Amazon Archives - Northwest Public Broadcasting

Amazon Drone Deliveries Nearly Ready For Prime Time With Oregon Crashes In Rear-View Mirror

By Tom Banse June 28, 2022

This latest iteration of Amazon's package delivery drones will be used to drop off packages in customers' backyards.

Amazon made news this month by announcing it will start package deliveries by aerial drone to real customers in a northern California town. In the run up to the U.S. debut, the company conducted extensive flight tests in Eastern Oregon, where it experienced a spate of crashes. Amazon said Monday the upcoming rollout of commercial drone delivery signifies the refined Read More

Thousands Of New Jobs Coming To Pasco, But What About Housing?

By Dori Luzzo Gilmour February 15, 2022

The Pasco manufacturing and business sector is growing fast but the housing sector is lagging. According to the organization Local Housing Solutions, Pasco’s comprehensive plan for 2018 thru 2038 found the city will fall thirty-four percent short of projected growth with new home construction. Read More

Santa’s Reindeer To Get Competition: Amazon Flight-Testing Package Delivery Drones In Pendleton

By Tom Banse November 19, 2021

The uncrowded skies at the Pendleton UAS Test Range have attracted Amazon to conduct package delivery drone testing. Amazon gave no details about the prototypes it is test flying there.

E-commerce giant Amazon confirmed to public radio that it has begun flight testing of package delivery drones at a test range in Pendleton, Oregon, as well as continuing near Seattle and elsewhere. Routine delivery of online orders to consumers by aerial drones remains a long ways off, though.Read More

When Will Drone Delivery Be A Thing? Slow To Take Off, But Now Building In Bend

By Tom Banse October 21, 2021

Volansi executives Mike Jackson, left, and Ahmad Ziada at the drone delivery company's nearly one year old Bend, Oregon, manufacturing facility.

With all the news about supply chain problems, you might be wondering how to get your online purchases on time. If only the promised future of aerial delivery by drone could be realized during the upcoming holiday shopping season.Read More

Pentagon Scraps $10 Billion Contract With Microsoft, Bitterly Contested By Amazon

By NPR News July 6, 2021

The Defense Department is scrapping its $10 billion cloud-computing contract with Microsoft, ending the award process that's been mired in a legal battle with Amazon.Read More

Jeff Bezos Built Amazon 27 Years Ago. He Now Steps Down As CEO At Critical Time

By NWPB News July 5, 2021

Jeff Bezos stepped down as Amazon's CEO on Monday, exactly 27 years since he started the e-commerce giant in a garage in West Bellevue, Wash.Read More

Amazon Will Stop Testing Job Seekers For Marijuana And Now Backs Legalizing Weed

By NPR News June 2, 2021

Amazon will no longer test most job applicants for marijuana use in the latest sign of America's changing relationship with pot. Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the U.S., also says it now backs legalizing marijuana nationwide.Read More

Amazon Makes A Deal To Buy MGM For Nearly $8.5 Billion

By NPR News May 26, 2021

Amazon has made a deal to purchase MGM for $8.5 billion. CREDIT: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Amazon has made a deal to buy Hollywood studio MGM for almost $8.5 billion. It's the second-largest acquisition for the company after purchasing Whole Foods.Read More

It’s A No: Hopes For Amazon’s First Unionized Warehouse Go Unfulfilled In Historic Election

By NPR News April 9, 2021

Workers at Amazon's facility in Bessemer, Ala., held a historic vote on whether to form the company's first warehouse union. CREDIT: Bill Barrow/AP

The vast majority of votes cast by Amazon's workers in Bessemer, Ala., were against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in a stinging defeat of the union drive. The final tally showed 1,798 votes against unionizing and 738 votes in favor of the union.Read More

Washington-Based Costco To Raise Minimum Wage To $16 An Hour: ‘This Isn’t Altruism,’ CEO Says

By NPR News February 25, 2021

People wait to shop at the Costco Wholesale in Austin on Feb. 20.

Costco plans to edge up its starting wage to $16 an hour starting next week, CEO W. Craig Jelinek said on Thursday, revealing plans that would propel his company ahead of most of its retail competitors.Read More

Amazon Warehouse Workers To Decide Whether To Form Company’s First U.S. Union

By NPR News January 15, 2021

A man works at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York. The retail giant faces a major labor battle with a unionization vote planned at a similar warehouse in Alabama. CREDIT: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

Some 6,000 workers at Amazon's warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, will begin voting next month on a groundbreaking possibility: whether to form the first union in the company's U.S. history.Read More

FAA Has New Rules For Drones, As Tests For More Package Delivery Move Continue

By NPR News December 29, 2020

The new rules from the Federal Aviation Administration will also require remote identification technology so that the machines can be identifiable from the ground. The FAA said this standard will address security concerns and make drones easier to track.Read More

Amazon, TikTok, Facebook, Others Ordered To Explain What They Do With User Data

By NPR News December 15, 2020

The Federal Trade Commission gave nine social media and tech companies 45 days to hand over details on how they collect user data. It is the latest move by government actors to regulate Big Tech. Read More

After Divorce From Amazon Founder, MacKenzie Scott Donates $1.7B, Including For Native Education

By Tom Banse July 31, 2020

Seattle philanthropist and novelist MacKenzie Scott. CREDIT: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

About a month after her divorce last year, Scott signed a pledge to donate the majority of her fortune in her lifetime. Now, the Seattle author, philanthropist and mother of four is providing a glimpse at how she will give her money away.Read More

House Judiciary Committee Calls On Amazon’s Bezos To Testify

By NPR News May 1, 2020

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos attends a commemoration ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey.

The House Judiciary Committee has threatened to subpoena Amazon founder Jeff Bezos if he does not voluntarily address the company possibly misleading Congress in earlier testimony.Read More

Meet Donna Zakowska, The Designer Who Makes ‘Mrs. Maisel’ Look So Marvelous

By NPR News January 28, 2020

In the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) visits the Catskills. Costume designer Donna Zakowska says this outfit "in the boat with a funny lampshade hat" was among her favorites. CREDIT: Amazon Studios

Donna Zakowska has already won two Emmys for her work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — and two of her costumes are in the Smithsonian. Now she's up for an award from the Costume Designers Guild.Read More

Two Washington Tech Giants Do Battle In ‘The Other Washington’ Over Pentagon Contract

By NPR News November 15, 2019

Amazon is alleging "unmistakable bias" on the government's part in awarding a massive military tech contract to rival Microsoft.This begins a new chapter in the protracted and contentious battle over the biggest cloud-computing contract in U.S. history — called JEDI, for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure — worth up to $10 billion over 10 years.Read More

Battle Of Washington State Tech Giants: Pentagon Awards $10B Contract To Microsoft Over Amazon

By NPR News October 26, 2019

In a new book, "Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis," Guy Snodgrass, a retired Navy commander who worked closely with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, writes that Trump called and directed Mattis to "screw Amazon" by locking it out of a chance to bid for the JEDI contract.Read More