Technology

A U.S. judge overseeing Apple smartphone antitrust litigation in New Jersey has warned Apple, the Department of Justice, and private plaintiffs that firm deadlines for document production and expert reports are coming after repeated discovery delays. Separately, a special master has stayed all discovery obligations tied to Apple's document requests from 14 federal agencies, pending an appeal before District Judge Julien Neals. The existing MDL schedule runs through November 2027, but the resolution of the agency dispute and any new court-imposed deadlines will determine whether that timeline holds.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted SMR, LLC an exemption on August 28, 2026, authorizing installation of permanent support-of-excavation and perimeter cutoff walls at the Palisades Pioneer Units 1 and 2 site before a Limited Work Authorization or construction permit is issued. The exemption covers only specific wall systems — diaphragm walls, soldier-pile soil-mix walls, and cutoff walls — and explicitly does not constitute a construction permit, operating license, or NRC commitment to approve the broader application. Full construction authorization remains pending, with NRC safety and environmental review milestones extending into March 2027.

Holtec Nuclear Corp. suspended its planned U.S. IPO on September 16, 2026, one day before the offering was expected to price, citing market conditions. The company had proposed selling 50 million Class A shares at $15.00–$18.00 each, with estimated net proceeds of up to $893 million including the overallotment option. No new pricing date has been announced, and the offering remains a postponement rather than a formal withdrawal, with the September 8 S-1/A still the company's latest SEC filing.

MAIA Biotechnology dosed its first U.S. patient in the THIO-101 Phase 2 expansion study for third-line advanced non-small-cell lung cancer on September 16, 2026, following FDA clearance of an amended investigational new drug submission and activation of three U.S. sites. The announcement is an enrollment milestone, not a new efficacy or safety finding; prior company-reported data from 79 patients in earlier trial parts showed eight with overall survival beyond two years, though those observations come from an ongoing open-label program and have not been independently validated. The trial, backed by a $2.3 million NIH grant, targets an estimated 227 total participants across sites on four continents.

India's Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is reportedly in preliminary, anonymously sourced discussions with NTPC, Adani, Reliance, and Larsen & Toubro to develop a 300-MW small modular reactor at a target cost of ₹30 crore per MW, with no signed agreements, investment commitments, or formal RFP yet issued. The talks sit within India's ₹20,000-crore Nuclear Energy Mission, though the official programme describes a 220-MWe demonstration reactor and the reported 300-MWe commercial module have not been reconciled in any official project document. The legal pathway for private participation exists under the 2025 SHANTI Act, but implementing rules remain unfinalized, meaning actual company involvement depends on licensing and regulatory steps not yet completed.

A multi-institutional team led by the University of Auckland examined postmortem striatal tissue from 18 male X-Linked Dystonia Parkinsonism cases and found the matrix compartment — not the striosomes as previously emphasized — showed the greatest neurochemical marker loss, with degeneration following a dorsoventral gradient. The finding, published in Annals of Neurology, complicates an earlier model built largely on MRI data from predominantly dystonic patients, though the two studies used different methods and patient populations. The 18-case cross-sectional cohort has not yet been independently replicated, meaning this remains a single-study result rather than a confirmed general model of XDP pathology.

SpaceX has set September 22, 2026, as its target date for Starship Flight 14, the vehicle's first planned orbital mission, carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites to approximately 275 kilometers altitude for roughly 10 hours before a Pacific splashdown. The FAA has listed the date in its airspace operations plan, but SpaceX's own page still describes regulatory approval as pending, and neither the FAA advisory nor a related FCC communications filing confirms that required authorizations have been granted. Each of the 26 satellites is expected to add 1 Tbps of network capacity, making regulatory clearance the remaining variable before the mission can proceed.