WASHINGTON — Rep. Peter DeFazio is never far from home. His small office at the Rayburn House Office Building is a bona fide southwest Oregon visitor center. Visitors are greeted by posters of college football matchups featuring Oregon schools, photos of the Pacific coast and majestic mountains and a cute little beaver reminiscent of a Gund stuffed animal by the front desk.

While it’s no secret that more and more people are shopping online, less obvious is understanding consumers’ buying habits and patterns — which has great relevance for the trucking industry.

Amazon.com Inc. will acquire Whole Foods Market Inc. for $13.7 billion, a bombshell of a deal that catapults the e-commerce giant into hundreds of physical stores and fulfills a long-held goal of selling more groceries.

The amount of time it took the average truck driver to do business at the two largest North America ports rose six minutes year-over-year in May due to backups at Total Terminals International, according to data from the Harbor Trucking Association.

The Inland Empire led Southern California in construction of logistics and freight-related warehousing real estate, according to a report released from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

As Jacksonville, Fla., faces a monumental decision about how to pay for one of the most expensive public works projects in city history, a retired CSX executive has emerged as an unlikely source of do-it-yourself research calling into question the bedrock assumptions the Jacksonville Port Authority uses to justify deepening the St. Johns River.