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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.

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

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”.

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Pictures show moment Israeli bomb exploded at Beirut apartment block

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Pictures show moment Israeli bomb exploded at Beirut apartment block

New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.

The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.

Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.

A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet prepares to hit a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet prepares to hit a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.

“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.

A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Thick smoke and flames erupt from an Israeli airstrike on Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Pics: AP

Smoke covers a building that collapses following an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP

Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up

Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.

The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.

Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.

The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.

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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.

Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.

Civil defense workers extinguish a fire as smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
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Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP

Residents check the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents check the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.

About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.

Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.

Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.

On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.

The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.

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Elon Musk hints 80-hour-a-week DOGE job for ‘high-IQ revolutionaries’ will be unpaid

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Elon Musk hints 80-hour-a-week DOGE job for 'high-IQ revolutionaries' will be unpaid

“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.

The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.

The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.

“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.

“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.

“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”

Read more:
Who is in Trump’s top team?
Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China

Elon Musk speaks after President-elect Donald Trump spoke during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon

In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.

“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.

“What a great deal!”

When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.

Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.

A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.

Jardines de Villafranca nursing home following the fire.
Pic: AP
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Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP

They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.

Residents are moved out of the nursing home following the fire.
Pic: AP
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Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP

Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.

The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.

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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.

All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.

Relatives waiting for news outside the nursing home where least 10 people have died in a fire in Zaragoza, Spain.
Pic: AP
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Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP

Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.

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