WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN) today announced the appointment of Mitch Harris as a Senior Managing Director in the Healthcare Risk Management & Advisory practice within the firm’s Forensic and Litigation Consulting segment.
Mr. Harris, who is based in Los Angeles, has more than three decades of experience driving healthcare strategy for major health plans, health systems and pharmacy benefit managers across the United States. His expertise includes leveraging data and AI to improve performance and support clients with operational and regulatory challenges.
In his role at FTI Consulting, he will support clients with regulatory strategy and government programs compliance, as well as operational optimization and turnaround initiatives.
“The healthcare industry is experiencing rising costs, increased regulatory complexity and intensified oversight, creating operational and financial volatility and continuing to increase our clients’ need for expert support and advice,” said Wayne Gibson, Leader of the Healthcare Risk Management & Advisory practice at FTI Consulting. “Mitch brings diverse capabilities to our deep bench of experts, working with clients to address regulatory, operational and financial risk and support innovative digital transformation, ultimately unlocking value.”
Earlier in his career, Mr. Harris held roles at PwC’s Health Industries Advisory practice, where he led business development and operational strategy for the national health plan compliance and regulatory practice. He has also served in management roles at Caremore Medical Management Company (now Carelon) and Blue Shield of California.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Harris said, “FTI Consulting is a global, expert-driven firm with a reputation for supporting high-stakes, high-profile projects. Our experts can predict and remediate risk and proactively mitigate issues while implementing process improvement to optimize costs. I look forward to joining my colleagues as we work to solve our clients’ biggest challenges.”
About FTI Consulting FTI Consulting, Inc. is a leading global expert firm for organizations facing crisis and transformation, with more than 8,100 employees located in 32 countries and territories as of September 30, 2025. In certain jurisdictions, FTI Consulting’s services are provided through distinct legal entities that are separately capitalized and independently managed. The Company generated $3.70 billion in revenues during fiscal year 2024. More information can be found at www.fticonsulting.com.
FTI Consulting, Inc. 555 12th Street NW Washington, DC 20004 +1.202.312.9100
Tui, Europe’s biggest travel operator, has said it is investing heavily in AI as more people turn to ChatGPT to help book their holidays, including using the technology to create “inspirational” videos and content.
The chief executive, Sebastian Ebel, said the company was investing in generative engine optimisation (GEO), the latest incarnation of search engine optimisation (SEO), to help push Tui to the top of results from AI chatbots including ChatGPT and Gemini.
While traditional SEO relied on links and keywords to increase visibility in search engine results, GEO tries to increase recommendations via chatbots by ensuring a product is mentioned in the message boards, videos and other online datasets that the AI agents crunch to produce their answers.
Ebel said connecting to large language models and social media companies would help Tui to grow. “By being part of their ecosystem, not depending on Google alone any more, [we are] going into the space where our customer is,” he said. “We are building a partnership where we can optimise search, where we can broaden distribution and proximity to ChatGPT and TikTok.”
It comes as people increasingly use AI agents – autonomous digital secretaries – to help with their online shopping. This year OpenAI, Perplexity, Google and Microsoft all launched AI features that allow users to search for products through their chatbots, with agents that can complete orders on behalf of consumers.
Tui said it was using AI to help create “inspirational videos, content and translations to improve trip planning”, as well as AI-powered voice and chat agents for customer services.
It is the latest effort by the German travel operator to incorporate AI technology into its customer experience, after it started using ChatGPT in its app to provide holiday recommendations in 2023. Its first launch had some hiccups, with the Guardian finding at the time that the bot struggled with basic conversation.
Tui reported annual pre-tax profits up 20% to just over €1bn (£904m), close to a record high. Revenue rose 4% to €24.2bn but is expected to grow at a slower rate next year, between 2% and 4%, reflecting “prevailing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties”, Tui said.
The company, which has been struggling in its core German market, also laid out plans to cut costs by €250m by 2028, though Ebel insisted “there is a big difference in having less jobs versus cutting jobs”.
He said: “Our workforce is changing and we are getting more efficient. We will not get less people in total. We want to grow and we want to be more efficient.”
The company, which is headquartered in Hanover, employs about 67,000 people around the world. Its shares fell by 2.8% in early trading on Tuesday and are down by about 34% over the past five years.
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Ebel said he was “very unsatisfied” with the share price, though the chief financial officer, Mathias Kiep, said a new dividend policy of €0.10 a share could help revive the stock.
The company signalled that some of the price pressure on travellers could ease, with Ebel saying the market was “over the high inflation times”.
Holiday bookings for next summer have been positive so far, Tui said, with popular destinations for 2026 including Greece, the Balearic Islands and Turkey.
McDonald’s has taken down a Christmas advert made with Artificial Intelligence (AI) following online backlash.
The 45-second advert was produced with generative AI clips and released publicly on McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel on 6 December.
Viewers on social media denounced the use of AI in the film, with one commenter calling it “the most god-awful ad I’ve seen this year”.
On 9 December McDonald’s Netherlands removed the video, adding in a statement to BBC News that the moment served as “an important learning” as the company explored “the effective use of AI”.
The advert was created for McDonald’s by Dutch company TBWANeboko and US production company The Sweetshop.
Adverts which include generative AI have become a growing trend among major brands, such as Coca-Cola, particularly for the Christmas season.
The McDonald’s advert depicted things that can go wrong during the Christmas break, using the slogan “the most terrible time of the year”, and suggesting the time was better spent in the company of the fast food giant.
Following its release, viewers criticised the film’s uncanny-looking characters and large number of stitched together clips, calling it “creepy” and “poorly edited”.
As clips made using generative AI are more likely to distort the longer they run for – most clips made using the process tend to be roughly six to 10 seconds long – even a 45-second advert would likely consist of many videos edited together.
The video also provoked concerns for job displacement in the industry, with one Instagram comment noting: “No actors, no camera team..welcome to the future of filmmaking. And it sucks.”
Following the video being made private on the McDonald’s Netherlands YouTube channel, The Sweetshop’s chief executive Melanie Bridge defended the advert.
As quoted in Futurism, she said the production process took “seven weeks” where the team “hardly slept” and created “thousands of takes – then shaped them in the edit just as we would on any high-craft production”.
“This wasn’t an AI trick,” she said. “It was a film.”
In a statement to BBC News, McDonald’s Netherlands said the video was meant to “reflect the stressful moments that can occur during the holidays” but had decided to remove the advert.
“This moment serves as an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI,” it said.
Where normally a high-publicity Christmas campaign could take up to a year to pull off, companies have begun to look to firms which can produce films in a much shorter time span, using prompts from generative AI tools to create new video content.
Coca-Cola seems to have been able to sway at least some of the general public with its second AI-generated Christmas ad in a row.
While the use of AI to create the advert has been divisive, a report from analytics company Social Sprout found it had a 61% “positive sentiment rating” from commenters online.
But several other businesses such as the Italian luxury fashion house Valentino have come under fire for using the technique in their campaigns, with critics calling Valentino’s advert “cheap” and “lazy”.
BBC News has contacted The Sweetshop and TBWANeboko for comment.
The startup Fervo Energy just raised another $462 million to build America’s next generation of geothermal power plants.
On Wednesday, the Houston-based company said it closed a Series E funding round led by a new investor, B Capital, a global venture capital firm started by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin. With the latest announcement, Fervo says it’s raised about $1.5 billion overall since 2017 as it develops what could become the world’s largest “enhanced geothermal system” in Utah.
“Fervo is setting the pace for the next era of clean, affordable, and reliable power in the U.S.,” Jeff Johnson, general partner at B Capital, said in a news release.
The Series E funding comes as Fervo reportedly prepares to become a publicly traded company, which would let it raise even more capital for its ambitious projects. When asked about a potential IPO, Fervo said only that the company is “focused on executing our development plan” in an email to Canary Media. “We have a lot of capital needs going forward to fuel our planned growth and will be tapping a lot of different opportunities to make that happen.”
The carbon-free energy from deep underground is available around the clock, but it represents only about 0.4% of total U.S. electricity generation — largely because the existing technology is constrained by geography. Today’s geothermal plants rely on naturally occurring reservoirs of hot water and steam to spin their turbines and generate power, which are available in a limited number of places.
Fervo’s approach involves creating its own reservoirs by fracturing hot rocks and pumping them full of water. The company uses the same horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools as the oil and gas industry in an effort to reach deeper wells and hotter sources than is possible with conventional geothermal technology.
Its flagship development, Cape Station, is well underway in Beaver County, Utah. The project’s initial 100-megawatt installation is on track to start delivering power to the grid in October 2026, which will make it the first commercial-scale enhanced geothermal project to hit such a milestone worldwide, according to Fervo. An additional 400MW is slated to come online in 2028.
US regulatory officials are re-examining the safety of RSV shots despite no published reports of safety issues – a move that could lead to the removal or limitation of shots that have dramatically lowered hospitalizations among babies.
It’s the latest move from US health officials under Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to limit access to shots and to undermine public trust in the safe and effective products.
Officials at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told three manufacturers of RSV preventative treatments for babies last week their products are being reviewed because of safety concerns raised by anti-vaccine activists, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
When asked by the Guardian if the FDA was reviewing the preventative shots and maternal RSV shots, a spokesperson confirmed the news.
The FDA routinely evaluates safety information about approved drugs, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said. A team at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research “is rigorously reviewing the available data, as it does for all products, to ensure decisions remain rooted in evidence-based science and in the best interest of patients”, Hilliard said.
The spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the review was prompted by safety signals or anti-vaccine activists, and did not respond by press time to a question clarifying whether the review applies to shots for both babies and pregnant people.
“The RSV shots were the first time we had any kind of tools to prevent these complications,” said Elias Kass, a naturopathic physician specializing in pediatrics in Seattle, Washington.
RSV was the most common cause of hospitalization among US infants, he added: “To have a tool to prevent that is incredible.”
There were two working groups assessing evidence on RSV for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). One group focused on the vaccines given during pregnancy and the other on the preventative shots given to babies.
Neither group appears to have met since Kennedy fired all 17 previous advisers and replaced them with his own hand-picked advisers.
Kevin Ault, a former ACIP adviser and an obstetrician/gynecologist who has remained a liaison for the committee, was on the RSV working group for maternal vaccination until it stopped meeting. No new safety information about RSV shots has been released, Ault said.
In fact, news from the group was positive.
“There were concerns about pre-term delivery as a safety signal in the original maternal trials, but there have been subsequent safety data that shows that’s not an increased risk,” Ault said. That evidence was publicly discussed by the previous ACIP advisers.
“The efficacy and the safety signals have both been very reassuring,” Ault said.
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Even so, the new vaccine advisers in their meeting last week made several comments about re-evaluating the vaccines given during pregnancy, saying they have “a new way of looking at pregnancy and vaccines,” Ault said. But no information about this new approach has been given to the public.
The shots to prevent RSV are one of the greatest public health breakthroughs in recent years, with dramatic declines in hospitalization, Ault said.
Vaccinating during pregnancy was 55% to 68% effective in keeping newborns from being hospitalized in the first six months of their lives, according to a survey of studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October.
Babies who were given the preventative antibody shots were 79% to 83% less likely to be hospitalized, the study found.
Decisions from the FDA could limit access to the shots, and public health experts worry that the announcements, without evidence, undermining the shots could affect public trust and confidence in vaccine safety.
Before the shots were widely available, 2% to 3% of all infants in the US were hospitalized for RSV. The respiratory illness has also been associated with developing asthma.
“Almost every parent has some experience with RSV,” Ault said. “So I think it’s going to be a lot easier to talk about the risk and benefits of these interventions to parents, just because they realize what a devastating disease it is.”
HONG KONG — The head of the International Monetary Fund has urged China to fix its economic imbalances, saying the country of 1.4 billion people is too big to rely on exports for its growth.
China’s global exports have been rising while shipments to the United States have contracted after President Donald Trump hiked taxes on imports from China and many other countries. Earlier this week, Beijing reported its trade surplus for 2025 had already exceeded a record $1 trillion.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the heavy reliance on exports risks provoking more moves by its trading partners to curb imports from China.
“(China’s) continuing to depend on export-led growth risks furthering global trade tensions,” Georgieva told a press conference on Wednesday. “China is now too big to rely on exports as a source for growth… and (it has) a large domestic market that can be a big aspiration for growth in the years to come.”
At a high-level meeting in October aimed at drawing up plans for the next five years, China’s leaders highlighted the need to boost domestic consumption. The ruling Communist Party has long sought to rebalance the economy away from heavy dependence both on exports and on massive investment in infrastructure.
But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened, along with a prolonged downturn in the real estate market that has slowed activity for that once powerful engine for growth. Meanwhile, Beijing has pushed hard to expand manufacturing in high-tech industries, struggling to rein in excessive capacity in some areas such as automaking.
Morgan Stanley recently predicted that by 2030, China’s market share in global exports could reach 16.5%, up from about 15% currently, supported by its advanced manufacturing and high-growth segments like robotics, electric vehicles and batteries.
Georgieva was visiting Beijing for an annual economic forum involving the heads of major international organizations. The IMF also was concluding its annual review of China.
Softening domestic consumption and demand in China has contributed to a weakened yuan versus the dollar and other currencies. That has made China’s exports cheaper compared with those of other countries, reinforcing trade imbalances.
The IMF said comprehensive policies are needed to encourage Chinese people to spend more.
While China’s market is huge and still growing at a nearly 5% annual pace, domestic demand has weakened as consumers cut back on spending due to job and income losses during and after the pandemic.
The years-long property downturn also has hit household wealth, crimping shoppers’ appetites for spending and sapping demand for imports, amplifying the trade imbalance.
Helping to offset the decline in exports to the U.S., China is selling more in other countries in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Europe. That has led to complaints from China’s trading partners as its imports have failed to keep pace.
Wednesday, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China also warned its substantial trade surplus is raising worries.
The IMF’s remarks followed Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s comments to the international group of financial experts Tuesday that higher tariffs have “dealt a severe blow” to the global economy.
Le Meux, December 10, 2025. Continental has entered exclusive negotiations with ASC Investment regarding the sale of its French retail operations ContiTrade France. The intended transaction includes more than 130 company-owned BestDrive outlets, two retreading facilities, as well as the administrative functions supporting the tire and vehicle maintenance business and totaling approx. 1,200 employees. All service outlets to be sold would remain part of Continental’s BestDrive France network under a franchise contract. Staff responsible for the franchise organization and the FleetPartner organization will be integrated into the Continental marketing and sales organization in France. Both parties agreed not to disclose any further details. The intended transaction will be subject to consultation with the Comité Social et Économique (CSE) and approval by the supervisory board of Continental AG, followed by the signing of a sale and purchase agreement.
Through this transaction, BestDrive France aims to successfully complete the transformation of its business model, moving from a hybrid distribution structure to a fully franchised network in France. Once the transaction is completed, Continental will serve its individual and fleet customers in France through an extensive network of BestDrive service outlets operated by franchisees. With its strong global brand and long-standing expertise in the tire and vehicle services business, BestDrive remains fully committed to supporting its franchisees, helping them to grow their businesses and realize their full market potential.
ASC intends to operate the service outlets as an independent and agile activity, fully dedicated to providing a wide range of high-quality services to its existing and new clients via an extended product offering. Together with the current management team, ASC is committed to leverage on the existing footprint of ContiTrade France and its employee’s skillsets.
Continental aims to optimize and expand its franchise network throughout France. Access to a competitive BestDrive Private Brand product range, a future-ready digital services portfolio as well as the nationwide FleetPartner network are key elements of BestDrive’s comprehensive franchise proposition. In total, BestDrive serves more than 200 outlets throughout France.
ASC is an investment firm based in Luxembourg and Munich, focusing on pan-European corporate spin-offs, carve-outs and succession situations with improvement potential. ASC is led by a group of experienced and proven investment and industry professionals with decades of experience, pursuing a strategy of unlocking operational improvement potential in acquired companies. Since 2010 the ASC team has been investing in pan-European situations where an active and entrepreneurial-minded investor is needed. Through its network and operational expertise, ASC supports companies to revitalize its operations and build-up a sound foundation for a sustainable future.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Investment bankers in Hong Kong have been warned over the quality of their paperwork in filings for initial public offerings after a boom in listings in the Chinese territory.
Hong Kong financial regulators sent letters to banks in the territory highlighting concerns, including failures to address regulator questions and poor descriptions of the business models of companies seeking to list. The letters also drew attention to text that was copied and pasted from previous prospectuses, according to people familiar with the warning.
The letters, sent in recent days, come as investment banks are beefing up staffing in Hong Kong to handle a revival in listings, which are principally coming from mainland Chinese companies using the territory as a base to raise offshore funds for international expansion.
Hong Kong has more than 300 companies in its IPO pipeline, having submitted paperwork to list. Listings so far this year in the territory have raised about US$34bn for companies, according to data from KPMG, making it the top IPO venue globally ahead of the NYSE, Nasdaq and National Stock Exchange of India.
This marks a huge increase from previous years after Covid-19 when Hong Kong’s capital markets stagnated.
“It’s just [about] being sloppy,” said one person who has read the letter, who added that regulators were displeased with excessive use of marketing language in documents submitted by advisers on behalf of the companies.
Two sources who had seen the letter confirmed that Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange contacted banks that work on helping companies go public in the territory with concerns about the quality of application materials.
They said banks might have received different versions of the letter, with some highlighting specific incidents concerning work submitted by the bank.
Last year, the SFC and HKEX unveiled an accelerated IPO application process for certain types of companies, including those already listed in mainland China, in a move to encourage more listings.
HKEX said it was “committed to ensuring the timely and robust review of new listing applications, and continues to proactively engage with issuers, sponsors and professional advisers to ensure the submission of comprehensive and high-quality listing materials”.
The SFC confirmed to the Financial Times that the letters were sent. News of the letters was first reported by Reuters.
“Our first trial showed us just how well the Everpour system works in real bar environments: with the intuitive and bartender-friendly system. Everpour is an example of experimentation and insight in action. Working with the trade has enabled us to bring an innovation to market which we believe has commercial potential as well as the potential to deliver significant carbon savings.” Commented Miranda Essex, Head of Breakthrough Innovation for Sustainability at Diageo.
The second phase of the trial will test the impact of the smart system – initially 10 pubs will have Everpour units with a further 15 coming onboard in the New Year. In this trial, the keg units have greater technology benefits to further enhance the user experience:
Drinks dispense tracking. We’ll have smart monitoring in place which will allow bartenders to see when the keg is running low.
Safety features. The system now has enhanced brand protection and quality control features, along with leak and blockage detection and temperature alerts to make sure our products are served at the optimum temperature.
Keg tracking and monitoring. Each keg has a RFID tag which allows us to track its exact location and status through an app.
Whilst Everpour has many benefits to help the running of the bar, it’s also a Diageo-designed solution to reduce the number of glass bottles needed and subsequent carbon emissions. The current projected carbon savings for a scaled post-trial launch of the Everpour unit in Ireland is very encouraging. The Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) estimated a reduction of at least 500 single-use 70cl glass bottles per Everpour unit over its life-time , and a projected packaging carbon footprint savings of up to 83% *.
Pub owner, Danny Kenny, said: “I’m delighted to take part in the second stage of the Everpour trial having used the system last year during its initial trial period. The Everpour solution reduces our labour costs with a neat keg system that is far easier to store and manage versus cases of traditional glass bottles. It also reduces glass waste and the system now has a clear stock control display which makes stocktaking much easier.”
The trial is expected to run until Summer 2026. Further trials and wider roll out will be subject to trial success.
*Projected savings based on an externally verified LCA, assumes scaled launch, post-trial, of 1000 outlet installations and 25 reuses of a 20 litre Everpour keg. Projected savings based on packaging only and packaging carbon footprint accounts for approx. 53% of overall product carbon footprint. Comparison based on Smirnoff 70cl glass bottle. Scaled launch and further Everpour roll-out subject to trial success, the prototype used during trial may be further refined and may not reflect the characteristics of the trial. Market conditions and projected savings may differ from market to market.
Paris, 10 December 2025 – Mirakl, the leading provider of eCommerce software solutions, today announced it has received a B rating from CDP in its first-ever climate disclosure assessment. This demonstrates Mirakl’s commitment to building a comprehensive and impactful environmental strategy while positioning the company among the tech companies to be rated by CDP. With this B-grade for Climate, Mirakl received the highest possible rating for SMEs.
CDP is a global non-profit that runs the world’s leading environmental disclosure system for companies, cities, states, and regions. With over 24,800 companies representing more than two-thirds of global market capitalization disclosing environmental data through CDP, the organization has built the most comprehensive database of corporate climate information in the world. CDP’s scoring methodology is widely recognized by investors, customers, and procurement teams as the gold standard for environmental transparency and performance. Companies are rated on a scale from A (leadership) to D- (disclosure), based on their environmental governance, risk management, and concrete actions to reduce emissions.
“Receiving our first CDP rating marks an important step in our environmental journey,” said Hugo Weber, VP Corporate Affairs & Impact at Mirakl. “As one of the first scale-ups to be rated by CDP, we want to demonstrate our conviction that transparency and collaboration are fundamental to successful climate action. We’re dedicated to pursuing initiatives that create tangible impact, and this rating reflects the seriousness of our approach.“
Mirakl’s environmental strategy encompasses:
Full carbon footprint transparency: we measure our complete scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
Reduction commitments: we’re aiming to cut absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2027 (2023 baseline).
Value chain collaboration: we partner with suppliers to drive transparency and collective climate responsibility throughout our ecosystem.
Clean energy operations: we source green and renewable energy to power our office locations where possible.
Circular commerce innovation: we enable marketplace operators to build sustainable business models by facilitating refurbished and secondhand product offerings.
About Mirakl:
Mirakl is the leading provider of eCommerce software solutions. Mirakl’s suite of solutions provides enterprises with a transformative way to drive significant growth and efficiency in their online business.
Since 2012, Mirakl has been pioneering the platform economy, empowering retail and B2B enterprises with the most advanced, secure and scalable technology to digitize and expand product assortment through marketplace and dropship, improve efficiency in supplier catalog management and payments, personalize shopping experiences, and boost profits through retail media.
Mirakl is trusted by Airbus, Best Buy, Decathlon, Macy’s, Ulta and 450+ industry-leading businesses worldwide. For more information: www.mirakl.com.
