A former housekeeper for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos alleges she and other employees were made to work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions – including having to climb out of a laundry room window to access a bathroom.
Mercedes Wedaa is suing Mr Bezos and two companies that allegedly manage his properties in a lawsuit filed in Seattle this week.
She was hired in 2019 for a housekeeping role that required her to “work around a family without being seen”, according to the complaint.
Some of her shifts were as long as 14 hours without breaks, during which time there was “no reasonably accessible bathroom for the housekeepers”, the lawsuit alleges.
When the Bezos family was at home, the housekeepers were only allowed to enter the house to clean, meaning they could not use the laundry door to access a bathroom directly, as it led only to the residence.
Instead, they would sometimes have to climb out of the laundry room window onto a path that led to a mechanical room and downstairs to a bathroom, a situation that was in place for around 18 months, Ms Wedaa claims.
The complaint said that – due to the lack of easily accessible bathrooms – she and other housekeepers spent large parts of their day unable to use the toilet, resulting in frequent urinary tract infections.
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Among Ms Wedaa’s other claims were:
• There was no room for the housekeepers to rest • Housekeepers sometimes ate their meals in a laundry room • The Hispanic employees faced discrimination because of their race • She complained to bosses about undocumented workers being brought in on a contract basis, lack of rest breaks and unsafe working conditions • As a result of her complaints she was demoted, despite never having been disciplined over job performance • She was wrongfully dismissed, told that she appeared “unhappy” and this was having a negative effect on the team
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Ms Wedaa is seeking damages in an amount to be decided at trial.
Mr Bezos’s lawyer Harry Korrell said Ms Wedaa’s claims were absurd, adding that she had filed the lawsuit only after her demand for a $9m (£8m) payout was refused.
He added: “Ms Wedaa made over six figures annually and was the lead housekeeper.
“She was responsible for her own break and meal times, and there were several bathrooms and breakrooms available to her and other staff.
“The evidence will show that Ms Wedaa was terminated for performance reasons.”
Ms Wedaa’s lawyer Patrick McGuigan said his client had “worked hard all her life, she is a very credible person and compelling evidence supports her claims”.
The maker of the popular party game Cards Against Humanity is suing SpaceX for $15m over claims Elon Musk’s company trespassed and damaged a plot of its land.
A lawsuit filed in Texas alleges SpaceX treated a plot of land owned by Cards Against Humanity as essentially its own for at least the past six months.
The company purchased a plot of land in Cameron County in 2017 as part of a stunt to prevent then president Donald Trump from building a border wall in the area between the US and Mexico.
It was purchased after 150,000 subscribers paid $15 to their Cards Against Humanity Saves America campaign.
The lawsuit said Cards Against Humanity – referred to as CAH in legal filings – “acquired the Property for the sole purpose of ensuring that it would stay that way” and added: “SpaceX’s abuse of this Property has not only destroyed its natural condition, but has also caused even greater harm to CAH by virtue of the damage it has caused to CAH’s relationship with its paying supporters.”
In a statement through their Saves America campaign, Cards Against Humanity said SpaceX “f***ed” the land and alleged Mr Musk “figured he could just dump his shit all over our gorgeous plot of land without asking”.
The Chicago-based company then claimed “SpaceX gave us a 12-hour ultimatum to accept a lowball offer for less than half our land’s value” after they noticed the alleged trespass on their land. They said they declined the offer before filing the suit.
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On a website – titled elonowesyou100dollars – the card company said it was seeking $15m in damages and offered the original subscribers to the Save America campaign $100 should they win the claim.
They also referenced a Reuters news agency report into SpaceX’s rapid development in the south Texasareas where it operates, in which some locals criticised the company for unfair and unchecked property and government dealings.
SpaceX started operating in Texas in 2003. In recent months, Mr Musk has stated he would move more of his businesses to the state.
Neither SpaceX nor Mr Musk have commented publicly on the matter. Sky News has contacted SpaceX for comment.
FBI agents have boarded a boat managed by the same company whose cargo ship crashed into a Baltimore bridge and caused it to collapse.
The two companies in charge of the ship “recklessly cut corners” and ignored electrical problems on the vessel before the crash in March, alleged the US Justice Department on Wednesday.
Three days later, FBI agents boarded the Maersk Saltoro, a second ship managed by the same company, although authorities did not offer further details on the operation.
Six construction workers were killed when the Dali ship had a power outage and crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
The Justice Department alleged that mechanical and electrical systems on the massive ship had been improvised and improperly maintained which led to the power outage.
Authorities are seeking to recover more than $100 million the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port, which was only fully reopened in June.
It could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history and the two Singapore-based companies, Synergy Marine Group and Grace Ocean, are trying to limit their legal liability.
The Justice Department said it will vigorously contest that limitation, arguing that vessel owners and operators need to be “deterred from engaging in such reckless and exceedingly harmful behaviour”.
Darrell Wilson, a Grace Ocean spokesperson, confirmed that the FBI and Coast Guard boarded the Maersk Saltoro in the Port of Baltimore on Saturday morning.
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Mr Wilson has previously said the owner and manager “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight” about the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
The Dali, which was stuck amid the wreckage of the collapse for months before it could be extricated, departed Virginia on Thursday afternoon en route to China on its first international voyage since the March 26 disaster.
The style choices of politicians have long been scrutinised by voters and the media.
Women have historically been subject to more inspection for their looks than men.
But all politicians are communicating through their style, according to two experts.
“We receive most of our information, many of us, through screens and through the visuals,” says Hazel Clark, professor of design and fashion at the Parsons School of Design in New York.
Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has been leaning into trouser suits.
“The well-fitted suit, the more masculine suit, is telling voters that she is not a politician’s wife, she is not the president’s wife, she is the president,” says Deirdre Clemente, professor of history at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.
She wore a dark suit to make her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
The look “gives that sense of the legal profession, judges and authority. I think it was just saying ‘I’m here to be taken seriously, I can be your leader’,” says Ms Clark.
Many of the audience were wearing white, thought to be a reference to the suffragettes, who fought for women to have vote.
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“I think there’s a lot of weight in the choice of white in the audience of the DNC that night and her choice of a black suit was a power move,” Ms Clemente said.
Donald Trump has had a consistent style for many years – he’s known for his dark blue suit and silky red tie.
“He seems to have been wearing the same red tie since the 1970s. It seems to have gotten longer,” said Ms Clemente.
“It is his way of projecting power, confidence and stability.”
And his vice presidential pick JD Vance seems to have adapted his style to match.
“It’s putting on a uniform to say we are all one, we are all following this person. I think sameness, perhaps, with the party as well,” said Ms Clark.
“With Trump it’s almost become like a costume now.”
Harris often wears a pearl necklace, a reference to her college sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, which was founded by black women at Howard University.
“Her wearing of the necklace is absolutely a shout-out to all the women who have supported her and that sorority is central to that,” said Ms Clemente.
The vice president is also known for her love of Converse shoes.
The trainers, which are associated with American basketball culture, “are a powerful cultural tool because what she’s saying is these shoes are just like the ones you have in your closet”.
Mr Trump and his supporters often wear the instantly recognisable red Make America Great Again baseball cap.
“The MAGA hat has an incredible amount of power, especially here in battleground states,” said Ms Clemente. “You see MAGA hats all around.”
Baseball caps are “ubiquitous in being used to signify something, it’s like having a slogan on your t-shirt”, says Ms Clark.
One accessory all US politicians are rarely seen without is an American flag pin badge on their lapel, which can be used to show patriotism.
It may also project a message that “we are all fighting for the same team” despite political differences, said Ms Clemente.