News in brief: Walmart fulfillment center will add jobs | Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Walmart fulfillment center will add jobs

Walmart Inc. said Friday that its new high-tech fulfillment center in Greencastle, Pa., will create more than 1,000 jobs.

The 1.5-million-square-foot facility is the Bentonville-based retailer’s fourth “next-generation” center. A fifth is slated to open in 2026.

These fulfillment centers enable faster shipping and delivery than those that don’t have machine-learning and other advanced technology, the company said.

They also increase Walmart.com’s order-fulfillment capacity. Combined with the rest of Walmart’s fulfillment network, the next-generation centers help the company bring next- or two-day shipping to 95% of the U.S. population.

In addition, the center will process the orders of Walmart’s marketplace sellers who use Walmart Fulfillment Services.

The tech-powered jobs the centers create “will drive the future of Walmart’s continued promise of speedy shipping and delivery for customers on the East Coast,” said Karisa Sprague, senior vice president of fulfillment network operations for Walmart U.S.

The centers will serve customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

— Serenah McKay

Whistleblower killed himself, police say

CHARLESTON, S.C. — A former Boeing manager who raised safety questions about the aircraft maker and was found dead after several days of depositions in South Carolina took his own life, police said Friday after ending their investigation.

John Barnett, 62, of Louisiana was found dead March 9, and police had said earlier that his injuries were self-inflicted.

Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee and worked as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists.

Barnett said he saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wiring and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing’s 787 planes.

“Information and records reviewed during the investigation uncovered Mr. Barnett’s longstanding mental health challenges, which had intensified in connection with ongoing legal proceedings related to his whistleblower case,” police said in a statement.

“We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends,” Boeing said in a statement.

— The Associated Press

State index closes at 911.86, rises 0.84

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed at 911.86, up 0.84 points.

Shares of Murphy USA and Walmart rose 1% to lead the index. J.B. Hunt shares fell 2.8%.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.