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Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $950 Finance with $150 Down and 9 Payments of $115 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $4,100 Finance with $350 Down and 36 Payments of $130 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

ET	AWAY		HOME	VIDEO
11:30 AM	SOUTHERN ILLINOIS	at	MISSOURI STATE	ESPN+ ($)
12:00 PM	RHODE ISLAND	at	DAYTON	ESPN+ ($)
12:00 PM	STONEHILL	at	MERRIMACK	NEC FRONT ROW
12:00 PM	YOUNGSTOWN STATE	at	MILWAUKEE	ESPN+ ($)
12:00 PM	FORDHAM	at	St. BONAVENTURE	ESPN+ ($)
1:00 PM	NIAGARA	at	CANISIUS	ESPN+ ($)
1:00 PM	LIPSCOMB	at	KENNESAW STATE	ESPN+ ($)
1:00 PM	VCU	at	RICHMOND	ESPN+ ($)
1:00 PM	ARKANSAS PINE BLUFF	at	TEXAS SOUTHERN	Youtube / @TSUathletics
2:00 PM	A&M - CORPUS CHRISTI	at	SOUTHEASTERN	ESPN+ ($)
2:00 PM	TULANE	at	CHARLOTTE	ESPN+ ($)
2:00 PM	NOTRE DAME	at	LOUISVILLE	ACCNX
2:00 PM	SIU EDWARDSVILLE	at	MOREHEAD STATE	ESPN+ ($)
2:00 PM	STONY BROOK	at	NORTHEASTERN	FLOBaseball ($)
2:00 PM	MARIST	at	UMASS - LOWELL	AMERICA EAST TV
2:30 PM	OKLAHOMA	at	CINCINNATI	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	FRESNO STATE	at	AIR FORCE	MTN WEST NETWORK
3:00 PM	QUEENS	at	BELLARMINE	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	TOLEDO	at	BOWLING GREEN	ESPN+ ($) / BCSN
3:00 PM	UCONN	at	BUTLER	FLOBaseball ($)
3:00 PM	DELAWARE STATE	at	CCSU	NEC FRONT ROW
3:00 PM	WESTERN MICHIGAN	at	CENTRAL MICHIGAN	Chippewas All-Access ($)
3:00 PM	QUINNIPIAC	at	FAIRFIELD	Stags All Access
3:00 PM	DAVIDSON	at	GEORGE MASON	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	ALBANY	at	MAINE	AMERICA EAST TV
3:00 PM	RIDER	at	MANHATTAN	Jaspers All Access
3:00 PM	DALLAS BAPTIST	at	MIDDLE TENNESSEE	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	SOUTHERN ILLINOIS	at	MISSOURI STATE	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	LAMAR	at	NEW ORLEANS	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	LE MOYNE	at	NORFOLK STATE	NSU Showcase ($)
3:00 PM	STEPHEN F. AUSTIN	at	NORTHWESTERN STATE	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	GEORGE WASHINGTON	at	SAINT JOSEPH'S	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	MOUNT ST. MARY'S	at	SAINT PETER'S	Peacocks All Access
3:00 PM	NORTH CAROLINA A&T	at	TOWSON	FLOBaseball ($)
3:00 PM	SAINT LOUIS	at	UMASS	ESPN+ ($)
3:00 PM	FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON	at	WAGNER	NEC FRONT ROW
3:00 PM	VILLANOVA	at	XAVIER	FLOBaseball ($)
3:30 PM	RHODE ISLAND	at	DAYTON	ESPN+ ($)
4:00 PM	EAST TENNESSEE STATE	at	MIAMI OH	Chatterbox Sports ($)
4:00 PM	EASTERN MICHIGAN	at	NORTHERN ILLINOIS	NIU All-Access ($)
4:00 PM	MINNESOTA	at	NORTHWESTERN	B1G+
4:00 PM	AKRON	at	OHIO	Youtube / @OhioBobcatTV
4:00 PM	ALCORN STATE	at	PRAIRIE VIEW A&M	Youtube / @Panther Athletics
4:00 PM	UNC ASHEVILLE	at	PRESBYTERIAN	ESPN+ ($)
4:00 PM	ORAL ROBERTS	at	SAINT THOMAS	MIDCO Sports Plus / SLN ($)
4:00 PM	OMAHA	at	SOUTH DAKOTA STATE	MIDCO Sports Plus / SLN ($)
4:00 PM	UT MARTIN	at	SOUTHEAST MISSOURI	ESPN+ ($)
4:00 PM	LITTLE ROCK	at	TENNESSEE TECH	ESPN+ ($)
4:00 PM	INDIANA STATE	at	VALPARAISO	ESPN+ ($)
4:00 PM	NEW MEXICO STATE	at	WESTERN KENTUCKY	🔈 Audio Only
4:00 PM	CHARLESTON SOUTHERN	at	WINTHROP	ESPN+ ($)
4:45 PM	LIPSCOMB	at	KENNESAW STATE	ESPN+ ($)
5:00 PM	WOFFORD	at	SAMFORD	ESPN+ ($)
5:00 PM	MISSISSIPPI VALLEY	at	FLORIDA A&M	FAMU All-Access ($)
5:00 PM	MICHIGAN	at	INDIANA	📺 BIG TEN NETWORK
5:00 PM	MARIST	at	UMASS - LOWELL	AMERICA EAST TV
5:30 PM	SIU EDWARDSVILLE	at	MOREHEAD STATE	ESPN+ ($)
5:30 PM	A&M - CORPUS CHRISTI	at	SOUTHEASTERN	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	GEORGIA SOUTHERN	at	APP STATE	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	WILLIAM & MARY	at	CAMPBELL	FLOBaseball ($)
6:00 PM	TULANE	at	CHARLOTTE	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	OKLAHOMA	at	CINCINNATI	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	BOSTON COLLEGE	at	CLEMSON	ACCNX
6:00 PM	RICE	at	EAST CAROLINA	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	JACKSONVILLE	at	EASTERN KENTUCKY	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	CHARLESTON	at	ELON	FLOBaseball ($)
6:00 PM	HIGH POINT	at	GARDNER-WEBB	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	FLORIDA	at	GEORGIA	SECN+
6:00 PM	OLD DOMINION	at	GEORGIA STATE	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	BELMONT	at	ILLINOIS STATE	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	BALL STATE	at	KENT STATE	Boxcast
6:00 PM	LOUISIANA TECH	at	LIBERTY	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	EASTERN ILLINOIS	at	LINDENWOOD	Lions Video
6:00 PM	NOTRE DAME	at	LOUISVILLE	ACCNX
6:00 PM	COASTAL CAROLINA	at	MARSHALL	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	PENN STATE	at	MARYLAND	B1G+
6:00 PM	THE CITADEL	at	MERCER	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	NEBRASKA	at	MICHIGAN STATE	B1G+
6:00 PM	BINGHAMTON	at	NJIT	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	FLORIDA GULF COAST	at	NORTH FLORIDA	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	LONGWOOD	at	RADFORD	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	OHIO STATE	at	RUTGERS	B1G+
6:00 PM	GEORGETOWN	at	SAINT JOHN'S	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	BRYANT	at	UMBC	AMERICA EAST TV
6:00 PM	USC UPSTATE	at	UNC GREENSBORO	ESPN+ ($)
6:00 PM	VIRGINIA TECH	at	VIRGINIA	ACCNX
6:00 PM	WESTERN CAROLINA	at	VIRGINIA MILITARY	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	DALLAS BAPTIST	at	MIDDLE TENNESSEE	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	LAMAR	at	NEW ORLEANS	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	UNC WILMINGTON	at	DELAWARE	FLOBaseball ($)
6:30 PM	UTSA	at	FLORIDA ATLANTIC	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	VANDERBILT	at	KENTUCKY	SECN+
6:30 PM	UAB	at	SOUTH FLORIDA	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	CENTRAL ARKANSAS	at	STETSON	ESPN+ ($)
6:30 PM	SOUTH CAROLINA	at	TENNESSEE	SECN+
7:00 PM	SEATTLE U	at	ABILENE CHRISTIAN	WAC International
7:00 PM	ALABAMA	at	AUBURN	SECN+
7:00 PM	NORTH ALABAMA	at	AUSTIN PEAY	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	ALABAMA STATE	at	BETHUNE-COOKMAN	YouTube / @CatEyeNetwork
7:00 PM	MURRAY STATE	at	BRADLEY	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	SETON HALL	at	CREIGHTON	📺 Fox Sports 1
7:00 PM	NORTH CAROLINA	at	DUKE	📺 ACC NETWORK
7:00 PM	ILLINOIS CHICAGO	at	EVANSVILLE	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	GEORGIA TECH	at	FLORIDA STATE	ACCNX
7:00 PM	BRIGHAM YOUNG	at	KANSAS STATE	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	SOUTH ALABAMA	at	LOUISIANA	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	ARKANSAS STATE	at	LOUISIANA MONROE	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	OLE MISS	at	LSU	📺 SEC NETWORK
7:00 PM	WICHITA STATE	at	MEMPHIS	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	PITTSBURGH	at	MIAMI	ACCNX
7:00 PM	MISSOURI	at	MISSISSIPPI STATE	SECN+
7:00 PM	WAKE FOREST	at	NC STATE	ACCNX
7:00 PM	AKRON	at	OHIO	Youtube / @OhioBobcatTV
7:00 PM	GRAMBLING STATE	at	SOUTHERN	Jaguar Sports Network ($)
7:00 PM	WESTERN ILLINOIS	at	SOUTHERN INDIANA	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	TEXAS STATE	at	SOUTHERN MISS	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	WEST VIRGINIA	at	TCU	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	JAMES MADISON	at	TROY	ESPN+ ($)
7:00 PM	NEW MEXICO STATE	at	WESTERN KENTUCKY	🔈 Audio Only
7:30 PM	UCF	at	BAYLOR	ESPN+ ($)
7:30 PM	OKLAHOMA STATE	at	HOUSTON	ESPN+ ($)
7:30 PM	FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL	at	IOWA	B1G+
7:30 PM	McNEESE STATE	at	NICHOLLS STATE	ESPN+ ($)
7:30 PM	NORTHERN COLORADO	at	NORTH DAKOTA STATE	MIDCO Sports Plus / SLN ($)
7:30 PM	JAX STATE	at	SAM HOUSTON STATE	🔈 Audio Only
7:30 PM	KANSAS	at	TEXAS	📺 LONGHORN NETWORK
7:30 PM	SACRAMENTO STATE	at	UTRGV	ESPN+ ($)
7:30 PM	CHARLESTON SOUTHERN	at	WINTHROP	ESPN+ ($)
8:00 PM	ARKANSAS	at	TEXAS A&M	📺 ESPN2
8:00 PM	CAL BAPTIST	at	UTAH TECH	WAC International
8:00 PM	GRAND CANYON	at	UTAH VALLEY	ESPN+ ($)
8:00 PM	ILLINOIS	at	PURDUE	📺 BIG TEN NETWORK
9:00 PM	OREGON STATE	at	ARIZONA	📺 PAC-12 ARIZONA
9:00 PM	PEPPERDINE	at	GONZAGA	ESPN+ ($)
9:00 PM	SAN FRANCISCO	at	LOYOLA MARYMOUNT	ESPN+ ($)
9:00 PM	SAN DIEGO STATE	at	NEVADA	MTN WEST NETWORK
9:00 PM	WASHINGTON STATE	at	OREGON	📺 PAC-12 OREGON
9:00 PM	SANTA CLARA	at	PACIFIC	ESPN+ ($)
9:00 PM	SAINT MARY'S	at	PORTLAND	ESPN+ ($)
9:00 PM	NEW MEXICO	at	SAN JOSE STATE	MTN WEST NETWORK
9:30 PM	TEXAS TECH	at	ARIZONA STATE	📺 PAC-12 ARIZONA
9:30 PM	UTAH	at	USC	PAC-12 PLUS (USC)
10:00 PM	WASHINGTON	at	CALIFORNIA	📺 PAC-12 NETWORKS
10:00 PM	STANFORD	at	UCLA	📺 PAC-12 LOS ANGELES

*= time changed

• Bad weather in the forecast can & does mean DHs & changes. Double Check Times.

Current cards: (list cards, limits, opening date) None FICO Score: e.g. 715 Oldest account age: 20 years(?) Chase 5/24 status: Probably can't use Chase cards Income: $50,000 Average monthly spend and categories: dining $400 groceries: $0 gas: $100 travel: $100 other: $250 Open to Business Cards: e.g. No
Looking for general spending card. Young adult with no previous credit card but a year ago I checked the credit bureau reports for the first time and it looks like they gave me my mom's perfect credit history starting from the 90's, is this to be trusted? Due to my dad's name being linked to my Chase checking account when I was a kid (financial crimes), I am banned from Chase (lol) so I probably can't use any Chase cards.
I am on EBT so groceries $0, only really spend money on dining out, bills, and material goods.
Even if I do not use ubeuber eats, would the SavorOne still be one of the better choices for me with no AF and a good SUP, along with 3% on restaurants/streaming, etc?

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $38,500 Finance with $2500 Down and 120 Payments of $380 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

why do customers come into the store and use the mashgin and be like "ouuughhh they're gonna be coming for your job next". i make $10.50 an hour i'd be making more from unemployment checks they can take my fucking job. like what do they want me to say to that. "oh noooo theyre gonna take away my minimum wage job :( :( :(" ALSO why do some people REFUSE to use the mashgin. at my store we're only supposed to use the "normal" register for EBT/food stamp and lottery purchases but some (usually older, around 65+) customers absolutely REFUSE to use the mashgin which leads to me either having to tell them to leave or getting written up for using the traditional register for a purchase i shouldn't use it for. idk. this is my first job outside of fast food and i definitely enjoy it more than my previous jobs but the customer base can definitely be a little frustrating and i don't have anyone i can vent to about this so i'll just scream at the circle k subreddit.

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $1,150 Finance with $200 Down and 12 Payments of $100 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $1,175 Finance with $200 Down and 12 Payments of $105 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

Debit/Credit Cards Accepted No Closing Costs Cash Price: $1,300 Finance with $200 Down and 12 Payments of $120 Per Month No Credit Check, No Income Documentation, No Prepayment Penalty 

The Container with the weekly DevOps openings just got deployed, check them out below: ⁣ - Lead Software Engineer - FileNet/BAW Computershare 🔥⁣ [📍 New York, New York] [💰 79,800 - 119,700 USD] [💼 Lead] [🕒 Full-Time] ⁣ https://devitjobs.com/jobs/Computershare-Lead-Software-Engineer---FileNetBAW/rdgw ⁣ ⁣ - Sr. Specialist Network Engineer Nestlé IT 🔥⁣ [📍 Phoenix, Arizona] [💰 93,000 - 127,000 USD] [💼 Senior] [🕒 Full-Time] ⁣ https://devitjobs.com/jobs/Nestl-IT-Sr-Specialist-Network-Engineerdgw ⁣ ⁣ - Senior Software Engineer, Backend VORTO 🔥⁣ [📍 Denver, Colorado] [💰 100,000 - 200,000 USD] [💼 Senior] [🕒 Full-Time] ⁣ https://devitjobs.com/jobs/VORTO-Senior-Software-Engineer-Backend/rdgw ⁣ ⁣ - Senior Azure DevOps Engineer Navy Federal Credit Union 🔥⁣ [📍 Richmond, Virginia] [💰 97,500 - 173,675 USD] [💼 Senior] [🕒 Full-Time] ⁣ https://devitjobs.com/jobs/Navy-Federal-Credit-Union-Senior-Azure-DevOps-Engineerdgw ⁣ ⁣ - DevOps Engineer on W2 CA-One Tech Cloud Inc 🔥⁣ [📍 Bentonville, Arkansas] [💰 75,000 - 80,000 USD] [💼 Regular] [🕒 Full-Time] ⁣ https://devitjobs.com/jobs/CA-One-Tech-Cloud-Inc-DevOps-Engineer-on-W2/rdgw ⁣

Today the White House announced tariffs on certain products imported from China, including steel and aluminum products, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries and battery components, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, syringes and needles, and certain personal protective equipment (or PPE). According to the White House, these higher tariffs are designed “to protect American workers and businesses from China’s unfair trade practices.” Tariffs are essentially taxes on imported goods, and altogether the tariff hikes cover about $18 billion in imported goods.
In 2018, Trump abruptly ended the economic era based on the idea that free trade benefited the global economy by putting tariffs of 25% on a wide range of foreign made goods. This was a cap to a set of ideas that had been sputtering for a while as industries moved to countries with cheaper labor, feeding the popular discontent Trump tapped into. Trump claimed that other countries would pay his tariffs, but tariffs are actually paid by Americans, not foreign countries, and his have cost Americans more than $230 billion. Half of that has come in under the Biden administration.
Trump’s tariffs also actually cost jobs, but they were very popular politically. A January 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by David Autor, Anne Beck, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson established that the trade war of 2018–2019 hurt the U.S. heartland but actually helped Trump’s reelection campaign. “Residents of regions more exposed to import tariffs became less likely to identify as Democrats, more likely to vote to reelect Donald Trump in 2020, and more likely to elect Republicans to Congress,” they discovered.
Now Trump is saying, that if elected, he will impose a 10% tariff on everything imported into the United States, with a 60% tariff on anything from China and a 100% tariff on any cars made outside the U.S.
In contrast, the administration’s new tariffs are aimed only at China, and only at industries already growing in the U.S., especially semiconductors. Tariffs will rise to 50% on semiconductors and solar cells, 100% on electric vehicles, and 25% on batteries, a hike that will help the Big Three automakers who agreed to union demands in newly opened battery factories, as well as their United Auto Workers workforce. “I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles be made in America by union workers. Period,” Biden said.
The administration says the tariffs are a response to China’s unfair trade practices, and such tariffs are popular in the manufacturing belt of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Democratic senators from that region have asked Biden to maintain or increase tariffs on Chinese imports after “[g]enerations of free trade agreements that prioritize multinational corporations have devasted our communities, harmed our economy, and crippled our job market.”
In other economic news, a new rule capping credit card late fees at $8, about a quarter of what they are now, was supposed to go into effect today, but on Friday a federal judge in Texas blocked the rule. The new cap was set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the brainchild of Massachusetts Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, and was part of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association sued to stop the rule from taking effect, and U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed by Trump, issued a preliminary injunction against it. His reasoning draws from an argument advanced by the far-right Fifth Circuit, which oversees Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, arguing that the CFPB itself is unconstitutional because of its funding structure. "Consequently, any regulations promulgated under that regime are likely unconstitutional as well," Pittman wrote.
On Friday, major airlines, including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, and Alaska Airlines—but not Southwest Airlines—sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over its new rule that requires the airlines disclose their fees, such as for checking bags, upfront to consumers. The department says consumers are overpaying by $543 million a year in unexpected fees.
The airlines say that the rule will confuse consumers and that its “attempt to regulate private business operations in a thriving marketplace is beyond its authority.”
The other big story of the day is the continuing attempt of the MAGA Republicans to overturn our democratic system.
This morning, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), second in line for the presidency and sworn to uphold the Constitution, left his post in Washington, D.C., to appear with former president Trump at his trial for falsifying business records to deceive voters before the 2016 election. The House was due to consider the final passage of the crucially important Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act, but Johnson chose instead to show up to do the work the judge’s gag order means Trump cannot do himself, attacking key witness Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer. Johnson described Cohen as “clearly on a mission for personal revenge” and, citing his “history of perjury,” said that “[n]o one should believe a word he says in there.”
“I do have a lot of surrogates,” Trump boasted this morning, “and they are speaking very beautifully.” Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who was also at the trial this morning, later said on Newsmax that they had indeed gone to “overcome this gag order.”
Johnson went on to call the trial “corrupt” and say “this ridiculous prosecution…is not about justice. It’s all about politics.” He left without taking questions. Meg Kinnard of the Associated Press called out the moment as “a remarkable moment in modern American politics: The House speaker turning his Republican Party against the federal and state legal systems that are foundational to the U.S. government and a cornerstone of democracy.”
Peter Eisler, Ned Parker, and Joseph Tanfani of Reuters explained today how those attacks on our judiciary are sparking widespread calls for violence against judges, with social media posters in echo chambers goading each other into ever more extreme statements. According to her lawyer, Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, wore a bullet-proof vest as she came and went from court, an uncanny echo of the precautions necessary in mob trials.
In a different attack on our constitutional system, House Republicans are trying to replace the administration’s foreign policy with their own. Over the weekend, they introduced a bill to force President Biden to send offensive weapons to Israel for its invasion of Rafah, overruling the administration’s decision to withhold a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his government would invade Rafah despite strong opposition from the Biden administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “We strongly, strongly oppose attempts to constrain the president’s ability to deploy a U.S. security assistance consistent with U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives.”
The Constitution establishes that the executive branch manages foreign affairs, and until 2015 it was an established practice that politics stopped at the water’s edge, meaning that Congress quarreled with the administration at home but the two presented a united front in foreign affairs. That practice ended in March 2015, when 47 Republican senators, led by freshman Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, wrote a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that they would not honor any agreement Iran reached with the Obama administration over its development of nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration did end up negotiating the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran and several world powers, under which Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear development and allow inspections in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. In 2018 the extremist Republicans got their way when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, largely collapsing it, after which Iran resumed its expansion of the nuclear enrichment program it had stopped under the agreement.
Now extremists in the House are trying to run foreign policy on their own. The costs of that usurpation of power are clear in Niger, formerly a key U.S. ally in the counterterrorism effort in West Africa. The new prime minister of Niger, Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine, whose party took power after a coup d’état threw out Niger’s democratically elected president, defended his country’s turn away from the U.S. and toward Russia in an interview with Rachel Chason of the Washington Post. Recalling the House’s six month delay in passing the national security supplemental bill, he said: “We have seen what the United States will do to defend its allies, because we have seen Ukraine and Israel.”
—
Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/13/white-house-opposes-house-bill-force-israeli-arm-shipments-00157691
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/nyregion/mike-johnson-trump-trial.html
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-speaker-mike-johnson-court-09aef3de395fa77843f2600f40da6ac3
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/10/8182063/tom-cottons-controversial-letter-to-iran-explained
https://www.cfr.org/backgroundewhat-iran-nuclear-deal
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12106
https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zgpokqdxlpd/05102024creditcard.pdf
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/08/30/under-trump-5th-circuit-becoming-even-more-conservative/
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-blocks-rule-capping-credit-card-late-fees-8-2024-05-10/
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/major-airlines-sue-biden-administration-over-fee-disclosure-rule-2024-05-13/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/14/speaker-mike-johnson-house-trump-trial
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/18/politics/donald-trump-tariffs-trade-waindex.html
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/biden-sharply-hikes-us-tariffs-billions-chinese-chips-cars-2024-05-14/
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32082/w32082.pdf
https://www.brown.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05012024section301tariffsletter.pdf
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/14/politics/new-china-tariffs-biden-trump/index.html
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/14/1251096758/biden-china-tariffs-ev-electric-vehicles-5-things
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/05/14/memorandum-on-actions-by-the-united-states-related-to-the-statutory-4-year-review-of-the-section-301-investigation-of-chinas-acts-policies-and-practices-related-to-technology-transfer-intellectua/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/14/us-threats-led-rupture-vital-military-ties-nigerien-official-says/
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/cutting-the-spigot
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats-courts/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/13/politics/video/stormy-daniels-bulletproof-vest-clark-brewster-trump-hush-money-trial-ac360-digvid
https://www.automotivedive.com/news/united-auto-workers-electric-vehicle-plant-joint-venture/704275/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2024/05/14/volvo-polestar-tesla-detroit-take-biggest-hit-from-china-ev-tariffs/
Twitter (X):
atrupastatus/1790485101966487881
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-14-2024

Hi All,
Over a year ago a friend (whom I've worked with for several years) and I partnered with a company to build a small agency. They own several restaurants among other ventures that they felt we could assist with (we do digital marketing). We brought over our clients. The agreement for myself was a base salary of $85k/yr and 5% ownership of said agency. Pay schedule was weekly. I have paystubs and W2 to prove this but nothing on paper stating salary. The base salary was paid from the umbrella company, not our specific agency we were creating.
All was fine up until about 6-7 months ago when we were told our Direct Deposits had to be paused and manual checks were to be given as they were having some "issues". Started getting checks every 2 weeks (sometimes mine would come every 3 weeks.
Fast forward to about 3 months ago, I went to check into a hotel and my debit card was denied. I checked my bank account and found I was negative around $1.5k due to my last check bouncing. Was told they were having some issues with money due to a loan not being paid back and that things should be back to normal within a couple of weeks.
The last payment I received was via wire on February 29th because my bank stopped taking any checks from me (I bounced 3 or so of them and was brought negative several times because of all of this). About 3 weeks ago, their main bread winner (a restaurant in downtown) had their doors locked, due to not paying rent, we received an email stating that all salaried employees payroll was basically stopping until they received this financing that is now apparently coming from "Mexico" - It all seems like a crock of BS at this point. But he's basically stopped paying salaried employees, I imagine, to keep the doors open on these other couple restaurants.
I've never been in a situation like this, so am unsure of what to do really. We've still never been laid off. He just keeps saying it's coming. As a salaried employee, it's my understanding we're owed money up until we're laid off or this ship sinks? At this point I'm owed over $14k and my lease is up in the middle of June. To top it off, I've basically ran through everything I have, minus a CD that I'd really prefer not to touch. Obviously getting a lawyer involved is the right move, but do I also go to the Department of Labor? The company is based in Dallas, however I've been living in Arkansas for about 8 months (this was all approved and agreed upon prior to joining with this company) but will be returning back to DFW after this lease.
Thanks for any guidance.

Previous
​
So, if you’re just joining us, I work at a haunted zoo now. Since I’ve gotten some rest, it feels like I’ve got my head on straight, at least, so I’d like to continue where I left off.
I sat on the floor in the office after meeting the ghost until I’d settled my rattled mind (and realized I’d forgotten to ask her name, how rude is that?). I took a deep breath and got up off the floor. Walking over and falling into the rolling chair in front of the large screen of camera views, when I brought up the camera that covered the area in which I’d spotted her, she was still there, and it seemed she hadn’t moved an inch.
Sitting there, at a loss, I continued to watch her. The ghost hung around for another five minutes or so, appearing to look at a few things off-screen, though I’m not sure what. Then she walked off into the forest and left the view of the cameras. I wasn’t sure if she vanished into the ether or if she’d gone looking into the trees to look for something.
But that wasn’t the end of the job interview, so let me jump back there. It continued into what kind of animals the zoo had, with Andrew asking me how much experience I had with dangerous animals.
I took a moment to consider the question. “So, ah…I’ve been going hunting and fishing with a neighbor since I was sixteen,” I told him. “We always have to keep an eye out for gators, bears, and hogs. Then there’s snakes, of course…snapping turtles… Since I’ve lived here my whole life and been aiming for a job with wildlife for a long time, I know a lot about the animals in Arkansas in general. But good advice for all of the above is avoid them, so I’ve had encounters, but I don’t know if you’d say I have experience with them.”
“That’s fine,” Andrew said, nodding. “That’s an answer I’m satisfied with. Now, the ghost was the appetizer, Ripley; here’s the main course. To start with, the pay isn’t twenty-five an hour. It’s fifty.”
Staring in shock for a moment, I asked, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. But that’d be weird to post online considering what applicants think we need, so I halved it.”
“That’s… Okay, why?”
“The animals are already here. You just can’t see them.”
I stared at him for a long moment, some disbelief worming its way into my expression, before saying, “Sorry, what?”
“There’s a chance you’d naturally never see them, or at least some of them,” he continued casually. “It depends on both your genetics and how long you stay on the job. I can naturally see six of them, but that’s it. Suzanne can see all of them, and more. Some are what people would label demons or ghosts. Or magic. Mostly you’d call them cryptids. The ghost was just a warm-up; I mentioned her first because it never takes more than a week to see her if you work the night shift. If you manage to handle her okay, soon you’ll be able to see the animals too. The more time you spend on the grounds, for weird reasons,” he said, wiggling his fingers in the direction of the back door, “the more you’ll be able to see.”
“So, this…this is a zoo for cryptids,” I echoed slowly. He nodded once, waiting to find out what kind of reaction I would have. I gestured vaguely around the room. “If this is a hidden camera show, will you cut me a check for showing up and participating?”
Andrew coughed out a chuckle and shook his head. “No joke. There are a ton of stories out there that have been written to death, pulverized until they’re not the Grimm stories of old and instead they’re Disney films. A lot of those stories come from what some humans have seen. There are dozens of other worlds pressed up against ours, and occasionally things come through by accident. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low and then make their way back when they can. If not, they become local folklore until someone helps them back. I’m just from London, but Suzanne is from somewhere else. She hires people like us for this zoo. Humans.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Why would she hire a muggle for a magic zoo?”
Andrew burst out laughing at that, and then waited to gather himself before he continued. “Fair point, but this is less about magic and more about animals, and you’re missing some information that will explain it. First of all, if I misjudge an employee, and they think they can make bank by outing the endangered and valuable animals we have, it’s easy to relocate the zoo.”
“Because magic?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he replied, ignoring the thread of skepticism in my tone. “That means it isn’t the end of the world if that happened, though it is a pain in the arse. But second…let me ask you a question. Speaking of reality shows, say the Discovery Channel put out a call to replace Steve Irwin when he passed. Imagine they had a line out the door,” he said with a gesture, “of people who thought they had the skill and natural talent to replace him, to take on everything he’d been doing his whole life. How many do you reckon would lose an arm, a leg, or their life, by the end of the day?”
My lips parted in surprise and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re saying people from…wherever…they’re just as dumb as humans, but they’re worse, because they actually think they can handle these things.”
Andrew pointed the pen at me. “Things. Exactly. You called them things. Suzanne and her friends grew up with them and would call them animals. These animals have dispositions and temperaments that we’ve studied for as long as there have been scientists. Where Suzanne’s from, they know the weaknesses of these animals, and also they’re in enclosures here, even if you and I can’t see the walls because they’re invisible things called ‘wards’. If I hire someone who’s got magic on top of all that, they’ll have almost no instinctive fear.
“Everything here is nocturnal, and every one of them is a hunter. Some of these things? Humans see them and they pass out. Not that I want you passing out, but I need someone who is scared of these things, who knows to stay out of the enclosures no matter what. Not someone who thinks they can train them to do tricks, who gets close enough for them to grab a mouthful of hair and drown them. Once, we had a night shift manager injured, and once killed, because they didn’t take these animals seriously enough.”
Thinking back to the Sea World orca incident I knew he’d been referencing, I remembered wondering how someone at that level of her profession could be so careless as I watched the video on YouTube. It made sense when he explained it like that. I hesitated before mentally throwing my hands up and going all in. “So, why put this place here, then? If they’re endangered and also dangerous, why have a zoo at all instead of just a small reserve?”
He pursed his lips, looking disappointed in me. “Ripley. You know that already. You already said as much.”
Thinking back through our conversation, I said, “The rich humans who pay top dollar to see supernatural animals.”
“Not humans,” he told me. “But people, yes, and they are rich, and they’re making donations and spending their money on a ticket here because everything we have is endangered.”
“So…”
I just let my voice trail off and my mind started to drift. Andrew remained silent, letting me do so. There’s that thing people say, ‘I believe that you believe it,’ which is just a kinder way of saying, ‘Bullshit.’ Parents say it about closet monsters. Psychologists say it to people who say they’ve been abducted and probed by aliens. I wanted to say it to Andrew.
But I also wanted a job. If it meant working overnight at an empty zoo, that was fine. When it came down to it, especially when I took the tone of our conversation into account, this was a zoo specifically focused on preserving endangered ‘animals’, and it was allegedly doing important work. Also, if this turned out to be the real deal and I started seeing the animals, I would deal with it, just like I would deal with an enclosure that had a lion or tiger or gorilla. If it came with a ghost and invisible creatures, I really didn’t see what the difference was, if I couldn’t go in the enclosures either way.
On that note, I’d like you to imagine a kid who looks at a roller coaster, watching everyone screaming and grinning as they go up and down and all around and they’re like, ‘Heck, I could do that! That looks like a blast!’
Then they get on, the first drop hits, and they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t say I’m going to turn down a job just because it’s going to be scary. Especially not one with this paycheck.”
Andrew smiled. “Awesome. There’s an adjustment process for anyone working here, similar to a dog that gets adopted, actually. I know the general guidelines of, ‘three days, three weeks, three months’ in terms of milestones, until they finally feel they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he told me, “and you can think of your time here along those lines. I really think you’re a great fit, and once you reach the milestone of working here for three months, I’ll officially consider you our new night shift guard. And I hope you’ll stay with us for many years.”
I nodded and smiled at the flattery of an employer wanting me to work a great job for them for a long time. I’d never had a dog, but those milestones were well-known among anyone who knew animals, especially dogs. The first three days, the dog is getting to know its new digs, exploring, and decompressing. At three weeks, they’ve gotten used to their environment and are starting to get comfortable with their surroundings and the routines of the humans they live with. By three months, they know the rules and follow them, they trust you, and they feel they are where they’re meant to be. I could only hope to be so lucky.
I saw the ghost two days ago and she has yet to make another appearance (for those who are curious, I asked, and her name is Leila), and I still hadn’t seen any animals. I did hear one, though, I feel compelled to note. A growling roar sounded from the lake on occasion, echoing across the vast zoo, sending a shiver down my spine. Whatever that animal was, it sounded gigantic.
Andrew said there was apparently a group that wanted to visit for a birthday and they were offering a huge donation, so he let me know they were making an exception and that this group would be walking through the park that night. That meant I’d be watching people watching animals that, as far as I could tell, weren’t there.
It was anticlimactic. Even the three people who came for the tour just looked like people, not like aliens or something eldritch from another dimension, and I stayed in the security office the whole time. Andrew was the one giving the tour. I watched them spend about five minutes at each enclosure, the hour or so that they were there passing without incident. It was clear that they were able to see all the animals, though, since they motioned excitedly at each enclosure and spoke to Andrew, who presumably answered any questions they had.
If they could see the animals, that was that. There was still that niggle in the back of my head, from my twenty-three years of life never encountering anything like ghosts or cryptids, telling me that this was ridiculous. Waiting for someone to knock on the door, a camera mounted on their shoulder, to tell me that it was a big joke and they wanted to see how long I’d play along. But from all I saw, this was a real place with real, invisible animals.
I do carry a taser and pepper spray in my capacity as a security guard. Though it isn’t for the animals, since they’re in the enclosures; they’re actually for the rare instance of a break-in. Andrew mentioned that it had happened several times it the past, someone trying to steal an animal in the hopes of selling it on the black market. They’d been successful before, but apparently my predecessor Roger was good at his job, and mostly they left in handcuffs.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of confrontation, but my job was to call Andrew and then confront the person, not kick their ass. That’s what the police were for, or rather, the people Andrew would call in lieu of police in certain situations.
Fifty bucks an hour. That’s the key here.
Andrew hadn’t set up direct deposit, since he was sticking with a strategy of waiting to see if I’d continue to work there once I found out myself dealing with the animals (I’ve decided I am going to just call them animals). Instead, I got an old-fashioned check after my shift every Friday. The number on the first check was delightful. I went out that evening and had a big dinner at the local diner, order my most expensive favorites on the menu and a big slice of pie for dessert.
When it came to the paychecks in general, though, I had this weird feeling of not wanting to tell my dad and brother about the fact that it was actually $50/hr. I previously mentioned that my dad, his name’s Nathan if you’re curious, works at a local grocery store. Our town has a couple food franchises, but I think its size is just short of whatever threshold Walmart uses to decide where to open. He earns $14/hr. and that’s after the tiny raises he’s gotten over the past thirteen years.
That’s not to say he’d feel bad about not making as much as me. On the contrary, he would be ecstatic for me and really proud. But, like me, he’d be suspicious. That hourly rate was the biggest hint that this was more than just a private zoo for cryptids. And as soon as that fat check cleared without problems, my dad wouldn’t be satisfied with reassurances; he’d want to come visit the zoo and look around.
I’d told him it’s a private preservation with scheduled (expensive) visits only and that it had only eleven animals, so he’d been appeased by me brushing off the idea of a visit. Also, I took a few photos of my workplace; one of the security room, one of me sitting in my chair, one photo of the many screens I watched, and a selfie where I was feigning sleep out of boredom, slouched in my chair with my mouth open in a faux snore. That let him feel like he knew where I was and what I was doing, and that I was safe.
But if I told him I was making double what he thought, my father would practically order me to quit. No job was worth my safety, he’d tell me. I was quite of the opposite opinion, however, considering how crucial any and all conservation efforts were these days. Especially with the steep extinction levels due to humans competing with other animals for space, not to mention climate change. Working in any job that helped preserve species and keep ecosystems in balance, or put them back in balance, was so important.
Then again, my father would also point out something I had realized right away: the fact was that I was working with endangered species that were not from Earth. I wasn’t helping my planet. To be honest, though…that didn’t matter to me. Especially after that talk with Andrew about why he hired a human for this job, I figured whichever dimension these animals came from had the equivalent of us, razing forests to the ground, clouding the planet with pollution, and leaving the animals with no avenue of recourse when yet more land was taken from them.
I really do hope to keep working here for a long time, though, and not just because of the money. I can’t help it; I want to know what these things were, and I want to work with them, to do the job of a zookeeper. The same way you go up to the chain-link fence to get close to a carnivore on the other side who thinks you’d make a nice afternoon snack. You just want to be closer to them, to experience that incredible, daunting feeling of being in their presence.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before I got what I wanted.
The day after we had the tour go through, I was doing my sweep when I saw the ghost again. She was sitting on a small boulder in the same area I’d seen her the first time, looking identical, blood covering the front of her slashed shirt, the wounds visible underneath. I stopped and stood there for a moment before I decided to raise my hand in a small wave.
The young woman cocked her head at me and raised a hand in the air in an imitation of my gesture, her expression showing a bit of curiosity.
She was low-key, seemingly not concerned with my presence, looking at me as a novel phenomenon in her world. I wondered what that world consisted of. Was she always here, sometimes visible and sometimes not? Or did she have another world next to ours, in the ether, where she left everything in this world behind and floated in her disembodied form? Did she still feel emotions? Was that really curiosity on her face, or was I projecting? Did she feel happiness? Fear? Did she have the option of moving on, or was she stuck here?
Many questions that I might never get the answers to. And that was assuming Andrew knew the answers, since I’d never met Suzanne Cooper and he hadn’t even mentioned that possibility. This place was clearly her baby, but I’m sure running it was a lot of work. Plus, if she was rich enough to own it, she was rich enough to have other businesses and charities to run.
When it comes to the enclosures, they’re all wrapped by a barrier of some kind, though never one that seems adequate. There was not a single place with the ugly metal weavings of a chain-link fence, and no stretches of circular razor wire. Instead, there are nice fences. Black iron, or wrought steel fencing in a similar style to the one circling the perimeter of the zoo, just shorter and with different patterns. Or a spaced picket fence, the wood stained in some tone of brown, or a split two-rail fence. As if to say, ‘This is the border of your enclosure, but we’re just letting you know out of courtesy.’
When I started to pass enclosure number seven last night, a young woman’s voice spoke, “Hello.”
I startled, unaware that I hadn’t been alone. “Oh. Hi,” I said, staring at her standing a few yards in.
She had been next to a large tree and I hadn’t seen her. This enclosure was behind a picket fence, and she walked through the large area of wild grasses and flowers that stretched across the other side of the fence. There were fewer tall grasses closer to the fence, which I guessed was because it had been tromped down by her regular pacing along it when there were visitors, or if she wanted to see the various enclosures of the zoo. Her sudden appearance was a bit weird, considering I had been expecting to see a cryptid and instead I was looking at, it seemed, an attractive Asian woman.
She wore a black kimono, the soft silk robe draped gently over her body, with beautiful patterns of cherry blossoms, more so over her left side, and red and blue birds with their wings spread. A sash wrapped around her abdomen, she wore socks and sandals on her feet, and her hair was up in those rolls that gave volume to the style.
I was no expert on any fashion, much less that of another country, so I just assumed it was all traditional Japanese clothing. Most likely, the visitors who came liked to see a certain time-honored style and that’s what she stuck with. Or maybe she played on stereotypes. That would be amusing.
“I’m Yui. It’s nice to meet you,” she spoke, arriving at the border of the fence and holding out a hand for me to shake.
I’d been standing about three yards away from her, and I’ll be honest, muscle memory tried to kick in. But I only made it two steps, my hand starting to rise, before I froze, the hand falling limply at my side. “Nice to meet you, too,” I answered, my voice quiet.
Damn. I wonder how many times that honey trap works back where she comes from.
The pleasant look on her face faded, and she lowered her hand. “You won’t shake hands with me? Isn’t that rude?”
“I mean, I kind of like my hand where it is. You know, attached to me.”
Her demure smile widened into something more amused. “I would never do something so revolting.”
Looking her up and down, as if more visual information would give me more knowledge of what she was, I asked her, “What would you do?”
“I would be less wasteful,” she said softly.
A finger of ice trailed down my spine, and I had the sudden image in my head of her grabbing my outstretched hand in an iron grip and yanking me over the fence, leaving me to sprawl on the ground. Then killing and consuming me efficiently, without a single careless step, the same way humans slaughtered pigs, using everything from the hog but the squeal. I was struck with a shiver at the idea of her consuming everything from me but my screams.
Slowly, I took one step further down the path, then another. Just as I got to a walking pace, though, I realized the woman had started walking too, in the same direction. I’d have eventually gotten to the end of her enclosure and keep going, leaving her behind, but she spoke up. “Are you leaving?”
I came to a stop, meeting her gaze again. “My job is to walk the zoo every hour. Then I’ll get back to the security room and stay there until my next walk.”
“Have you met the others yet?”
I hesitated before saying, “Just Leila.”
She blinked languidly. “That means nobody welcomed you here.”
“Andrew did.”
She didn’t reply to that. Instead, she slowly started to lean forward, and I flinched backward a few steps further as I saw insect legs start curling out from her back.
No. Not insect. Arachnid.
The eight legs ended in small ‘paws’ with tiny claws, a layer of hairs covering the leg from top to bottom, like any typical tarantula. I took two more slow steps back and my mouth went dry as the jointed legs just kept lengthening, until they were large enough to lever her off the ground.
My gaze had been on the spider legs, but my heart skipped a beat as I realized her human legs had melded together and turned into a bulging abdomen. Her skin was shifting to a carapace, eventually all the way up to her shoulders and down her arms, her fingers elongating and her nails stretching to claws. From there down, her body was that of a pale tarantula with pedipalps the size of my arms and piercing fangs in her jaws that looked like they could take my head off.
There was a moment, my vision blurring, where I was worried that I might piss myself. The part of my brain that still had its humor intact in that moment told me that I should keep an emergency set of clothes in my car, or at the very least, start wearing Depends to work.
“I show you my true form,” she said softly, her voice now raspy like an eighty-year-old after a lifelong smoking habit. “Welcome to Suzanne Cooper’s zoo. The night shift guard for many years was Roger, before he retired and the zoo moved, and I miss him dearly. What should I call you?”
I choked on my words. There was no way my throat was going to cooperate enough for me to clearly get a sentence out. Instead, I realized my legs had taken control of the situation themselves, unsatisfied with my conscious brain’s decision to stand and stare, taking steps backward. I backed up a yard, then five yards, then ten.
My mind focused on the fact that spiders don’t waste anything, and pictured my demise. I’d be wrapped in a cocoon, killed, and made nice and mushy before she had me for dinner.
The whole time, my brain was a frenzied mess, my pupils were probably the size of dimes, and I was staring at that tiny, pathetic fence between her and me. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I felt like my bones were vibrating. The fence was, to my eyes, the only thing between us. The only thing keeping her from tackling and killing me. My only hope was that she’d do it quickly.
But she didn’t move. As I absorbed her innocent, polite words, the look on her face was calm, and I wondered if this was typically the way a conversation went before she devoured her prey. I wondered how many people she’d eaten. Not humans, not people from Earth, but the ones from where she came from. The fact that she doesn’t scare the shit out of those people means they’re staggeringly dumber than humans.
Finally, I rounded a corner, both relieved at having her out of my sight and worried that she would take that moment to come find me. When she’d been within eyeshot, I had at least known where she was and could run in the other direction. But I didn’t hear the sound of faint footsteps moving rapidly toward me. All was quiet, in that deep, smothering way that only an empty business in the middle of the night in small town America could be.
My hands trembling, I barely paid attention to anything but the confirmation that my surroundings were free of the colossal spider as I finally got back to the door. Grabbing the handle and letting my eyes dart around for about ten seconds and my ears prick for the slightest sound, I finally swiped my key card across the pad and went inside, shutting the door behind me and engaging the backup deadbolt.
Maybe that was why they had decided on keycards. If I was running from something and panicking, using an actual key or inserting the card like at a hotel would keep me from getting to safety considering my hands were shaking enough to mix a margarita.
Walking over to my chair, I fell into it, letting my body flush itself of terror as I looked up at the cameras. There she was, still in arachnid form, exactly where I’d left her behind that rinky-dink fence, casually looking around and slowly pacing back and forth. I stared at her as my racing heart gradually slowed, and a minute or so later she turned on her eight legs and walked back into the trees.
Whatever invisible fences the enclosures have apparently work, which is nice, because I wasn’t keen on getting killed by one of the creatures here. And that’s what brings me here, spilling out everything that’s happened so far. Because nearly passing out from terror isn’t something I wanted to deal with at work, obviously, but I keep going over what she did in my head again and again, and I feel like I reacted like a child who spotted a wolf spider on their bed. I started to worry for my overactive sense of self-preservation, at least in my capacity as an employee here.
The spider didn’t even try to hurt me, and so I was feeling a bit foolish. Even annoyed, actually, at the fact that I’d freaked out so hard and took off instead of trying to engage in at least basic conversation. I got the sense that she wasn’t at human-level intelligence, but I was never going to be able to hold any level of conversation with an alligator.
Sure, she did mention that she wouldn’t be so crass as to yank off my hand because she’d rather just have my entire corpse, but wouldn’t a wolf do the same if it was hungry? Wouldn’t any carnivore? Actually, they probably would’ve been satisfied with one of my hands. The fear here was from the fact that she turned into a giant spider. If she’d turned into Clifford, I would’ve reacted the same way, if not better than, meeting Leila.
With that, I decided I’m staying on the job. Considering how frustrated I can get with foolish people, it’s a bit hypocritical, and I’m being a bit of an idiot. But…there are definitely wards keeping them in their enclosures. Also, I signed up for creatures for another dimension, whether or not I believed in them at the time, and I will not let encountering my first one in an objectively boring way be the reason I quit.
The money is a factor, I’ll grant you. Of course it is. And I can’t spend it if I’m dead, but all signs point to surviving as long as I don’t do anything dumb. Also, yes, I’ll admit there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s desperate to know what else is here. I never thought I’d do something like this, but finding out these things are real, I honestly do want to learn more about them.
Still, though, I decided to call Andrew at the end of my shift to ask if the pepper spray and taser I carried worked on a certain spider, as well as the other animals I’d yet to meet.
​
Previous
***
/storiesbykaren

First / Previous
Back on the job, my eyes kept going to the camera that was on enclosure one. Andrew told me its real name, but I think that’d be a step too far, putting that out on the internet. I’d just stick with ‘Steve the bear’. Whatever it was, I just knew I’d have a nightmare about it eventually. Last night I slept fitfully but okay. But I know my brain, and I’d already had a nightmare about Yui stabbing me with one of her legs (they are not needle-sharp in real life, this was dream logic) and walking around, having not noticed I was a Ripley-kebab on her leg. I kept trying to get her attention but for some reason I’d been worried about sounding rude.
On my third walk around the zoo, at about 12 a.m. I saw Leila again, who I’d been noticing more and more often. She never looked interested in talking, only walking through the enclosures, and by that I meant any and all of them. She didn’t seem to have a favorite. I assume that however much of her mind that was left over from being alive still gravitated toward looking at the animals, since getting too close was what killed her in the first place.
Then, in enclosure eight, I saw a new creature and stopped abruptly. This one looked chill, but I wasn’t about to make any assumptions. It looked unique in a strange way, shaped like a giant lizard but built like a big cat of some sort. It had an uncanny valley human face, green hair for a mane, and also a horn like a unicorn. It felt like something drawn by an imaginative five-year-old brought to life, but was still somehow oddly endearing.
“Hello,” she spoke, noticing me noticing her. Her voice was distinctly female and oddly deep.
“Hello,” I responded with false cheer.
She pushed herself to her feet and I took an instinctive step back, but she didn't seem to notice, much less take offense. “You’re the guard here?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Thank you.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Ah…you’re welcome. For what?”
She cocked her head. “For guarding me.”
That was different. Most of the impressions I had gotten from the animals so far were that they wanted to eat me. And the idea that this one was thankful for me doing my job was refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but made me wary. Call me a cynic, I guess.
“My name is tàiyang. You can call me Sun,” she told me.
“Hi, Sun. I’m Ripley.”
Then she looked toward the sky. “It’s going to rain tonight.”
After a thoughtful moment, I asked, “Does that make you sad?”
“Why would it make you sad?”
I smiled. “Because your name is Sun.”
She paused and then said, “I don’t understand.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, telling a pun to one of the animals. “Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky. “I thought the rain is supposed to stay away from here. Are the ones who told me that wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s good to know,” I murmured to myself, thinking of my raincoat hanging in the security office closet. It wasn’t that surprising, honestly. Sometimes I felt like the meteorologists in Arkansas try to read the entrails of goats to figure out the weather. It’s all a mess and it’s all made up.
At that, the animal looked to the sky and fell silent. She appeared to be the most uneventful introduction I’d had so far, and I was incredibly grateful for it. Except then the animal kept talking. “He’s under a spell.”
I blinked. “What?”
She looked back to me. “Andrew. He’s under a spell. He’s very unhappy.”
I had no idea how to react to that. For a second I just stared. The sudden jolt of being told my boss was currently being afflicted by magic left me floundering. “He… What?” I finally asked. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
Oh shit. My eyes instinctively darted in the direction of the main office. I always just entered through the door on the west side of the building, of course, since it led to the security room. It was unnecessary for me to go through the door that first led into the lobby-slash-office Andrew worked out of. Sometimes he even left early, so it was locked anyway. I had the key, but again, it was unnecessary.
Whatever had happened, assuming this animal wasn’t joking around (she seemed completely serious), I needed to establish whether she was right. Leaving the enclosure of the animal I’d just met, I quickly walked back to the small building.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked loudly. “Andrew, are you in there?”
The only reply was silence. I stood there until enough time had passed that it was obvious that no one was coming to answer the door. Taking out my phone, I dialed his cell number and wait as it rang. Then I grimaced when I heard it ringing inside.
Hanging up and shoving the phone back in my pocket, I stared at the closed door.
Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked, and my heart skipped a beat. Andrew always locked his office before leaving. Opening the door slowly, the lights were off in the room, leaving only the faint red glow of the lights outside peeking around his curtains, so I turned on a light. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach, because there was Andrew, splayed limply on the ground, his eyes only half open.
I bolted to him and dropped to his side as he let out a whimper.
“Andrew,” I said, putting two fingers to the side of his neck. He remained silent, and despite his relaxed, wilted appearance, his heart was racing, and I wondered if he was in pain. The room smelled, and it was clear to me that he’d lost control of his bowels. I couldn’t believe I’d been working here for hours without knowing he was in the next room like this.
“Fucking hell. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. Can you hear me? What happened?” He made a small sound, unfocused eyes attempting to meet mine, but it was as if he were severely deprived of sleep or something, unable to focus. His mouth opened and he tried to say something, but he couldn’t speak. All I got was halting words mushed into each other. I felt for him; he must’ve been mortified by his condition. I would’ve been, at least.
The obvious solution would be to get Suzanne’s number from Andrew’s phone, so I searched him for it and found it in his right jacket pocket. I pressed the button the iPhone, swiped, and let out a sigh of frustration. He was security conscious enough to lock his phone with a code, of course.
“Can you… You can’t tell me the code,” I said knowing. He grunted quietly.
“What happened?”
I shrieked and jumped to my feet. Leila stood in the doorway, staring in shock at Andrew’s body. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” I exclaimed. I stopped myself before asking if she could make some noise when she moved or if I could put a bell on her. “What does it look like happened? Someone put a spell on him.” Abruptly, my stance changed, standing up straight. “Wait. Do you know how to get in touch with…anyone?” I asked desperately.
“I know Ms. Cooper’s phone number,” she said frankly.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? How?”
“Andrew gave it to me after I worked here for three months.”
That stopped my brain dead in its tracks. “You…used to work here?” I whispered. I remembered Andrew telling me that one of the night shift managers had been killed, but he hadn’t told me it was Leila. Whether it was for her own privacy or her dignity or some other reason, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I could call Suzanne.
“I worked here for three months,” Leila confirmed as I took out my own phone.
“Okay…what’s her number?” I asked, ready to dial. She rattled off the number and dialed it.
The phone rang twice times before someone answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Suzanne?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
She had a British accent like Andrew did. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s Ripley Mason. I got your number from Leila. I’m here in Andrew’s office and he’s in really bad shape. Someone cast a spell on him and it’s like he’s lost control of the part of his brain that lets him move around and speak.”
“What?” she snapped. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, glancing back to Andrew. He actually looked calmer now, and I hoped that was because he knew Suzanne could fix this. “I was doing my rounds and I met Sun; she’s the one that told me and that’s why I came into his office. I don’t- Who would do this? What do I do?”
“It’s okay, Ripley. I’ll leaving now and will be there soon,” she told me. I heard rustling in the background, the sounds of getting out of a chair and footsteps. “Did you check the security cameras?”
My eyes shut in irritation against my stupidity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do that right away.” Proof positive that I was completely out of it. Some security guard I was, not even able to keep my head in an emergency.
“Don’t apologize, Ripley, you’re quite within your rights to be discombobulated at the moment,” she said. “And I’d like you stay with Andrew, but I would prefer to know what happened. Leave his side just for a second to check the footage.
“Okay.” I crouched down to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t make a sound. Getting back to my feet and walking over to the security room door, I went in and sat at my desk, putting the phone on speaker so I could more easily navigate the footage.
After fidgeting around with the unfamiliar aspect of the program, since I’d never needed to look back before and Andrew only showed me how to do it once, I finally went back to the point where the spell had been cast. “Okay, he walked into his office with two men at…4:08 p.m. and it looks like he was fine with it. He wasn’t under duress, from what I can see.”
“That’s likely Michael Wise and Eric Henry,” Suzanne told me. “They were allegedly making a donation, a herd of Bagot goats.”
“Allegedly?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that they lied if Andrew is spelled.”
I grimaced. That was a good point. Watching them have a conversation, I saw Andrew tense, and then turn to dart toward his desk, but he only made it two steps before one of the men raised what looked like a wand, snapping it in my late boss’s direction, speaking something. As I saw Andrew’s body seize like he’d been hit with a taser and collapse, I hissed in a sharp breath. “Cripes.”
“What is it?”
“One of them had a wand,” I managed. “He-He did something with it.”
“I’m here, Ripley. Come back to the office.”
My eyes widened and I did as I was told, stunned to see her opening the front door. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
The woman gave me a small smile, rendered grim by the situation. “Call it a trick of the trade.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Suzanne was all hard edges, her pin-straight blond hair cut at an angle just below her ears, and she wore a smart blue pants suit with matching pumps. But then she looked to Andrew and her face softened, despair and fury flashing across it as she quickly walked to him and knelt at his side, taking his weak hand in hers.
“Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. You’ll be okay. I already texted a healer and asked her to come by. A friend of mine named Janine.”
I looked back to Andrew’s face, his eyes open and his expression one of exhaustion, but then quickly looked to Suzanne. “Why would someone do this?” I asked.
“I have a feeling at least one of our animals is missing,” she told me, her voice low and hard.
Anger flared up in me. “What?” I asked tersely. I glanced back in the direction of the cameras. “Should we check the cameras to see which enclosure they went to? Do we- Are there cops you can call for this? What do we do?”
Suzanne’s face slowly faded to sadness. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You’re accurate in that I do have a different police I’ll call about this. But there’s a good chance we won’t get the animal back.”
“Wait, why? Come on, there’s got to be magic you could do, right?” I asked anxiously.
“The animal will have been warded and sold to someone immediately,” she explained. “They would’ve had a buyer set up, and gone straight there to reduce the risk of being caught with it. Anyone who is buying an animal like this is extremely powerful, which means that even if we catch the men who stole it, they’d go to prison, but they wouldn’t risk angering the buyer. They won’t tell the authorities who it was, even for a lesser sentence. Losing an animal to robbery has only happened twice in the zoo’s history, this is the third time, but that’s how it played out both times. Actually, in the first instance, the police didn’t even catch the people who took it, since they were wearing masks.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Suzanne pushed herself to her feet, walking over and opening it without hesitation. “He’s in here.” I took the opportunity to open the windows and turned down the thermostat so it would start displacing the smelly air.
A woman walked in, Janine presumably. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed, going quickly to Andrew. She took his pulse with one hand as she pulled a wand out from her purse with the other. “It’s good he’s staying calm. Redire orior can be terrifying to be subjected to.”
“He wasn’t calm when I got here,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been here for hours and didn’t know he was here until just a few minutes ago.”
Janine swore softly. “All right. Let me get started.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I turned to Suzanne. “What did she call this?”
“The spell is ‘redire orior’. It’s a regression of part of the mind, basically all the way back to when we were first born,” she said tightly, anger flickering across her face. “He has no more control over his body than he did when he was a newborn baby.”
I grimaced, looking back to him. “Oh my god,” I whispered. It meant exactly what it had looked like when I’d walked in: Andrew had been rendered completely helpless. Rage welled up inside me, despising the men who’d done this and wishing desperately that Suzanne had been more confident in finding them.
Suzanne took the opportunity to walk into the security office and I heard her sit in my chair. Janine put down her wand to have both hands free and told Andrew, “Just relax, concentrate on breathing slowly,” she said, carefully pulling both of his legs out and rolling him onto his back. She then put his arms at his sides and, picking up her wand, pointed it at his forehead.
I took in a sharp breath of surprise as I saw a faint glow coming from the wand, through the top of it and then to Andrew’s forehead. She held that position for a while, muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later, Suzanne came out and took her phone from her pocket, saying, “I don’t recognize either of the men in the footage. But they seemed distressed, particularly the one that didn’t hurt Andrew. I don’t think that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Meant to or not, it happened,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I’d already decided that my new to-do list every day included first checking the office cameras.
“Andrew,” Janine said, letting the glow fade. “Can you speak?”
“I…yeah,” he whispered.
Suzanne came over to my side. “Thank goodness. How are you feeling? How’s the vertigo?”
“Pretty much gone,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment, though he didn’t try to stand up.
“Andrew, I pulled up the cameras in the office and listened to the audio,” she told him. “I know what happened.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “The cameras have audio?”
“It’s under admin privileges, but yes. Andrew, you should have known better,” she said softly, looking back to him. “The gun in one of the desk drawers? I presume that’s what you were lunging for, because those two men had just made it clear they were here for an animal.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just…” He looked distraught.
“They told you to just let them get what they came for,” Suzanne said. “Why didn’t you?” My lips parted in shock.
“The last time this happened, I cooperated, but…I regretted it,” he growled. “We never saw Harriet again. I couldn’t just stand here and let them do whatever they wanted. Not again.” I assumed Harriet was one of their animals, but I didn’t ask.
“Don’t ever do something so foolish again,” she told him, on the verge of being upset, her emotions likely tempered by his condition. “I want to make it clear to you that this job, these animals, they’re immensely important, but they are not worth your life. He could have killed you. If someone gains access to the zoo again to steal an animal I want you to cooperate fully. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Andrew muttered.
The idea that Andrew had tried to bring a gun to a wand fight was staggering. Something heavy curled in my stomach at the thought. It was clear he cared about the wellbeing of the animals to a degree I hadn’t comprehended.
Janine took one of the small pillows from the couch and tucked it under Andrew’s head as Suzanne continued. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go through the footage to determine what they stole and then call the authorities to report the theft. Janine, can you continue to treat him?”
I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but Janine apparently did, since she nodded and knelt back down as Suzanne went back into the security office. Janine did the same thing that she’d done before, that soft glow channeling light into Andrew’s head. Obviously, I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I knew better than to think I’d get an answer. Instead, I sat in one of the loveseats in front of Andrew’s desk, turning it to face them.
I heard Suzanne’s voice faintly speaking to someone on the phone and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, Suzanne came back out again and she stood next to me for a long moment, watching the healing process before turning to me.
“Andrew told me you were attempting to create some enrichment activities for the animals?” asked my boss.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I am,” I answered. I assumed she was trying to make small talk to distract me from the current situation, and I appreciated it. “The first one went well. Spike loves artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts. I went with things that made it a challenge to eat, like it’s a challenge to pull out fingernails of its prey.”
Suzanne’s expression brightened just enough for me to notice. “Ripley, that’s wonderful. Very clever.” She let out a breath. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Andrew chose well in hiring you.” I gave her a small smile. “Listen, I’m going to hire someone else to be here with you on duty,” Suzanne told me, “and by that, I mean someone from my neck of the woods. Andrew explained that to you, correct?”
“Not much. Just that you’re not from Earth.”
Suzanne smiled. “That makes me sound like an alien, but yes, I’m not from this dimension. I can hire someone who has similar abilities to mine, who can check in every few hours, make sure everything’s all right, but generally make themselves scarce unless there’s an emergency. He wouldn’t have been able to do much if he’d already been here, but he’d have known what was going on. Andrew would have received assistance immediately.”
I was curious of what those abilities were, aside from being able to see the animals, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask. Also, I was curious about who this new ‘employee’ would be, but presumably I’d find out sooner or later. “That would make me feel a little better,” I said, nodding. “Knowing there was someone else here.”
She nodded once. “It’s as good as done, then. As for Andrew, he’ll need to take a few days off to recover. Would you be willing to give the tours until he’s back in ship-shape?”
My eyes bugged out of my skull. “Wait, what? I can’t even see all the animals!”
Suzanne chuckled at my expression and shook her head. “I can enchant a pair of specs for you to wear,” she told me. “It’ll give you a bit of a headache, but you’ll be able to see all of the animals. Also, I’ll give you the background for each of them, because you’ll be speaking about them to the tourists.”
I blinked, thinking of how awesome it would be to finally know all about them all. And it was flattering, the fact that she had such confidence in me that, without hesitation, she asked if I could take over for Andrew. The best thing for me to do, of course, was to be confident and assure her that I could take any temporary promotion in stride. “I’m…I’m not great with people,” I managed.
Yup. Nailed it.
“You can be a little harsh with them if you need to,” she said with a small, knowing smile. “I assumed that signing up for a job where you interact with a screen of cameras the whole time means you aren’t great with people. And Andrew did brief me on you when he hired you. How good are you at couching your insults in polite talk? The British are quite skilled, but I know Americans aren’t too bad at it.”
I smirked, remembering how a coworker friend of mine once told a customer, “Oh, bless your heart,” in her thick southern accent and it sounded like the worst insult. “I can manage that, I think.”
A buzz from the gate that went to the panel on the wall drew our attention and Suzanne walked over to let the visitors in. It was three people, a man and two women, with a gurney.
Walking over to Andrew, I folded my arms with a small smile as Janine released his head from the glow the wand was emitting. “Hey. Sorry you had to lay on the floor for so long knowing I was cluelessly reading a book in the next room.”
“Eh, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “I’ll be back on my feet soon. So, no parties while I’m gone.”
I snorted and my smile widened, and he returned it.
Going back into the security room, I pulled the system back to the multi-camera exterior view, and I sat there and listened to Suzanne talk to one of the medics, explaining everything that had happened in detail. Once she’d done that and they brought Andrew outside on the gurney, presumably to a waiting ambulance, I gave my statement, and then…it was back to work.
Obviously going back to work like nothing had changed felt weird, but Suzanne stayed, letting me know that she would get some work done at Andrew’s desk until my shift was over. It was likely the opposite of necessary, the robbers were gone, but it did make me feel a tiny bit better knowing that she was in the next room with her wand.
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I figured this might be the place to raise this question (where and how to go about purchasing land for homesteading?) I am retiring from the AF in a few years and my wife and I have been talking about finding good land to homestead. I'm realistic about not checking every box we want (fresh watesecluded), but there are a few non-negotiable items: No coastal states / minimal government restrictions and/or interference / trees, trees, trees. I like the look of Arkansas so far but we have looked at the Dakotas, Tenn, Kentucky & West Virginia. My biggest fear is purchasing land and then finding out that I need a permit and 3 forms of ID to dig a post-hole for a mailbox. Any ideas about where to start and maybe your process for finding that perfect spot. Thank you in advance!!

I’ve lived in my house for three years now. It’s my first home and I saved my money for five years to put a good down payment on the home and be able to get something I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Someone purchased the home behind my about six months ago and has informed all three neighbors that are attached to the fence that belongs to her that she is going to tear it down and she’s already checked with the HOA and it’s approved to do since she owns it. Such is her prerogative. The issue I have is that all three neighbors have offered to pay 25% of a new fence for her so that we all aren’t left shelling out the entirety of this due to her moving in and removing it for no real reason.
This may be an odd request, but I’d love to know what I can do within the bounds of the law as her friendly neighbor to make her existence a living nightmare. I live in Arkansas if that matters.