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HelloNation Article Featuring Remodeling Expert Ray Runyon Breaks Down the Home Remodeling Timeline

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The article explains key phases of a remodel and how planning, permits, and construction factors influence overall project timelines.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — How long does a home remodel really take from start to finish? A HelloNation article helps answer this question by explaining the phases and timelines involved in a typical remodeling project. The article highlights what homeowners can expect at each step of the process, from planning to finishing touches, and how understanding the home remodeling timeline can reduce confusion and set realistic expectations. A HelloNation article offers detailed insights from Grand Rapids-based Remodeling Expert Ray Runyon of Avalon Remodeling.

The article emphasizes that most remodeling projects follow a clear sequence, but each phase can bring different challenges and timelines. The planning phase often takes longer than expected, especially for kitchen or bathroom renovations. Homeowners are encouraged to invest time upfront in layout decisions, material selections, and budgeting. For example, the kitchen remodel timeline Michigan homeowners face often includes extended lead times due to custom cabinetry or the need to align with local building codes.

Permits play a crucial role in determining how quickly a remodel can move forward. The article notes that the permitting process varies based on project scope and municipal requirements. For homeowners in Grand Rapids, even a relatively straightforward bathroom renovation timeline can be affected by how quickly plans are approved or whether revisions are needed. Delays at this stage are common and should be factored into early expectations.

Once construction begins, the article points out that this phase is the most variable. Contractors must schedule several trades, and progress can slow down due to material shortages or unexpected weather. As part of the home remodel, construction involves structural work, plumbing, electrical work, and other complex tasks. These dependencies often lead to unavoidable remodel delays, especially when dealing with high-demand trades or specialty installations.

Inspections are another factor homeowners often overlook when considering the construction timeline. According to the article, city inspectors are required to sign off on key elements of the project, and work typically cannot proceed until inspections are passed. These checks are necessary for safety and compliance, but they can cause pauses in construction activities.

The article also discusses the importance of finishing touches, which may seem minor but are essential for project completion. Final tasks, such as painting, flooring, and fixture installation, require precision and time. Even small setbacks during this stage can shift the overall timeline. By planning for these details early, homeowners can avoid last-minute surprises.

The piece concludes by reminding readers that every remodeling project is different. A small update may take a few weeks, while a full kitchen overhaul could last several months. Understanding the full home remodeling timeline helps homeowners communicate better with contractors, stay within budget, and maintain control. This includes anticipating delays during the remodel, managing its phases, and being flexible when needed.

Preparation is key, and as the article notes, clear communication and a phased approach go a long way in making the process smoother. With the right expectations and planning, homeowners in Grand Rapids and beyond can navigate the remodeling process with greater confidence.

“How Long Does a Home Remodel Take? Understanding Timelines & Phases” features insights from Ray Runyon, Remodeling Expert of Grand Rapids, MI, in HelloNation.

About HelloNation
HelloNation is America’s Good News Network, a premier media platform built on the idea that good news travels faster when real people tell real stories. Through its community-focused publications and innovative “edvertising” approach, HelloNation delivers content that informs, inspires, and spotlights the leaders making a meaningful impact in their communities.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hellonation-article-featuring-remodeling-expert-ray-runyon-breaks-down-the-home-remodeling-timeline-302893703.html

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RTX’s Raytheon awarded $24.4 billion multi-year contract for SM-6 interceptors

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Contract boosts production of combat‑proven missile defense capability

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Raytheon, an RTX (NYSE: RTX) business, has secured a five-year contract, with two additional option years, valued up to $24.4 billion for Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) interceptors, significantly increasing the availability of a critical munition able to conduct both offensive strikes and missile defense missions.

Building on landmark agreements between Raytheon and the Department of War, this long-term order ensures a consistent, reliable supply of SM-6s for the U.S. Navy.

“SM-6’s multi-mission capability is vital to our customer, and Raytheon is intensely focused on meeting the demand,” said Raytheon President Phil Jasper. “By continuously investing in our operations and facilities, we are removing constraints and boosting capacity to ensure we deliver this critical capability our sailors depend on.”

Raytheon has invested heavily to keep pace with rising demand, growing its skilled workforce, building stronger partnerships across the defense industrial base and automating production. These combined efforts are intended to support significantly higher output for near and long-term needs.

SM-6 is the only combat-proven weapon that can perform anti-air warfare, anti-surface warfare and ballistic missile defense. It has been successfully fired from various U.S. Navy ship-based platforms and launchers on land, providing the fleet with a versatile and highly reliable weapon to counter the full range of kinetic threats faced by today’s naval forces.

About Raytheon
Raytheon, an RTX business, is a leading provider of defense solutions to help the U.S. government, our allies and partners defend their national sovereignty and ensure their security. For more than 100 years, Raytheon has developed new technologies and enhanced existing capabilities in integrated air and missile defense, smart weapons, missiles, advanced sensors and radars, interceptors, space-based systems, hypersonics and missile defense across land, air, sea and space.

About RTX
With more than 180,000 global employees, we push the limits of technology and science to redefine how we connect and protect our world. With industry-leading capabilities, we advance aviation, engineer integrated defense systems for operational success, and develop next-generation technology solutions and manufacturing to help global customers address their most critical challenges. The company, with 2025 sales of more than $88 billion, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

For questions or to schedule an interview, please contact corporatepr@rtx.com.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rtxs-raytheon-awarded-24-4-billion-multi-year-contract-for-sm-6-interceptors-302896562.html

SOURCE RTX

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Fastino Labs Releases GLiDE, the First Thinking Decision Model, Leading the Decision Index’s Top Model by 6.9 Points

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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Fastino Labs, the applied AI research lab behind the widely adopted open source GLiNER model family, today released GLiDE (Generalized Lightweight Decision Engine), the first decision model with adaptive reasoning. In Fastino Research team’s runs of the official Decision Index 0.2.1 scorer, GLiDE scores 64.81, leading Jev’s published 57.91 by 6.90 skill points. GLiDE outperforms Jev across all five evaluation areas and on 31 of 38 benchmarks. GLiDE is available today via the Fastino API.

As AI agents take on real work, the hardest part is often not generating text but deciding what to do next: which tool to call, whether to ask for approval, or when to stop. Most systems handle these choices by prompting a large general-purpose model and parsing its output, which is slow, expensive, and hard to trust in production. Existing decision models are faster, but they score every option in a single fixed pass, which breaks down when the right answer depends on arithmetic, code, dates, or several related facts. GLiDE is built to handle both.

Structured Decisions:

GLiDE takes an application’s current state and a defined set of options, then returns one selected action, a confidence score, and a probability for every option. Because the output is structured, developers can act on it immediately, set confidence thresholds, or route uncertain cases to a human, without parsing or validating free-form text.

Adaptive Thinking:

Every decision starts with a fast first pass. When GLiDE is confident, it answers right away. When it isn’t, it thinks further and folds that reasoning into its final probabilities. In testing, roughly two-thirds of requests were resolved on the fast path, with reasoning reserved for the remaining third. Easy decisions stay fast, and hard ones get the compute they need.

Built for Hard Decisions:

GLiDE’s biggest gains over Jev come on reasoning-intensive tasks and tool use. It leads by 11.5 skill points in Knowledge and Reasoning (62.9 vs 51.4) and 8.4 points in Tools and Automation (83.5 vs 75.1). On CRUXEval, which tests code reasoning, GLiDE scores 92.6% accuracy versus Jev’s 73.0%, and on CLadder, which tests causal reasoning, it scores 88.7% versus 72.6%. Its 40,000 token context window fits full policies, contracts, runbooks, and support histories.

“We think decision-making will become its own layer of the AI stack, much as retrieval has. You shouldn’t need to call a frontier model every time an agent needs to choose its next step. GLiNER has passed 50 million downloads, and GLiDE is our best decision model yet. It handles routine choices quickly and can think through the harder ones.” said George Hurn-Maloney, CEO and co-founder of Fastino Labs.

Use Cases:

GLiDE handles the everyday classification and routing tasks served by existing decision models while extending to decisions that require deeper reasoning. Any application that combines context with a defined set of choices can use the same interface. Straightforward decisions remain fast, while uncertain decisions automatically receive additional reasoning.

Navigating large agent action graphs. Select the next action from hundreds of tools and possible paths while accounting for prerequisites, previous results, permissions, failure states, and downstream consequences.Controlling high-risk agent actions. Evaluate a proposed database, infrastructure, or financial operation against the agent’s permissions, organizational policies, system state, and potential impact before deciding whether to execute, sandbox, request approval, or block it.Diagnosing production incidents. Combine alerts, logs, recent deployments, dependency health, and runbook instructions to choose among monitoring, restarting, rolling back, isolating, or escalating.Applying complex contracts and policies. Trace cross-references, exceptions, dates, thresholds, and conflicting clauses to determine whether a claim should be approved, rejected, revised, or escalated.Verifying reasoning-intensive model output. Check answers that depend on arithmetic, temporal reasoning, code execution paths, causal relationships, or multiple supporting facts, then decide whether to accept, reject, or request revision.Resolving constrained operational decisions. Choose among predefined plans using scheduling requirements, eligibility rules, resource limits, configuration dependencies, and competing priorities.

Availability:

GLiDE is available now through the Fastino API under the model ID fastino/GLiDE. Get started and see pricing at docs.fastino.ai.

About Fastino Labs

Fastino Labs is an applied AI research lab building small open weight models and the infrastructure to make them continuously better in production. Founded in 2024 and based in San Francisco, California, Fastino is the creator of the GLiNER open source model family and the first agentic fine-tuning and adaptive inference platform. The company is backed by Khosla Ventures, Insight Partners, M12, NEA, and others. Learn more at fastino.ai.

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ARM & HAMMER™ BAKING SODA AND LEGOLAND® RESORTS BUILD THE FUN WITH LIMITED-EDITION PACK AND CHANCE TO WIN A FAMILY GETAWAY

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Starting October 1, purchase three qualifying ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda products for a chance to win a Grand Prize family getaway to a LEGOLAND® Resort, plus receive a Buy One, Get One Free LEGOLAND® ticket offer.

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A box of ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda can do so many things, from cleaning and deodorizing to baking and hands-on STEAM experiments. And this fall, it could even unlock a whole new kind of fun. ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda is teaming up with LEGOLAND® Resorts for a new limited-time promotion that brings together two brands that know a thing or two about inspiring creativity, curiosity and hands-on fun.

Known for its 100+ uses, ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda has been a household staple for generations, giving families countless ways to make more out of one simple orange box. Now, together with LEGOLAND Resorts, the brand is extending that spirit of possibility beyond the home, giving families a new way to play, explore and create together.

“ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda has always been about encouraging families to think beyond the box, whether they’re tackling everyday household tasks, experimenting with STEAM or finding new ways to get creative together,” said Aaron Greengard, Associate Marketing Director at ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda. “By teaming up with LEGOLAND Resorts, we’re bringing that same sense of creativity and fun to life in a new way, giving families the chance to turn an everyday purchase into an unforgettable experience.”

Beginning October 1, consumers will find limited-edition LEGOLAND themed artwork on ARM & HAMMER™ Baking Soda’s iconic orange box, along with a special ticket offer and the chance to win a grand prize LEGOLAND getaway.

“LEGOLAND is all about giving families the opportunity to build, play and explore together, so we’re thrilled to partner with ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda to bring that spirit of creativity into everyday life,” said Justin Carter, SVP Managing Director, North America at Merlin Entertainments. “Together, we’re connecting the imaginative world of LEGOLAND with a product families already know and use, creating even more ways to inspire play, discovery and memorable experiences together.”

A Chance to Win a LEGOLAND Adventure

Starting October 1 through December 31, consumers can purchase three qualifying ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda products and submit their receipt at AHxLEGOLAND.com or scan the QR code on limited-edition pack. Participants will receive a Buy One, Get One Free LEGOLAND ticket offer, redeemable at LEGOLAND Resorts in California, Florida and New York.*

Participants will also be entered for the chance to win a grand-prize getaway to the LEGOLAND Resort of their choice in the U.S., including round-trip airfare for four, two nights of hotel accommodations and four LEGOLAND tickets.

For more information about the ARM & HAMMER Baking Soda and LEGOLAND Resorts promotion, including full offer details and official rules, visit AHxLEGOLAND.com.

* NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. Sweepstakes begins at 12:00 a.m. ET on 10/1/2026 and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on 12/31/2026. Open only to legal residents of the 50 US/DC, 18+ years of age. For Official Rules, including how to enter, odds, prize details and restrictions, visit AHxLEGOLAND.com. Void where prohibited. Message and data rates may apply. Sponsor: Church & Dwight Co., Inc., Princeton South Corporate Center, 500 Charles Ewing Blvd. Ewing, NJ 08628. 

About ARM & HAMMER™
For more than 180 years, ARM & HAMMER™ continues to provide trusted and hardworking products consumers love. ARM & HAMMER™ has all your needs covered from cleaning and laundry to personal and oral care to pets. For more information, please visit https://www.armandhammer.com.

About Church & Dwight Co., Inc.
With a rich heritage of commitment to people and the planet for over 180 years, Church & Dwight is committed to conducting our operations in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner using recycled materials in our cartons. We are continually assessing the impacts of our operations on the environment while developing, manufacturing, and marketing a broad range of consumer household, personal care and specialty products with sustainability efforts incorporated into our new product innovation including Arm & Hammer™, TheraBreath™, OxiClean™, Waterpik™, Orajel™, Hero™, Viviscal™, Zicam™, and Batiste™.

About LEGOLAND Resorts
LEGOLAND® Resorts bring the LEGO® brand to life on an epic scale. Merlin Entertainments – which holds the exclusive rights to the LEGOLAND brand – currently operates 11 parks globally with locations spanning North America, Europe, and Asia – including properties in California, Florida, New York, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, Dubai, Japan, Malaysia and China. It is realizing the growth potential of these theme parks by expanding them into ‘mega-resort’ short break destinations, offering guests themed accommodation, second gate attractions (including waterparks) and LEGO themed experiences that are rich in interactive features. Designed to provide creative, interactive, and educational experiences for families with children ages 2 to 12, LEGOLAND Resorts invite guests to step inside the colorful world of LEGO where imagination comes to life. See www.LEGOLAND.com for more information.

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SOURCE Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (Church & Dwight Inc).

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