Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday pitched India as a central player in the global artificial intelligence ecosystem, saying the country aims to build technology at home while deploying it worldwide.“Design and develop in India. Deliver to the world. Deliver to humanity,” Modi told a gathering of some world leaders, technology executives and policymakers at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi.Modi’s remarks came as India one of the fastest-growing digital markets seeks to leverage its experience in building large-scale digital public infrastructure and to present itself as a cost-effective hub for AI innovation.The summit was also addressed by French President Emmanuel Macron, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who called for a $3 billion fund to help poorer countries build basic AI capacity, including skills, data access and affordable computing power.“The future of AI cannot be decided by a handful of countries, or left to the whims of a few billionaires,” Guterres said, stressing that AI must “belong to everyone.”
India aims to ramp up its AI scale
India is using the summit to position itself as a bridge between advanced economies and the Global South. Indian officials cite the country’s digital ID and online payments systems as a model for deploying AI at low cost, particularly in developing countries.“We must democratize AI. It must become a tool for inclusion and empowerment, particularly for the Global South,” Modi said.With nearly 1 billion internet users, India has become a key market for global technology companies expanding their AI businesses.Last December, Microsoft announced a $17.5 billion investment over four years to expand cloud and AI infrastructure in India. It followed Google’s $15 billion investment over five years, including plans for its first AI hub in the country. Amazon has also pledged $35 billion by 2030, targeting AI-driven digitization.India is also seeking up to $200 billion in data center investment in the coming years.The country, however, lags in developing its own large-scale AI model like U.S.-based OpenAI or China’s DeepSeek, highlighting challenges such as limited access to advanced semiconductor chips, data centers and hundreds of local languages to learn from.
The summit has faced troubles
The summit opened Monday with organizational glitches, as attendees and exhibitors reported long lines and delays, and some complained on social media that personal belongings and display items had been stolen. Organizers later said the items were recovered.Problems resurfaced Wednesday when a private Indian university was expelled from the summit after a staff member showcased a commercially available Chinese-made robotic dog while claiming it as the institution’s own innovation.The setbacks continued Thursday when Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates withdrew from a scheduled keynote address. No reason was given, though the Gates Foundation said the move was intended “to ensure the focus remains on the AI Summit’s key priorities.”Gates is facing questions over his ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Associated Press
The social media trial brought by a 20-year-old Californian plaintiff known as Kaley or KGM, putting Meta and YouTube in front of a jury, has captured the worlds attention. The bellwether trial is a test case for the liability of social media platforms and how much they could be on the hook financially if found to have caused harm to their users. KGM, for her part, alleges that she faced anxiety, depression, and body image issues after using Instagram.
The proceedings could establish the first real legal boundaries for what has been up to now largely unregulated algorithmic design, determining whether amplifying harmful content amounts to negligence. A verdict against Meta or YouTube in this bellwether case could open the door to other suits, and finally force disclosure of internal research that has so far remained confidential.
The first day that Mark Zuckerberg, Metas CEO, was on the stand on February 18 was a major momentnot necessarily for what Zuckerberg said, but for the fact the case has gotten this far.
This is a significant moment in terms of these platforms finally being seen to be held to account by their own users, says Steven Buckley, lecturer in media digital and sociology at City St Georges, University of London.
While Zuckerberg withstood rigorous questioning from Mark Lanier, the lawyer representing Kaley GM, the fact that he was there at all and the case got to trial is a significant happening.
As Fast Company has previously reported, 2026 is the year that the world is getting tough on online safety, particularly for kids. And this trial is notable because it managed to sidestep the usual way social networks swerve liability: Claiming Section 230 protections, which have been in place since the mid-1990s and insulate platforms from bearing responsibility for the actions of their users.
If jurors agree that product design, rather than user behavior, is the root cause of harm, big techs decades-long legal shield could begin to fracture. That possibility alone has Silicon Valley watching nervously, with billions in potential damages on the line.
Prior to the trial beginning, Snap and TikTok settled with the claimant without admission of liability, leaving YouTube and Meta to fight the trial.
A Meta spokesperson tells Fast Company the firm strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people,” adding that the evidence will show she faced many significant, difficult challenges well before she ever used social media.
YouTube spokesperson José Castaneda tells Fast Company: The allegations in these complaints are simply not true.
Its not particularly surprising that these large platforms are finally facing some legal repercussions from their actual users, says Buckley. A steady drumbeat of reporting, alongside other smaller legal cases, have revealed information that suggests social media can be harmful to younger users.
This case is therefore a potential watershed because the plaintiffs argue that Instagram’s and YouTube’s underlying product designfeatures like the infinite scroll, autoplay, and recommendation algorithms that serve up progressively more engaging contentconstitutes a defective product.
But most of those other cases havent received as much attention because theyve not gotten as far as this one hasnor have been as likely to succeed in some way.
Zuckerberg did not come across as someone with children’s best interests at heart, says Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Australia. Leaver contrasts Zuckerbergs performance in court with Adam Mosseri’s a few days earlier, who the researcher says had the tenacity to argue that the term addiction is being misused.
In contrast, Zuckerberg didn’t feel like someone who’d done their homework, but rather someone who was surprised they had to turn up and answer these questions, Leaver explains. If his job was to convince the listening world that he could be a trusted figure in the lives of teens and young people, then he failed.
Despite that poor performance by Zuckerberg, and despite the strength of the case in comparison to others that have gone before, some think that a decision against the social media firmsor a general movement to recognize the issues inherent with social mediacould backfire.
One concern I have is that people will think that the simple solution to many of the issues raised in these lawsuits is to simply ban under-16s from using the platforms, says Buckley. This is a woefully misguided reaction. The scientific evidence regarding the link between social media use at a young age and addiction is still not well established.
Whether the jury agrees with that assessment or not, the trial has already achieved something that years of congressional hearings and regulatory hand-wringing havent: putting the people who designed these systems under oath and making them answer difficult questionsthen be responsible for the consequences of what they say.
One of the reasons I think we have gotten to this stage is that some people have come to the conclusion that their governments are not going to do anything meaningful to hold these companies to account and so have felt compelled to take them on themselves, says Buckley. The rest of the tech industry will be watching closely to see what comes next.
Tariffs paid by midsized U.S. businesses tripled over the course of last year, new research tied to one of America’s leading banks showed on Thursday more evidence that President Donald Trump’s push to charge higher taxes on imports is causing economic disruption.The additional taxes have meant that companies that employ a combined 48 million people in the U.S. the kinds of businesses that Trump had promised to revive have had to find ways to absorb the new expense, by passing it along to customers in the form of higher prices, employing fewer workers or accepting lower profits.“That’s a big change in their cost of doing business,” said Chi Mac, business research director of the JPMorganChase Institute, which published the analysis on Thursday. “We also see some indications that they may be shifting away from transacting with China and maybe toward some other regions in Asia.”The research doesn’t say how the additional costs are flowing through the economy, but it indicates that tariffs are being paid by U.S. firms. It’s part of a growing body of economic analyses that counter the administration’s claims that foreigners pay the tariffs.The JPMorganChase Institute report used payments data to look at businesses that might lack the pricing power of large multinational companies to offset tariffs, but may be small enough to quickly change supply chains to minimize exposure to the tax increases. The companies tended to have revenues between $10 million and $1 billion with fewer than 500 employees, a category known as “middle market.”The analysis suggests that the Trump administration’s goal of becoming less directly reliant on Chinese manufacturers has been occurring. Payments to China by these companies were 20% below their October 2024 levels, but it’s unclear whether that means China is simply routing its goods through other countries or if supply chains have moved.The authors of the analysis emphasized in an interview that companies are still adjusting to the tariffs and said they plan to continue studying the issue.The Trump administration has been adamant that the tariffs are a boon for the economy, businesses, and workers. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, lashed out on Wednesday at research by the New York Federal Reserve showing that nearly 90% of the burden for Trump’s tariffs fell on U.S. companies and consumers.“The paper is an embarrassment,” Hassett told CNBC. “It’s, I think, the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.”Trump increased the average tariff rate to 13% from 2.6% last year, according to the New York Fed researchers. He declared that tariffs on some items like steel, kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities were in the national security interest of the country and declared an economic emergency to bypass Congress and impose a baseline tax on goods from much of the world last April at an event he called “Liberation Day.”The high rates provoked a financial market panic, prompting Trump to walk back his rates and then engage in talks with multiple countries that led to a set of new trade frameworks. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Trump surpassed his legal authority by declaring an economic emergency.Trump was elected in 2024 on his promise to tame inflation, but his tariffs have contributed to voter frustration over affordability. While inflation has not spiked during Trump’s term thus far, hiring slowed sharply and a team of academic economists estimate that consumer prices were roughly 0.8 percentage points higher than they would otherwise be.
Josh Boak, Associated Press
Can AI help neurodivergent adults connect with each other? That’s the bet of a new social network called Synchrony, which believes AI and a well-designed social network with the right safeguards can reduce social atomization and calm the overwhelming cacophony of socializing online.
Launching February 19, the social network debuts during a moment when social media, chatbots, and doomscrolling has made digital communications a hot button topic for parents. No other app for the neurodiverse is focusing primarily on reducing social anxiety and encouraging friendship, says cofounder Jamie Pastrano. I think that’s the biggest piece of it, and no other app is focusing on building an authentic community.
Synchrony also has support from Starry Foundation and Autism Speaks, two large U.S. advocacy groups, and approval from the Apple App Store.
I was really blown away about what theyre trying to do, says Bobby Vossoughi, president of the Starry Foundation. These kids are isolated and their social cues are off. Theyre creating something that could really change this community’s lives for the long term.
A parenting challenge without a solution
The idea for Synchrony came from Pastrano, a former management consultant and executive sales leader, whose son, Jesse, 21, is autistic. As Jesse experienced teenagerhood, Pastrano became frustrated with the challenges she saw her son facing around the friendship gap; she saw him as a social kid, but planning, timing, even saying the appropriate thing often tripped him up. Unlike other challenges shed faced as a mother of a neurodivergent child, this one didnt seem to have a solution.
Research shows that people with autism or neuro developmental differencesroughly 1 in 5 people according to the Neurodiversity Allianceface increasing loneliness as they transition between adolescence and adulthood. New social responsibilities and expectations for life after school, combined with the loss of support systems that may have been embedded in secondary and university education, can lead to isolation.
One of the cofounders, Brittany Moser, an autism specialist who teaches at Park University in Missouri, says that shes held crying students who, forced to operate in a world thats not built for them, are desperate for social connection. She hopes this network can foster it.
Autism doesn’t end at 18, Pastrano says. There was this huge gap in services to support social, emotional, and community needs.
Pastrano sold her company in 2024 and devoted herself to solving the issue with what would become Synchrony. Part of Pastranos inspiration came from reality television. The dating show Love on the Spectrum piqued her interest, causing her to think not about romance, but about connection, friendship, and community. She even contacted a coach on the show, who suggested she get certified at the PEERS program at UCLA, which teaches social and dating skills to young adults on the spectrum.
[Image: Synchrony]
Broadly speaking, Synchrony is built with the same digital infrastructure as a dating site, but is meant for fostering friendships amid a unique population. A big part of the design challenge was making sure it was suitable for the audience, and wasnt too distracting or loud.
Profiles focus much more on interests, Pastrano says, since interests weigh much more heavily as a reason to communicate among this population. Theres also a space to list neurodiversity classifications and communication style and preferences (“I prefer text to phone calls,” or “I take a few days to reply,” etc.) as part of the effort to front-load key details. Simplified menus and colors and no ads help reduce distractions.
Pastrano also wants to respect the community and focus on healthy experiences and not push for rapid growth; users pay a monthly fee of $44.99 after a free 30-day trial, allowing the network to avoid advertisements. Part of the registration process includes two-step verificationboth the user and a trusted person, either a teacher, doctor, or parent needs to input personal details and a photo IDto make sure bad actors outside the community arent given access.
Social Coach, or ‘Seductive Cul-de-sac’
Part of Synchronys strategy is the use of Jesse (named after Pastrano’s son), marketed as an AI-powered social support tool that goes far beyond chat assist technology. By providing real-time conversation support, the chatbot aims to overcome social anxiety and a lack of confidence around socialization. Talking with Jesse online, developers claim, will bolster user self-assurance and communication skills, eventually manifesting in real life.
When Synchrony users get stuck in an online conversation, they can tap an icon to summon Jesse, who will provide editable solutions to advance or end an interaction. The AI coach offers three main options: a tool to help express yourself, that will offer solutions to continuing the conversation; a button that can help parse through the conversation to help better understand what happened, and whether something might have been meant as flirty or friendly; and a final option to protect, and offer suggestions to set boundaries and exit a conversation quietly.
Built using the Amazon Bedrock large language model and trained by Synchrony staff, Jesse is scanning conversations constantly to provide social coaching when asked.
The use of AI among the neurodivergent population has sparked the same debates as the technologys use among the population at large. Research by a team at Stanford found that an AI chatbot they developed called Noora, designed to improve communication skills, can improve empathy among users with autism. Some members of the community have claimed AI coaches have helped them with relationships and transformed their lives. At the same time, some advocacy groups have warned that chatbots emotional manipulation can be more severe for the neurodiverse, and some researhers are concerned AI might reinforce bad communication habits.
British researcher Chris Papadopoulos sums up the state of play in a recent paper, concluding that while the technology holds the potential to democratize companionship left unchecked, AI companions could become a seductive cul-de-sac, capturing autistic people in artificial relationships that stunt their growth or even lead them into harm’s way.
Amid awareness of the sometimes destructive and even deadly consequences of chatbot use, there are significant guardrails built into Jesse, says Moser, including a long list of activities and actions to avoid, like not sharing personal addresses. Jesse is also told not to dispense medical advice. Jesse is not a therapist, and as the founders are clear to note, this isnt a clinical app.
If users start asking Jesse about off-topic concepts, Moser says it will be programmed to reply something to the effect of, Hmm, I don’t know if that’s really going to help you connect with the other members. There will also be warnings if someone is spending too much time just talking with Jesse. Synchrony is launching with human moderation to provide extra safeguards.
Lynn Koegel, a professor and researcher at Stanford University who has studied autism and technology, says her team has spent time updating and changing their models of Noora, to make sure its not too harsh, such as not reinforcing communication attempts or being too strict around grammar issues. She says its very important to do more in-depth studies and clinical research to make sure these tools do work well and as intended (she has not seen or tested Synchrony).
My gut feeling is these tools can be very good support, she says. The jury is out about whether individual programs that havent been tested can be assistive.
As the Synchrony team works out bugs and final design issues before launch, the challenge becomes building a robust enough community to drive more organic growth. Early user testing that started in December, both an alpha test of 14 users, and closed beta tests among university support groups for autistic students, helped them refine the model and layout.
The marketing strategy at launch doesnt focus on the users themselves, but rather neurodiverse employer groups, universities that have neurodiverse programs (who can create their own closed-loop, campus versions of the app), advocates, and relevant podcast hosts.
Success is about awareness and attention, says Pastrano. It’s not a numbers game for me. It’s a really personal game.
If the thought of AI smart glasses annoys you, youre not alone.
This week, the judge presiding over a historic social media addiction trial took a harsh stance on the AI-powered gadgets, which many bystanders find invasive of their privacy: Stop recording or face contempt of court. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand in a trial that many industry watchers say could have severe ramifications for social media giants, depending on how it turns out.
At the heart of the trial is the question of whether social media companies like Meta, via its Facebook and Instagram platforms, purposely designed said platforms to be addictive.
Since the trial began, many Big Tech execs have taken the stand to give testimony, and yesterday it was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergs turn.
But while Zuckerberg was there to talk about his legacy productsFacebook and Instagram, particularlyfor a brief moment, the presiding judge in the case, Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl, turned her attention to a newer Meta product: the companys Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses.
Judge warns AI smart glasses wearers
According to multiple reports, at one point during yesterday’s trial, Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl took a moment to issue a stark warning to anyone wearing AI glasses in the courtroom: stop recording with them and delete the footage, or face contempt.
Many courts generally forbid recording during trials, though there are exceptions. However, while the judge did seem to be worried about recording in general, she also had another concern: the privacy of the jury.
If your glasses are recording, you must take them off, the judge said, per the Los Angeles Times. It is the order of this court that there must be no facial recognition of the jury. If you have done that, you must delete it. This is very serious.
Currently, Metas AI glasses do not include the ability to identify the names of the people a wearer views through them, but thats not likely what the judge meant in her concerns about facial recognition.
Instead, it is likely the judge was concerned that the video recorded by the AI glasses could then be later viewed and run through external facial recognition software to identify the jury in the video.
Some of Metas AI glasses can record video clips up to three minutes long.
From reports, it does not appear as if the judge singled out any specific individuals in the courtroom, but CNBC reports that ahead of Mark Zuckerbergs testimony, members of his team, escorting him into the building, were spotted wearing Meta Ray-Ban artificial intelligence glasses.
As the LA Times reported, the judges admonition was met with silence in the courtroom.
Broader social concerns over AI glasses
The privacy of jurors is critical for fair and impartial trials, as well as their own safety. Given that, its no surprise that the judge did not mince words when warning about AI glasses recording.
But the judges courtroom concerns also mirror many peoples broader concerns over AI glasses: People are worried about wearers of the glasses violating their privacy, either by recording them or using facial recognition to identify them.
This concern first became evident more than a decade ago after Google introduced its now-failed smart glasses called Google Glass. Wearers of the device soon became known as glassholes due to what many bystanders felt was their intrusive nature.
When talking to a person wearing smart glasses, you can never be sure you arent being recordedand that freaks people out.
That apprehension about smart glasses has not gone away in the years since Google Glasss demise. Modern smart glasses are much more capable and concealed. At the same time, everyday consumers are more concerned about their privacy than ever.
These privacy concerns will continue to be a major hurdle to AI smart glasses adoptionespecially as AI smart glasses manufacturers, including Meta, reportedly plan to add facial recognition features in the future.
Meta’s glasses come with an indicator light that glows when the wearer is recording, although the internet is full of explainers on how to disable it.
The judges admonishment of AI glasses wearers in the courtroom yesterday wont help the devices already strained reputation.
Generative AI has rapidly become core infrastructure, embedded across enterprise software, cloud platforms, and internal workflows. But that shift is also forcing a structural rethink of cybersecurity. The same systems driving productivity and growth are emerging as points of vulnerability.
Google Clouds latest AI Threat Tracker report suggests the tech industry has entered a new phase of cyber risk, one in which AI systems themselves are high-value targets. Researchers from Google DeepMind and the Google Threat Intelligence Group have identified a steady rise in model extraction, or distillation, attacks, in which actors repeatedly prompt generative AI systems in an attempt to copy their proprietary capabilities.
In some cases, attackers flood models with carefully designed prompts to force them to reveal how they think and make decisions. Unlike traditional cyberattacks that involve breaching networks, many of these efforts rely on legitimate access, making them harder to detect and shifting cybersecurity toward protecting intellectual property rather than perimeter defenses.
Researchers say model extraction could allow competitors, state actors, or academic groups to replicate valuable AI capabilities without triggering breach alerts. For companies building large language models, the competitive moat now extends to the proprietary logic inside the models themselves.
The report also found that state-backed and financially motivated actors from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are using AI across the attack cycle. Threat groups are deploying generative models to improve malware, research targets, mimic internal communications, and craft more convincing phishing messages. Some are experimenting with AI agents to assist with vulnerability discovery, code review, and multi-step attacks.
John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Threat Intelligence Group, says the implications extend beyond traditional breach scenarios. Foundation models represent billions in projected enterprise value, and distillation attacks could allow adversaries to copy key capabilities without breaking into systems. The result, he argues, is an emerging cyber arms race, with attackers using AI to operate at machine speed while defenders race to deploy AI that can identify and respond to threats in real time.
Hultquist, a former U.S. Army intelligence specialist who helped expose the Russian threat actor known as Sandworm and now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, tells Fast Company how AI has become both a weapon and a target, and what cybersecurity looks like in a machine-versus-machine future.
AI is shifting from being merely a tool used by attackers to a strategic asset worth replicating. What has changed over the past year to make this escalation structurally and qualitatively different from earlier waves of AI-enabled threats?
AI isnt just an enabler for threat actors. Its a new, unique attack surface, and its a target in itself. The biggest movements we will see in the immediate future will be actors adopting AI into their existing routines, but as we adopt AI into the stack, they will develop entirely new routines focused on the new opportunity. AI is also an extremely valuable capability, and we can expect the technology itself to be targeted by states and commercial interests looking to replicate it.
The report highlights a rise in model extraction, or distillation, attacks aimed at proprietary systems. How do these attacks work?
Distillation attacks are when someone bombards a model with prompts to systematically replicate a models capabilities. In Googles case, someone sent Gemini more than 100,000 prompts to probe its reasoning capabilities in an apparent attempt to reverse-engineer its decision-making structure. Think of it like when youre training an analyst, and youre trying to understand how they came to a conclusion. You might ask them a whole series of questions in an effort to reveal their thought process.
Where are state-sponsored and financially motivated threat groups seeing the most immediate operational gains from AI, and how is it changing the speed and sophistication of their day-to-day attack workflows?
We believe adversaries see the value of AI in day-to-day productivity across the full spectrum of their attack operations. Attackers are increasingly using AI platforms for targeting research, reconnaissance, and social engineering. For instance, an attacker who is targeting a particular sector might research an upcoming conference and use AI to interpret and highlight themes and interest areas that can then be integrated into phishing emails for a specific targeted organization. This type of adversarial research would usually take a long time to gather data, translate content, and understand localized context for a particular region or sector. But using AI, an adversary can accomplish hours worth of work in just a few minutes.
Government-backed actors from Iran, North Korea, China, and Russia are integrating AI across the intrusion lifecycle. Where is AI delivering the greatest operational advantage today, and how is it accelerating the timeline from initial compromise to real-world impact?
Generative AI has been used in social engineering for eight years now, and it has gone from making fake photos for profiles to orchestrating complex interactions and deepfaking colleagues. But there are so many other advantages to adversaryspeed, scale, and sophistication. Even a less experienced hacker becomes more effective with tools that help troubleshoot operations, while more advanced actors may gain faster access to zero-day vulnerabilities. With these gains in speed and scale, attackers can operate inside traditional patch cycles and overwhelm human-driven defenses. It is also important not to underestimate the criminal impact of this technology. In many applications, speed is actually a liability to espionage actors who are working very hard to stay low and slow, but it is a major asset for criminals, especially since they expect to alert their victims when they launch ransomware or threaten leaks.
Were beginning to see early experimentation with agentic AI systems capable of planning and executing multi-step campaigns with limited human intervention. How close are we to truly autonomous adversaries operating at scale, and what early signals suggest threat velocity is accelerating?
Threat actors are already using AI to gain scale advantages. We see them using AI to automate reconnaissance operations and social engineering. They are using agentic solutions to scan targets with multiple tools and we have seen some actors reduce the laborious process of developing tailored social engineering. From our own work with tools such as BigSleep, we know that AI agents can be extremely effective at identifying software vulnerabilities and expect adversaries to be exploring similar capabilities.
At a strategic level, are we moving toward a default machine-versus-machine era in cybersecurity? Can defensive AI evolve fast enough to keep pace with offensive capabilities, or has cyber resilience now become inseparable from overall AI strategy?
We are certainly going to lean more on the machines than we ever have, or rik falling behind others that do. In the end, though, security is about risk management, which means human judgment will have to be involved at some level. Im afraid that attackers may have some advantages when it comes to adapting quickly. They wont have the same bureaucracies to manage or have the same risks. If they take a chance on some new technique and it fails, that wont significantly cost them. That will give them greater freedom to experiment. We are going to have to work hard to keep up with them. But if we dont try and dont adopt AI-based solutions ourselves, we will certainly lose. I dont think there is any future for defenders without AI; its simply too impactful to be avoided.
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…
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
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.
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.
