Around 100 labor and climate activists marched to the Beverly Hills home of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Sunday, calling for higher wages, more benefits, and better safety protocols at company warehouses. Leading the protest was the Congress of Essential Workers, a group founded by former Amazon employee Christian Smalls.

More:

• The group met at Will Rogers State Park in Pacific Palisades and marched less than a mile to Bezos’ $165m house, which he purchased from record executive David Geffen earlier this year.
• They held signs, chanted "Tax Bezos," and held a moment of silence for Amazon workers who have died from COVID-19. Smalls appeared at the rally and called on people to cancel their Prime memberships and support a wealth tax of at least 1%. “You don't need Jeff Bezos. He needs us. We made him the richest man in the world," he said.
• Smalls launched the Congress of Essential Workers after he was fired by Amazon in March for organizing protests and a work stoppage at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse due to the pandemic. The group demands a $30 minimum starting wage, free childcare and healthcare, the right to unionize "without fear of retaliation," better sanitation and closures of warehouses with COVID-19 cases, and higher contributions from Amazon to fight the climate crisis.

Prime membership in the U.S. is expected to rise nearly 15% this year to 142.5m, surpassing more than half of the country's adult population for the first time. The forecast comes from eMarketer, which released new stats in its latest Prime Day report.

More:

• The report predicts Prime Day, to be held Oct. 13-14, will generate $9.91b in worldwide sales for Amazon, an increase of 43% from last year. U.S. sales are expected to account for 62.3%, or $6.17b.
• This year's event is the latest Prime Day ever held. It typically occurs in July but was delayed due to the pandemic. There will be less emphasis on summer and back-to-school sales and more early lead-in to the holiday season, according to eMarketer.
• The report predicts that the Echo and Fire TV devices are, once again, likely to be the best-selling devices on Prime Day. The iRobot Roomba, Instant Pot multicooker, and other non-Amazon home appliances are also expected to perform well.
• Prime membership is expected to surpass 150 million members in the U.S. sometime in 2022.

Top Amazon stories in September

With October now upon us, Inside Amazon takes a look at the most interesting headlines from last month:

• Amazon received federal approval to deliver packages by drone, starting with commercial trials. The company envisions using drones to deliver packages in 30 minutes or less within 7.5 miles of its warehouses worldwide. However, Bloomberg reports that routine deliveries are likely years away because of regulatory hurdles.
• A state bill that would hold electronic retail marketplaces liable for defective products will not advance in the California legislature, putting the concept on hold for now. The announcement comes after Etsy, eBay, and others accused Amazon of abusing its market power by supporting the latest version of AB 3262, which would hold them to the same liability rules as brick-and-mortar retailers.
• The FBI is worried that Amazon Ring users could use the service to watch police and even warn them when officers show up to search their homes. This is according to a leaked report spotted by The Intercept, which found that the FBI is concerned that the camera-equipped smart home devices could reveal officer locations in standoffs...

Amazon's “Thursday Night Football” streaming kicks off this Thursday with the Chicago Bears playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Amazon announced several new features for the NFL games, which stream on both Prime Video and Twitch.

More:

• Thursday's game, which kicks off at 8:20 p.m. ET, is the first of Amazon’s 11-week Thursday Night Football package, which will stream in more than 240 countries and territories.
• This year, viewers will have different selections for their commentator crew, including Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer on the main Amazon feed; Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the Fox network; Fox Deportes’ Adrián García Márquez and Rolando Cantú; or the Scout’s Feed with host Joy Taylor and analysts Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah.
• Prime Video’s X-Ray, a stats and video overlay for audio feeds, will now include on-demand replays, instant numbers on completion probability, the running speed of players, and more.
• New NFL content on Twitch includes “The NFL Comment Box” at 11 a.m. PT Mondays and “The NFL Machine” at 3 p.m. PT on Wednesdays.
• “TNF” games are also live-streamed on NFL, FOX and FOX Deportes, team platforms, and Yahoo Sports. The only exception is one game that Amazon will stream exclusively under its multi-year streaming agreement with the NFL. (That exclusive Saturday game is TBA.)
• Last year's average audience was 15.4 million viewers.

Amazon has had 19,816 frontline workers test positive or presumed positive for COVID-19. This figure includes all Amazon and Whole Foods employees but does not include any third-party partners or the independent delivery drivers they employ as contractors. The data comes from analyzing the company's 1,372,000 employees across the U.S. from March 1-Sept. 19. 

More:

• Amazon claims that this number of cases is low. Based on data from John Hopkins University about the spread of the virus amongst the general population, Amazon has 42% fewer cases than expected. 
• Independent research shows there have been at least ten deaths amongst the group infected in Amazon warehouses. 
• Amazon's Q2 2020 revenues were up 40% compared to 2019. This has led Amazon to drastically increase its workforce; hiring 100,000 workers in March, 75,000 in April, and recently announcing plans to hire 100,000 more all in the U.S.  

A version of this story first appeared in Inside Business. You can read the full issue here.

Amazon released a trailer for the upcoming "Borat" sequel, titled "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." The film finds Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat disguising himself to move more freely around America, along with his "daughter."

More:

• The film was largely shot during the pandemic and will deal directly with the spread of coronavirus throughout the U.S. 
• The trailer features a scene in which Cohen interrupts the American Conservative Union's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) during a presentation by Vice President Mike Pence.
• The film will hit Amazon Prime Video on Oct. 23.

A version of this story first appeared in Inside Streaming.

QUICK HITS

• Whole Foods CEO John Mackey revealed that Warren Buffett declined to acquire the company in 2017 because he didn’t feel it would be a good fit. Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7b.
• Similar to Amazon Prime Day, Walmart is conducting a "Big Save" event and Target is conducting its "Deals Day" event this year. The "Big Save Event" will take place Oct. 11-15 and the "Deals Day" event will take place Oct. 13-14. Amazon Prime Day will also take place Oct. 13-14.
• Amazon picked up the action film "Heads of State," starring Idris Elba and John Cena.
• Amazon’s Alexa app can now turn your phone into a secondary in-vehicle display when used with the company’s Echo Auto assistant.
• Amazon announced a live streaming service Explore that lets businesses give a virtual tour of their shop or conduct paid online classes.
• Rihanna's Savage x Fenty lingerie line is now on sale on Amazon.
• See how leading sales teams are solving their challenges of selling remotely.*
• Top executives from Netflix, Calm, T-Mobile, and Okta discuss identity access management. Don’t miss the event. Sign up here.*

*This is sponsored content.

We're hiring! Check out our available positions:

• Business Researcher
• Director of Research
• Growth Marketing Manager
• Sales Representative
• Copy Editor

Tweet of the Day: Amazon will lease 1.1 million square feet of office space in downtown Vancouver, where 6,000 jobs will be housed.