A group of more than 20 current and former employees are accusing Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket ship company of being a toxic work environment and not adhering to proper safety protocols.
The workers claim in an essay that there's sexism at the Kent, Washington, company. The employees, led by former head of Blue Origin employee communications Alexandra Abrams, state that “numerous senior leaders have been known to be consistently inappropriate with women." They also claim that many company leaders were “unapproachable" and showed clear bias against women.
There were also safety concerns, with the group stating that Blue Origin seemed more focused on beating billionaires Richard Branson and Elon Musk to space rather than tackling safety issues that would have slowed down the schedule.
Bezos blasted into space on July 21 on the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, a date he selected for its historical significance. Bezos held fast to it, even as Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson pushed up his own flight from New Mexico and beat him to space by nine days.
The group said that last year company leaders seemed impatient with New Shepard rocket's schedule of a few flights per year, instead wanting more than 40. “Some of us felt that with the resources and staff available, leadership’s race to launch at such a breakneck speed was seriously compromising flight safety," they said.
Blue Origin said in a statement that it has no tolerance for any kind of harassment or discrimination and that it stands by its safety record. The company said it believes “New Shepard is the safest space vehicle ever designed or built."
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
