quality care and connection; and promote initiatives to improve health outcomes. The ALS Network, formerly ALS Golden West, serves people with ALS and their families throughout California, Hawaii, and beyond. For more information about ALS and the ALS Network visit our website at alsnetwork.org or email us at info@alsnetwork.org. You can also find us on social media at @yourALSnetwork.

Media Contact:
ebeikman@alsnetwork.org 

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SOURCE ALS Network

SINGAPORE, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The U.S. Senate’s recent cloture vote on the CLARITY Act fell short of the threshold needed to advance the bill, underscoring the still-evolving path toward greater regulatory clarity for digital assets. Yet the market is moving ahead. Stablecoins also feature prominently in the bill, including the debate over whether payment stablecoins should be allowed to offer interest or yield. The market has nevertheless grown to nearly US$300 billion, with stablecoins taking on an expanding role in payments and financial infrastructure. The next phase of that evolution will be in focus at Stablecoin Summit 2026, returning to Singapore on 8 October.

“Stablecoins have grown into an independent industry, but there is no single path forward,” said Wayne Huang, Co-founder and Group CEO of XREX Group, host of Stablecoin Summit. “Different participants are building for different needs, across markets and regulatory environments. The opportunity now is to create the common infrastructure and standards that can connect these efforts, so value can move more seamlessly between institutions, platforms and markets. That is the conversation we want to advance at Stablecoin Summit 2026.”

Organised and hosted by XREX Group, with Bridge and Curve Finance as Title Sponsors, the fourth Stablecoin Summit will explore the stablecoin landscape across different forms of digital money, from CBDCs and deposit tokens to USD- and local fiat-pegged stablecoins, non-fiat stablecoins and DeFi-based stablecoins.

The summit will also examine their expanding applications across interoperability, payments, settlement, the AI economy and supply chain finance, alongside the regulatory developments shaping their use. The full-day program brings together decision-makers across stablecoins, financial services, payments, technology, and regulation to explore how these developments are converging to shape the next phase of the stablecoin industry.

“Stablecoins have won their place in finance, with banks and larger institutions now building around them. There’s a clear opportunity for neutral infrastructure that competing institutions can use together without relying on a competitor to run it. That’s one of the strengths of DeFi, and we need to keep that openness as adoption grows,” said Maximilian Roszko, Business Development Lead, Curve Finance. “That’s why I think events like Stablecoin Summit in Singapore are important. Issuers, institutions, and DeFi builders need to work together on these connections, and work out what we can actually build together.”

“Having grown up in Asia, this one feels personal to me. We’re at a truly revolutionary moment for global money movement, rebuilding the infrastructure of money itself so it becomes instant, borderless, and always on,” said Jackie Zhang, Data, Crypto and Issuance, Bridge. “There’s so much energy around stablecoins in Asia right now, and I’m excited to be here with the Bridge team, building this future alongside developers and partners in the region.”

Stablecoin Summit 2026 will take place at Andaz Singapore on 8 October 2026, bringing together an even broader lineup of regulators, industry leaders and partners, including Peter Kerstens, often referred to as the “Father of MiCA,” alongside Curve Finance, Stripe, S&P Global Ratings, Rakuten, Galaxy Ventures, Coinbase, StraitsX, Visa, SAP, Paxos Labs, Aave Labs, and more, to explore the next phase of stablecoin adoption.

Featured Speakers at Stablecoin Summit 2026:

Wayne Huang, Co-founder and Group CEO, XREXWinston Hsiao, Co-founder and Group CRO, XREXMichael Egorov, Founder, Curve FinanceCoral Taylor, Head of APAC Crypto GTM, StripePeter Kerstens, Advisor, European CommissionMichal Selbka, Director, DeFi and Digital Assets, S&P Global RatingsHassan Ahmed, Country Director, Singapore, CoinbaseTianwei Liu, CEO and Co-Founder, StraitsXRaja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer, Stellar Development FoundationBhau Kotecha, Co-founder of Paxos LabsWill Nuelle, General Partner, Galaxy VenturesTushar Gulhane, Regional Lead, SAPSanchit Mall, Director, Crypto & Digital Currencies APAC, VisaNaojiro Hisada, Director, Technology Management Services Supervisory Department, RakutenTakaaki Miura, Senior Investment Director, Sony VenturesNK Yoon, CBO, Startale Group

“We are seeing strong momentum as stablecoins increasingly demonstrate practical value in areas such as cross-border payments and settlement. The real opportunity is to build the infrastructure, standards and partnerships that enable seamless and trusted adoption at scale. Bringing the industry together through events like Stablecoin Summit helps accelerate that progress, and Asia Pacific continues to be one of the most influential regions shaping the future of digital currencies and its use in commerce,” said Sanchit Mall, Director, Crypto & Digital Currencies APAC, Visa.

Stablecoin Summit 2026 is supported by Curve Finance, Bridge, S&P Global Ratings, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Midas, Frankencoin, Stellar, Spark, f(x) Protocol, Nara, Accountable, and Gravity Team.

Registration and the full agenda are available at stablecoinsummit.com.

About XREX Group:

XREX Group is a blockchain-enabled financial institution working with banks, regulators, and users to redefine banking together. We provide services to businesses in or dealing with emerging markets, and novice-friendly financial services to individuals worldwide.

Founded in 2018, XREX Group offers a full suite of services such as digital asset custody, wallet, cross-border payment, fiat-crypto conversion, cryptocurrency exchange, and fiat currency on-off ramps.

Sharing the social responsibility of financial inclusion, XREX leverages blockchain technologies to further financial participation, access, and education.

XREX Singapore operates under the Major Payment Institution (MPI) license issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). XREX Taiwan is a regulated VASP that completed its Compliance Declaration on Anti-Money Laundering (AML) with Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) in March 2022. It passed its AML registration with the FSC in September 2025, becoming one of ten approved VASPs.

Media contact: Yoyo Yu
Email: yoyoyu@xrex.io

Media contact: Vasundhara Singh
Email: vasundhara@yapglobal.com

Media contact: Mansha Bakshi
Email: mansha@yapglobal.com

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SOURCE XREX Group

SINGAPORE, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — In response to rising demand for AI and high-performance computing, Castrol today launched Castrol CORE, a new end-to-end offer for its data centre thermal management business. The offer is designed to help customers manage increasingly complex cooling requirements from early-stage design through to daily operations.

Castrol CORE marks a shift from Castrol’s existing product-led cooling business towards an integrated, service-led approach that brings together a network of product, infrastructure, design and service partners, giving customers a single point of contact across the value chain rather than having to coordinate with multiple suppliers.

Under Castrol CORE, Castrol will work with customers earlier in the development of data centre infrastructure, adding new capabilities in design to its existing support for deployment, start-up, operation and maintenance. The move is based on Castrol’s industry research which found growing demand for integrated thermal management solutions that reduce the complexity of working with multiple technologies and suppliers. The research also highlighted supply chain challenges and the high cost of failure as significant concerns for the industry.

Central to the offer are Castrol’s cooling technologies, which have been tested and validated with leading chip and hardware manufacturers including NVIDIA and Intel. This gives customers confidence that the technology can keep pace with next-generation AI infrastructure. The offer is backed by Castrol’s global technology and testing facilities – including labs in the UK, US, Germany and China, alongside joint laboratories across Asia and a network of service providers across more than 150 countries. The network enables continued on-ground testing, validation and monitoring throughout a facility’s lifetime, and helping customers reduce the risk of costly downtime.

Peter Huang, Global President of Data Centre and Thermal Management at Castrol, said: “Customers are telling us they do not simply want another standalone product. They want experienced partners that can help them solve the complete thermal management challenge. We are bringing together proven technology, global reach and, critically, design expertise so we can work with customers at every stage of a project, giving them the peace of mind to focus on what’s next.”

In Asia Pacific, Castrol has built a regional data centre design team supported by local specialists, reflecting the pace at which the region is adopting new cooling infrastructure. This approach is already being tested in practice: Castrol has completed a proof-of-concept programme with a leading data centre operator in China and is now working with global operators on additional proof-of-concept projects.

Backed by more than 127 years of experience formulating fluids for mission-critical applications, Castrol CORE will initially focus on data centre cooling systems, while providing a platform for Castrol’s thermal management offer to expand into other applications over time.

About Castrol

Castrol, one of the world’s leading lubricant brands, has a proud heritage of innovation and fuelling the dreams of pioneers. Our passion for performance, combined with a philosophy of working in partnership, has enabled Castrol to develop lubricants and greases that have been at the heart of numerous technological feats on land, air, sea, and space for over 127 years. Castrol serves customers and consumers in the automotive, marine, industrial and energy sectors. Our branded products are recognized globally for innovation and high performance through our commitment to premium quality and cutting-edge technology.  

For more information, please visit: www.castrol.com

Castrol CORE is Castrol’s integrated Cooling solution offer, bringing together design expertise, cooling technology and lifecycle services to support customers with mission-critical cooling requirements.

Castrol CORE is designed to support data center cooling system requirements from early-stage design and specification through deployment, start-up, operation, maintenance and ongoing support.

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