Amazon Expands Drone Deliveries to Multiple U.S. Cities, Intensifying Competition with Wal
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Amazon said its drone deliveries are expanding to the Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, and Atlanta areas, among other metro areas and towns, though it didn’t make clear how many deliveries it expects per day or how large its fleet of drones will be in each location. Almost any item weighing five pounds or less that can fit in a large shoebox is eligible for delivery, Amazon said, with customers ordering through the Amazon app. Delivery is free for Prime members who spend $50 or more. Otherwise, it’s a $2.99 fee. Non-Prime members pay $4.99 per delivery.
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Washington Times BusinessMillions more people may be able to get smaller, lightweight Amazon packages delivered by drones by the end of the year under a plan the company announced Wednesday to expand the airborne shipping to suburban areas in nearly 500 U.S. cities.
New York Post BusinessMillions more people may be able to get smaller, lightweight Amazon packages delivered by drones by the end of the year under a plan the company announced Wednesday to expand the airborne shipping to suburban areas in nearly 500 U.S. cities.
ZeroHedgeAmazon's Prime Air drone delivery service, first teased by Jeff Bezos in a 2013 60 Minutes interview as a way to get packages under 5lbs to customers in 30 minutes or less, represents the broader push toward autonomous aerial last-mile logistics that could bypass traffic and cut delivery times dramatically.
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Amazon is already certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and the company has been awarded waivers to fly drones beyond the line of sight of the pilots. Amazon has invested in safety measures to help drones avoid collisions with anything else in the sky while they are making deliveries.
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FortuneAmazon is already certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and the company has been awarded waivers to fly drones beyond the line of sight of the pilots. Amazon has invested in safety measures to help drones avoid collisions with anything else in the sky while they are making deliveries.
New York Post BusinessThanks for signing up! Amazon is already certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and the company has been awarded waivers to fly drones beyond the line of sight of the pilots. Amazon has invested in safety measures to help drones avoid collisions with anything else in the sky while they are making deliveries.
ZeroHedgeA major breakthrough came in 2024, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Amazon a waiver allowing its drones to fly beyond the visual line of sight of their operators, and has already completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries in 2026 across 11 sites in seven states.
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The plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered.
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Washington Times BusinessThe plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered.
FortuneThe plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered.
ZeroHedgeThe plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times.
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The growing pains didn’t stop there. In the fall of 2025, two Amazon delivery drones collided with a crane in Arizona, causing damage and a fire. This July, one of the company’s drones crashed into a garden while attempting a delivery in Darlington, UK.
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ZeroHedgeIn October 2025, two Amazon drones collided with a crane in Tolleson, Arizona, prompting separate investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA.
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Stripe's snaps up OpenRouter Stripe, the fintech company that once reigned as the world's most valuable startup, has found a way to get some of that AI sparkle. It's paying big bucks to acquire OpenRouter.
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CNBCStripe said Wednesday that it plans to acquire the startup OpenRouter, as the fintech company expands into the artificial intelligence model market.
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Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but The New York Times, citing a person familiar with the matter, said the price tag is about $7.5 billion, with $1.5 billion allocated to OpenRouter's founders. Less than three months ago OpenRouter raised $113 million at a valuation of of about $1.3 billion.
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FortuneStripe did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but the New York Times, citing an anonymous source, put the price tag at $7.5 billion. Three months ago, investors in a funding round valued OpenRouter at just $1.3 billion. Talk about sticker shock.—AO
5 details only one outlet reported
Independent claims that didn't surface elsewhere in our corpus. Treat as supplementary — not corroborated across outlets.
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01 ZeroHedge After years of regulatory hurdles with the FAA, technical iterations, and limited trials, the service has matured into a commercial offering using the MK30 drone, which hovers to drop packages.
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02 New York Post Business The goal is not necessarily about cutting costs by replacing drivers and trucks — and drones that can only carry one package at a time would have a hard time doing that. But instead, these companies are using drones as one tool to help keep customers happy with quicker deliveries, banking on a faster delivery system attracting more shoppers.
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03 Fortune There are also regulatory hurdles to overcome in every community where Amazon wants to set up operations. Noise concerns also pose a potential challenge.
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04 Washington Times Business There are also regulatory hurdles to overcome in every community where Amazon wants to set up operations. Noise concerns also pose a potential challenge.
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05 CNBC Stripe declined to comment. OpenRouter has become popular with developers seeking to use AI models, particularly those considered non-proprietary and available for free. Many of these so-called open-weight AI models stem from Chinese labs like DeepSeek and Z.ai, which have gained steam among developers for generally being more cost-efficient relative to proprietary AI models from U.S. companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.
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