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United Parcel Service (UPS) is planning to close dozens of packaging facilities this year, the shipping giant revealed in a court filing this week. The plans include shuttering facilities in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, and several other states. It includes locations that have union employees, according to a docket made public as part of a lawsuit between UPS and the Teamsters Union. UPS revealed in January that it will cut 30,000 jobs over the coming year. The move was announced as its partnership with Amazon was winding down and amid a broader push toward automation. At the time, it also revealed plans to close 24 total facilities, though it did not reveal the locations. Now the locations of 22 of those facilities have been made public. In the court filings, UPS said the applicable Local Unions have been notified of these closures and informed of the anticipated impacts. Which UPS package facilities are closing? The facilities marked for closure are spread across more than 18 states. They appear below: Jamieson Park facility in Spokane, Washington Chalk Hill facility in Dallas, Texas Jacksonville, Illinois Rockdale, Illinois Devils Lake, North Dakota Laramie, Wyoming Pendleton, Oregon North Hills, California Las Vegas North in Las Vegas, Nevada Quad Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland Wilmington, Massachusetts Ashland, Massachusetts Sagamore Beach, Massachusetts Miami Downtown Air in Miami, Florida Camden, Arkansas Blytheville, Arkansas Kosciusko, Mississippi Atlanta Hub in Atlanta, Georgia Columbia Hub in West Columbia, South Carolina Kinston, North Carolina Austinburg, Ohio Cadillac, Michigan What has UPS said about the closures? Were well into the largest U.S. network reconfiguration in UPS history, creating a nimbler, more efficient operation by modernizing our facilities and matching our size and resources to support growth initiatives,” a UPS spokesperson told Fast Company when reached for comment. “Some positions will be affected, though most changes are expected to occur through attrition. Were committed to supporting our people throughout this process.” The facility closures were reported earlier by Freight Waves. Last year, UPS also shed 48,000 workers. The primary drivers for the closures are a broader rightsizing effort, outlined back in 2024. Shares of United Parcel Service Inc (NYSE: UPS) are up almost 15% so far in 2026. But the stock is down significantly from highs it had seen during the early pandemic years. However, the impact of the closures will affect members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In response, the Teamsters filed a lawsuit over a planned voluntary buyout program for union drivers, called the Driver Choice Program, or DCP, saying it violates its contract. The Teamsters have asked the court for an injunction pending the two sides’ initiation of the grievance process outlined in their contract. In a statement, the Teamsters have said that they have detailed at least six violations of its National Master Agreement by UPS in the rollout of the buyout program, including direct dealing of new contracts with workers, elimination of union jobs when UPS contractually agreed to establish more positions, and erosion of the rights and privileges of union shop stewards, among other charges. For the second time in six months, UPS has proven it doesnt care about the law, has no respect for its contract with the Teamsters, and is determined to try to screw our members out of their hard-earned money, said Teamsters General President Sean M. OBrien, in comments included in the statement. UPSs spokesperson tells Fast Company that the company is disappointed in the response. The world is changing, and the rate of change isaccelerating,” UPS says. “As we navigate these changes and continue to reshape our network, our drivers appreciate having choices, including theoptionto make a career change or retire earlier than planned.” This story is developing…
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E-Commerce
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign is remembered a decade on for the exclamation point in its “Jeb!” logo, but Jesse Jackson’s campaign actually used the punctuation 28 years before him. Jackson, the civil rights activist who died Tuesday at the age of 84, ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988. At the 1988 Democratic National Convention, his supporters held red signs that said “Jesse!” in white. Democratic National Convention, Atlanta, 1988. [Photo: Robert Abbott Sengstacke/Getty Images] Jackson came in second in the 1988 primary with nearly 30% of the vote against the party’s nominee Michael Dukakis, and since then, candidates from Bush to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, have used the punctuation mark in their logos to give their names some added emphasis. An attendee holds a campaign sign while listening during a campaign event for Jeb Bush in Charleston, South Carolina, 2016. [Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images] Though Jackson never held political office, the visual brand of his historic campaigns still resonates today for standing out in a sea of sameness. A protege of Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson was the founder of the civil rights nonprofit Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) when he announced his campaign in 1983 without any experience in elected office and became the first Black presidential candidate for a major party since Shirley Chisholm. [Image: United States Library of Congress] Jackson’s exclamation mark logo was far from the only logo used in support of his presidential campaigns in a time before standardized, consistent branding was expected for political campaigns. He campaigned in serifs and sans serifs, and sometimes in bright yellow, a color that signaled a break from the standard red, white, and blue color palette of U.S. politics at the time. His campaign used slogans like “Now is the Time” and “Keep Hope Alive.” During a speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Jackson explained his idea of the nation as a rainbow, a symbol that became associated with his candidacy and advocacy. “Our flag is red, white, and blue, but our nation is a rainbowred, yellow, brown, black, and whiteand were all precious in Gods sight,” he said. [Photo: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture] That message, along with Jackson’s push to build a “rainbow coalition” that transcended racial and class lines, inspired rainbow-themed buttons and ephemera. Buttons depicted rainbows that were red, white, and blue
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E-Commerce
A new 3D-printed construction technique turns corn into a novel building material. Corncretl is a biocomposite made from corn waste known as nejayote that’s rich in calcium. It’s dried, pulverized, and mixed with minerals, and the resulting material is applied using a 3D printer. [Photo: Dinorah Schulte/Manufactura] This corn-based construction material was made by Manufactura, a Mexican sustainable materials company, and it imagines a second life for waste from the most widely produced grain in the world. The project started as an invitation by chef Jorge Armando, the founder of catering brand Taco Kween Berlin, to find ways he could reintegrate waste generated by his taqueria into architecture. A team led by designer Dinorah Schulte created corncretl during a residency last year in Massa Lombarda, Italy. “The material combines recycled nejayote derivatives with limestone and Carrara marble powder, connecting pre-Hispanic construction knowledge from Mexico with material traditions from northern Italy,” Schulte tells Fast Company. [Photo: Dinorah Schulte/Manufactura] Growing momentum for clean cement alternatives Many sustainable materials studios are researching concrete alternatives. And while corncretl is just in the prototyping stage, food waste has been tested as a potential building material more broadly. Researchers at the University of Tokyo made a construction material it said was harder than cement in 2022 out of raw materials like coffee grounds, powered fruit and vegetable waste, and seaweed. Last year, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology developed a rammed earth material encased in cardboard, which eliminated the need for cement completely, and Manufactura experimented with building materials made from coffee too. Designers have turned to 3D printers to build everything from train shelters to houses, and developing alternative materials to print with could lead to cheaper, more durable, and more sustainable construction methods. [Photo: Dinorah Schulte/Manufactura] After Schulte’s team developed corncretl, they then moved to practical application, prototyping three panels for modular construction using a Kuka robotic arm. “The project employs an internal infill structure that allows the 3D-printed wall to be self-supporting, eliminating the need for external scaffolding during fabrication,” Schulte says, and the geometry of the system was inspired by terrazzo patterns found in the Roman Empire, particularly Rimini, Italy, where the team visited. [Photo: Dinorah Schulte/Manufactura] “During a visit to the city museum, we were struck by the expressive curved terrazzo motifs, which became a starting point for translating historical geometries into a contemporary, computationally designed 3D-printed wall, culturally rooted yet forward-looking,” she says. [Photo: Dinorah Schulte/Manufactura] Corn, or maize, is native to Mexico, and the country produces 27 million metric tons of it annually, according to the Wilson Center, a think tank. Finding an alternative use for nejayote, then, could then turn a waste stream from a popular food into the basis for building physical structures. If the byproduct from cooking tortillas proves to be one such source, taquerias could one day find themselves in the restaurant and construction businesses.
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E-Commerce
Trump’s latest plans for a White House annex could subtly reshape the path around the South Lawn, and its resulting irregularity says a lot about the Administration’s capacity for design nuance. The latest renderings for a new proposed building on the site of the demolished East Wing were briefly posted to the National Capital Planning Commission website on February 13, and then deleted. The plans call for a ballroom much bigger than the rest of the White House. So big, in fact, that it ruins the shape of the South Lawn driveway. [Image: NCPC] Under the proposal, a new garden would cover the site of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which was demolished alongside the East Wing last year, while a roughly 22,000-square-foot ballroom would jut out ever so slightly into the path of the looping driveway that encircles the most famous backyard in the U.S. [Image: NCPC] The elongated oval drive would then have to be pushed in on one side to accommodate the footprint of the enlarged ballroom, like the side view of an spherical exercise ball under pressure. Rather than maintain the intentional harmony of the current drive, the proposed path turns the South Lawn into a deferential design afterthought that makes way for Trump’s dream ballroom. In the grand scheme of Trump’s presidencyand the White House’s overall facadea rerouted driveway is a minor thing. But the effect on this subtle element reflects the lengths his team will go to shoehorn his design ideas into reality, even if it means upsetting core design principles like balance elsewhere. Gold-obsessed, unless it’s the golden ratio Of course, nothing about Trump’s proposed ballroom has ever been symmetrical, nor have any of his other White House design projects been particularly subtle. He started by tearing out the Rose Garden and putting a car lot-sized flag poll on the North Lawn and then got to work tearing down portions of the White House before anyone could okay it or say no. Trump replaced the original architect for the ballroom in December after clashes over its size. A National Park Service report last year found the plans would “disrupt the historical continuity of the White House grounds and alter the architectural integrity of the east side of the property.” [Image: NCPC] The latest proposed elevations for the ballroom, which were designed by Shalom Baranes Associates, a Washington, D.C., architectural firm, are more than twice the size of the since-demolished East Wing. The drafted design gives the White House complex the look of a male fiddler crab, which has one claw that’s bigger than the other. The planned ballroom dwarfs the West Wing in sheer footprint, which would make the overall visual balance of the White House grossly asymmetrical upon its completion. Heightwise, however, the building appears in the renderings to rise about as tall as the Executive Mansion itself, and the proposal takes great pains to show that it won’t be visible from various vantage points in Washington, D.C., like from the Jefferson Memorial or from the U.S. Capitol steps facing northwest. The building is designed with a neoclassical facade, Corinthian columns, and a wide staircase entrance, matching the call for classical architecture Trump asked for in an executive order. [Image: NCPC] Fine arts fueled by cash, but not the arts Construction of the ballroom will be paid for by corporate donors, raising thorny ethical questions for a president who once claimed to “drain the swamp.” Two-thirds of known corporate donors to the ballroom have received $279 billion in government contracts over the past five years. Some donors, including Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and T-Mobile are facing federal enforcement actions, according to a review from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. [Image: NCPC] Earlier this month, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found that many donors failed to disclose their contributions in lobbying disclosure filings. Trump has taken steps to remove friction or opposition to his plans to build the new building. Last October, he fired every member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts board, the agency that would have reviewed his construction plans. Now, his 26-year-old executive assistant Chamberlain Harris, who has no background in the arts, is set to be named to commission Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
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E-Commerce
The pressure to adopt AI is relentless. Boards, investors, and the market tell us that if we dont, well be left behind. The result is a frantic gold rush to implement AI for AIs sake, leading to expensive pilots, frustrated teams, and disappointing ROI. The problem is that were treating AI like a magic wanda one-size-fits-all solution for any problem. But true transformation comes from strategically applying it where it can make the most impact. This is the AI sweet spot, where the real competitive advantage lies. Its not about having the most advanced AI, but about having the right AI, applied to the right problems, with the right people. Here are five ways to find it. 1. Start with Your Biggest Bottleneck, Not Your Biggest Budget Many organizations fall into the trap of allocating their AI budget to the department that shouts the loudest. Its a recipe for wasted resources. Instead of asking, Where can we spend our AI budget? ask, Where is our biggest organizational bottleneck? Identify the most time-consuming, repetitive processes in your company. Is it the hours your marketing team spends on pre-meeting research? The manual data entry bogging down your finance department? These pain points are your starting line. For example, one company I worked with found their sales team was spending over five hours preparing for a single client meeting. By implementing an AI agent to handle the research and data compilation, they reduced that prep time by 87%, saving nearly $300,000 a year in productivity costs. The AI wasnt flashy, but it solved a real, costly problem. Thats a sweet spot. 2. Ask ‘Will This Enhance or Replace?’ The quickest way to kill an AI initiative is to make your employees feel threatened by it. When people hear AI, they often think job replacement. This fear breeds resistance and undermines adoption. As a leader, your job is to reframe the conversation from replacement to augmentation. Before implementing any AI tool, ask a simple question: Will this technology enhance our teams capabilities, or simply replace a human function? The sweet spot is almost always in enhancement. Think of AI not as a new employee, but as a tireless intern or a brilliant colleague for every member of your team. It can handle the grunt work, analyze massive datasets, and surface key insights, freeing up your people to do what they do best: think critically and make strategic decisions. When your team sees AI as a partner that makes their jobs better, they will champion its adoption. 3. Build Trust Before You Build the Tech We dont use tools we dont trust. If your team doesnt understand how an AI system works or why it makes certain recommendations, they will find workarounds to avoid using it. Trust isnt a feature you can add later; it has to be the foundation of your implementation strategy. This starts with creating a culture of psychological safety, where employees feel safe to ask questions and even challenge the AI. Be transparent. Explain what the AI does, what data it uses, and where its limitations are. Appoint human oversights for critical processes, ensuring that a person is always in the loop for high-stakes decisions. In my work, I use the framework 13 Behaviors of Trust, and it applies as much to AI as it does to people. An AI system earns trust when it is competent (delivers results) and has character (operates with integrity). Without that trust, even the most powerful AI is just expensive code. 4. Tie Every AI Initiative to a Business Goal Exploring AI capabilities is not a business strategy. Too many AI projects exist in a vacuum, disconnected from the companys core objectives. If you cant draw a straight line from your AI initiative to a specific goallike increasing customer retention or reducing operational costsyou shouldnt be doing it. Before you approve any AI project, map it directly to your companys OKRs or strategic pillars. How will this tool help us achieve our vision? How does it support our mission? This forces a level of discipline that prevents you from chasing shiny objects. It ensures that your AI strategy is not an isolated IT function, but an integral part of your overall business strategy. AI that doesnt align with your core purpose will always be a cost center. AI that does becomes a powerful engine for value creation. 5. Create Space for Learning, Not Just Execution Leaders often expect an immediate, seamless return on their AI investment. But there is no magic switch. Successful adoption requires moving your team from a zone of comfort, through the uncertainty of fear, and into zones of learning and growth. This takes time and patience. Dont just budget for the technology; budget for the learning curve. Create sandboxes where teams can experiment with new AI tools without fear of failure. Celebrate the small wins and the lessons learned from missteps. The organizations that are truly winning with AI arent the ones that got it perfect on day one. They are the ones that fostered a culture of continuous learning, empowering their employees to adapt and grow. The long-term ROI from an empowered, AI-fluent workforce will far exceed any short-term gains from a rushed implementation. Finding your AI sweet spot is less about technology and more about psychology, strategy, and culture. Its about shifting your focus from what AI can do to what it should do for your organization and your people. Stop chasing the AI hype and start solving your real-world business problems. Thats where youll find the lasting advantage.
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E-Commerce
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