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13 Press Releases You Need to See This Week Including the returns of never-ending pasta at Olive Garden and popcorn chicken at KFC, new seat options from United Airlines, and a partnership between 3M and Microsoft.

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NEW YORK, July 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists and consumers stay on top of the week’s most newsworthy and popular releases, here’s a recap of some major stories from the week that shouldn’t be missed.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

Olive Garden Announces the Return of its Iconic Never-Ending Pasta Pass
Passholders will enjoy 13 weeks of unlimited pasta, homemade sauces, and protein toppings, plus never-ending soup or salad and breadsticks during this year’s Never-Ending Pasta Bowl promotion.Thomson Reuters and KKR Announce Joint Venture for Thomson Reuters Global Print Business
As part of the transaction, Thomson Reuters will sell a 51% stake in its Global Print business to capital accounts advised by KKR. Thomson Reuters will receive approximately $500 million in gross proceeds at closing and will retain a 49% equity interest in the joint venture. Return of an Icon: Jeep® Brand Unveils the 2027 Wrangler Laredo
Inspired by the American Southwest and the rugged spirit of its namesake border city, Wrangler Laredo delivers an unmistakable personality through heritage colors, bold graphics, bronze accents and the return of the highly coveted tan soft-top.Lilly to acquire AtaiBeckley to advance therapies for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health conditions
Emerging research indicates that treatment-resistant depression and other serious mental health conditions may involve a loss of synaptic plasticity, the brain’s ability to form and strengthen connections in regions critical to mood regulation. AtaiBeckley’s therapies are designed to restore synaptic connectivity and aim to promote the growth of new neural connections.Chesapeake Utilities Corporation Announces Florida Energy Pathway Project
The new intrastate natural gas infrastructure project in south Florida will be developed, constructed and operated by PPC in order to expand natural gas transportation capacity to address regional supply constraints, enhance system reliability and extend natural gas infrastructure to serve homes and businesses.United Launches Another Economy Class Innovation: Economy Plus Seats With Extra Elbow Room
A row of Economy Plus seats on its new Airbus A321XLR aircraft will provide extra elbow room and access to a shared table across an open middle seat. This new Economy Plus offering will be available for sale starting later this year.KFC® Answers Fans’ Calls (and Comments) With the Return of Popcorn Chicken, Reigniting Obsession Nationwide
“As we continue our Kentucky Fried Comeback journey, this menu item return shows our commitment to listening to our most passionate fans by giving them exactly what they’re craving. We’re nodding to nostalgia as we simultaneously modernize the brand and how it shows up throughout the world,” said Melissa Cash, Chief Marketing Officer, KFC U.S.The Home Depot Debuts 2026 Halloween Collection with New Giants, Interactive Tech and Fan Favorite Returns
The viral 12 FT SKELLY™ giant returns with technology upgrades including custom sounds, light and servo motor movements. The roster of giant décor is expanding with an 11 FT Giant-Sized Mummy and 8 FT Perilous Plant Monster. The collection launches on HomeDepot.com and The Home Depot app starting July 16, and the products will hit Home Depot store shelves starting in late August.Farmers Insurance® Introduces a Refreshing Approach to Understand Insurance
“Farmers is introducing tools that help make insurance easier to navigate—highlighting what is and is not covered, offering coverage reviews even if your policy is with another insurer, and, in some cases, helping consumers explore alternatives when Farmers isn’t a fit for them,” said Eleanor Solomon, Head of Creative for Farmers Insurance.State Affairs Raises $70 Million to Help Institutions Navigate the Policy and Regulatory Economy
As policy increasingly shapes markets, industries and capital allocation, State Affairs is building the real-time intelligence infrastructure for the institutions that make, influence and respond to policy – from elected officials and government agencies to some of the world’s largest enterprises.3M and Microsoft announce strategic partnership to advance AI data center infrastructure and enterprise transformation
Together, the companies will combine Microsoft’s digital and hyperscale infrastructure with 3M’s materials science and precision manufacturing to accelerate AI adoption and strengthen the physical networks required for the growth of cloud and AI workloads.AT&T to Offer Free Calls to Countries Playing in Soccer’s Biggest Matches
Existing AT&T wireless customers can make free international long-distance calls from the U.S. to the countries playing in the semi-final, third-place, and final matches on their eligible match days: July 14, 15, 18 and 19.Book the Restaurant, Then the Room: OpenTable Reveals the 2026 Top 100 Hotel Restaurants in America
OpenTable’s latest dining insights show that hotel restaurants are playing a bigger role in how people plan where to go, where to stay and what to book before they arrive. 61% of Americans have chosen a destination because of its food or restaurant scene, and among respondents planning to travel this summer, 60% have booked a hotel specifically because of its restaurant.

Read more of the latest releases from PR Newswire.

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Can’t Miss Earnings

A new season of earnings releases kicked off this week. Quarterly financial results from Abbott, Bank of America, PNC, United Airlines and Conagra were among the early reports to cross the wire.

Catch up on all the latest earnings releases.

Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News

These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists.

Once they’re signed up, reporters, bloggers, and freelancers have access to the following free features:

Customization: Users can create customized newsfeeds that will deliver relevant news right to their inbox. Newsfeed results can be targeted by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more.Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include in a journalist or blogger’s next story.Subject Matter Experts: Journalists will have access to ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in their articles.Related Resources: Our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, features regular media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire is the industry’s leading press release distribution partner with an unparalleled global reach of more than 500,000 newsrooms, websites, direct feeds, journalists and influencers and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. From our innovative AI-powered PR Newswire Amplify™ platform, award-winning Content Services offerings, integrated media newsroom and microsite products, Investor Relations suite of services, paid placement and social sharing tools, PR Newswire has a comprehensive Multichannel Amplification™ catalogue of solutions to solve the modern-day challenges PR and communications teams face. For more than 70 years, PR Newswire has been the preferred destination worldwide for brands to share their most important news stories.

For questions, contact the team at media.relations@cision.com.

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Smart, Secure and Scalable: Flatworld Mortgage Reimagines Mortgage Operations

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Automation and agentic AI, powered by MSuite, run directly across onboarding, processing, underwriting, QC, closing and servicing.Every automated output is checked at a defined human checkpoint before it becomes a lending decision, backed by SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, and ISO 9001:2015 certificationFlatworld Mortgage has already absorbed 100% more loan volume at 24–48 hours’ notice

PRINCETON, N.J., Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Flatworld Mortgage Solutions LLC, a strategic player in the mortgage processing space across the US announced a brand relaunch built on three pillars, Smart, Secure and Scalable, that reflects an operational transformation already running in production. With more than a decade running the US mortgage back office, Flatworld Mortgage has watched rising costs, heavier compliance scrutiny, and unpredictable loan volume stretch the industry’s legacy cost-driven operating model past its limit. This transformation replaces headcount-driven processing with automation and agentic AI built directly into origination workflows, across underwriting support, QC, closing and post-closing.

Smart. MSuite, the AI platform, indexes more than 1 million pages a month across 450-plus document types at a 90%+ accuracy rate. It also runs automated income, asset, and credit review and undisclosed debt notification (UDN) processing. The workflow itself has changed, not just its speed: an agent now owns a part of each file end to end, reviewing it, requesting what’s missing and escalating only when a decision needs judgment, which eliminates handoffs rather than speeding them up. Work that used to take a person the better part of a day, is now completed in minutes.

Secure. Human-in-the-loop checkpoints are built into each workflow alongside the automation, so only genuine exceptions reach a person. In underwriting, for example, an agent pre-clears the conditions it can verify and flags the rest for an underwriter; the underwriter always has control over the credit decision. Each checkpoint is designed to be auditable, and data handling is secure, under SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, and ISO 9001:2015 certification held at the Flatworld Solutions group level.

Scalable. In production, Flatworld Mortgage has already absorbed 100% more loan volume at 24 to 48 hours’ notice, without a corresponding hiring cycle, with processing up to 40% faster than in-house baselines and a 55% net financial benefit in average cost savings and financial returns.

Speaking about the launch, David Antony, CEO of Flatworld Mortgage said “Most AI in mortgage gets bolted onto an existing workflow. We took the opposite approach: we rebuilt the workflow first, decided what AI should do and what a person should own, and only then automated it. In a regulated industry, you can’t say the AI made the call and I don’t know why, someone must own that outcome. That’s not a technology upgrade. It’s a different way of building a mortgage operation.”

Flatworld Mortgage is bringing the Smart, Secure, Scalable platform into conversations with lenders, servicers, and title companies this fall.

About Flatworld Mortgage

Flatworld Mortgage provides comprehensive solutions and BI/analytics services to lenders, brokers, servicers, correspondent lenders, and title companies across the US. The company runs around-the-clock operations, backed by a leadership team with decades of combined experience in US mortgage lending and regulation, and pairs that process expertise with MSuite, its automation and agentic AI platform. Flatworld Mortgage is based in Princeton, New Jersey.

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SOURCE Flatworld Mortgage Solutions LLC

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Valtech Valuation Puts Accountable Professional Judgement at the Heart of AI-Enhanced Valuation

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Valtech combines AI-driven modelling with hands-on professional oversight to deliver transparent, review-friendly valuations for tax, statutory and transaction purposes

HONG KONG and SINGAPORE, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Valtech Valuation (“Valtech”) has enhanced its various programmes and models to improve the quality of its valuation deliverables. The firm uses AI to strengthen its work while keeping qualified professionals fully involved and accountable for every valuation opinion.

Competition in the professional services sector is becoming increasingly intense, and there are now one-person companies empowered by AI. As AI becomes more widely used, and as global enterprises encourage and train their teams to apply it more broadly, valuation deliverables are becoming increasingly similar.

Based on league table statistics from webbsite.0xmd.com, Valtech estimates that more than 100 valuation firms are assisting Hong Kong-listed companies with their valuation work. Beyond Hong Kong SAR, Valtech has gained clients in Singapore and the wider Asia Pacific region, as well as US-listed multinational corporations and startups. These clients need valuation services for tax and statutory purposes, where a qualified professional is held accountable.

A Differentiated Approach to AI

Almost every week, AI solution providers and platforms approach Valtech with AI-based valuation tools that promise to automate and streamline valuation work to save time and cost. Using technology has always been at the core of Valtech’s business strategy and philosophy. However, Valtech firmly believes that challenging queries arising from AI-generated work cannot simply be resolved by another AI to the satisfaction of auditors and regulators.

Instead, Valtech uses AI to significantly enhance the modelling process and to produce valuation summaries and presentation slides that are easy to use and easy to review. At the same time, Valtech builds established valuation and forecasting methods and techniques into its models to prevent errors and improve transparency.

Business valuation for potential transactions is one example. Clients often want to include an independent valuation analysis in their pitch deck for fundraising, or as part of due diligence in merger and acquisition transactions. Valtech can provide slide presentations summarising the whole process, the key valuation inputs, sensitivity analysis and more. This allows readers to quickly understand how the valuation is derived and review the underlying assumptions.

“As professionals, we are responsible for our opinions and judgements, and full automation is not something we aim to provide,” said Max Tsang, Director of Valtech Valuation. “AI is a powerful tool embedded in our valuation process to reduce formula and calculation errors and improve the quality of our work. But our professional valuers insist on actively participating in the modelling process, exercising valuation judgement, and being held accountable for it. That is why Valtech can always fully explain its valuation opinions.”

Until standard regulatory or statutory guidelines on the use of AI in valuation are established, Valtech will continue to explain to clients which parts of the work still require significant professional effort. Its professional valuers must still evaluate a large amount of information before forming reasonable valuation judgements.

About Valtech Valuation

Valtech Valuation is an independent valuation advisory firm based in Hong Kong SAR and Singapore. It provides business, assets, financial instruments valuation services to listed companies, multinational corporations and startups across Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, the Asia Pacific region and the United States. Valtech integrates technology and AI into its modelling process while keeping qualified professional valuers fully accountable for every opinion. Its deliverables are designed to be transparent, easy to review and ready for auditors and regulators. Valtech team has qualifications of CPA, CFA, FRM, MRICS, CVA (Singapore), ABV (AICPA) and China Certified Public Valuer. For more information, visit https://valtech-valuation.com or https://valtech-valuation.sg

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Ankura launches AI by Design practice to help organisations close the gap between AI ambition and adoption.

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Ankura, the U.S. PE-backed advisory firm, invests in new Data & AI capabilities in the UK and an ecosystem of specialist partners to close the adoption gap holding back the ROI of enterprise AI.

LONDON, Sept. 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ankura Consulting Group, LLC (“Ankura”), today announced the launch of Ankura, AI by Design, a new tech-agnostic practice in the UK, serving EMEA, which focuses on helping clients use AI to grow revenue, expand what organisations can achieve with AI, and lift underlying profit.

AI by Design is built on the conviction that AI should be shaped around the organisation: its ambitions, people, customers, and distinctive capabilities. Technology is an important part of that equation, however sustainable value depends on the strategy, operating model, skills, systems, governance, talent, and culture that allow AI to change how work gets done and enable organizations to achieve their strategic growth ambitions. This new practice reflects the increasing demand for practical, adoption-led AI advisory and builds directly on Ankura’s established strength in strategy, risk, technology, and workforce transformation.

“AI transformation programmes usually break down due to organizational challenges rather than the underlying technology itself. AI by Design is built by people who understand that, which is why I wanted to be part of it.” Hywel Ball, AI Advisory Council Member, Former EY UK Chair and Non-Executive Director.

Ankura, AI by Design’s proposition is structured around three integrated pillars, underpinned by an internal AI Factory that builds, tests, and deploys AI in real delivery environments:

AI Strategy: targeting topline growth opportunities for boards and leadership teams to unlockAI Governance Engineering: enabling organizations to manage AI risk and unlock value at scale by re-wiring the user experience of AI governance to be more intuitive and more efficient to operateAI Workforce Transformation: redesigning roles, reskilling people, and embedding human-centered change so AI adoption embeds across the organization

“Most enterprise AI stalls because organizations are not ready to adopt it, govern it, or redesign work and systems around it. Ankura, AI by Design closes that gap.” Catriona Campbell, MBE – Practice Lead for Ankura, AI by Design.

Ankura, AI by Design is led by a senior team with direct experience of successfully embedding AI and human-centered change inside global blue-chip multinationals across strategy, governance, and workforce transformation.

They are joined by a curated ecosystem of early-stage ‘best athlete’ partners; Decoded for AI literacy and workforce reskilling, Seymour-Powell for human-centred design, and Inference Group for AI engineering and delivery.

The practice is supported by an Advisory Council of senior figures from across technology, governance, academia, and industry, bringing an independent perspective on where AI is genuinely creating value, ensuring Ankura’s advice reflects the frontier of AI strategy, governance engineering, and workforce transformation.

“The technology has never been the biggest challenge. What matters is whether an organisation understands the outcomes they want to drive, and then designs how it works, governs, and trains its people around those outcomes. Ankura, AI by Design’s focus on the human and organisational side of deployment is exactly the discipline the private sector now needs too.” Dr Laura Gilbert CBE, AI Advisory Council Member, Senior AI advisor to UK government and industry.

“The investment in AI by Design strengthens Ankura’s commitment to helping clients turn AI ambition into measurable results,” said Kevin Lavin, CEO of Ankura. “Across every industry, the organizations that succeed with AI are the ones that bring their people with them, not just their technology. Ankura’s AI by Design practice helps our clients to adopt AI with confidence and turn it into real, lasting value.”

ABOUT ANKURA

Ankura Consulting Group, LLC is an independent global expert services and advisory firm that delivers end-to-end solutions to manage conflict, crisis, performance, risk, strategy, and transformation. Committed to its mission of Driving Excellence, Delivered with Humanity, Ankura has more than 2,000 professionals serving 3,000+ clients across 55 countries. For more information, please visit: ankura.com.

MEDIA CONTACT
Keelin McGrory
aibydesign@ankura.com 

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