Tokyo rarely sleeps, but on Sunday at two in the morning, it was close enough that nearly everyone was unprepared for the shaking. The capital and nearby Saitama, Kanagawa, and Chiba were all affected by the 5.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked the southern portion of Ibaraki prefecture. Even though the shaking itself felt abrupt and sharp to those startled awake in the dark, the damage was likely kept to a minimum due to the earthquake’s depth of about 70 kilometers below the surface. At least 37 people had been hurt in five prefectures by the time officials had finished counting. Tokyo…
Author: Sierra Foster
Sierra Foster
Born in Kansas City, Sierra Foster writes about politics and serves as Senior Editor at kbsd6.com. She was raised paying attention to this city, not just living in it. Sierra has a strong, deep connection to Kansas City, from the neighborhoods east of Troost to the discussions that take place in the city hall halls. Sierra, who is presently enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in Political Science, applies the rigor of academic study to her journalism. She writes about politics in Missouri and Kansas as someone who genuinely cares about what happens to the people in these communities—the policies that impact them, the leaders who represent them, and the civic forces influencing their futures—rather than as an outsider watching from a distance. Her editorial coverage encompasses state-level policy, local government, and the national political currents that permeate bi-state regional life. Whether it's a city council vote or a Senate race, she has a special gift for turning complex policy language into writing that feels urgent, relatable, and worthwhile. Sierra seldom sits still off the page. She claims that playing soccer on a regular basis has sharpened her instincts for political reporting because of the sport's teamwork, strategy, and requirement to read a changing game in real time. She's probably somewhere in Kansas City with her friends when she's not writing or on the pitch, discovering new reasons to adore a city she already knows so well.
Visitors to Los Mochis speak almost apologetically about a certain stillness, as though the town didn’t deserve the attention it received on January 8, 2016. It’s a mid-sized city in Sinaloa with dust-colored streets and low rooftops—the kind of place no one anticipates being featured in a history book. However, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s decades-long run finally caught up with him there, as he fled through a tunnel with a stolen car waiting on the other side while in a rented house in the middle of a firefight. He had been captured before. Not that it was his second. That…
A purple-haired fourteen-year-old confronts a rival outside Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. There isn’t a traditional dance-off, rap battle, or punch thrown. Rather, he joins in on Cristiano Ronaldo’s “Siuuu” celebration before turning to mew, pressing his jaw forward and tracing his jawline with his finger as if he were trying out for a magazine cover. With their phones raised, the crowd determines the winner. This is farmear aura, and for some reason, it’s turned into a serious competition. The phrase combines elements of two very different worlds. In TikTok and Instagram slang, “aura” refers to the effortless confidence…
Over the past week, an odd phenomenon has been occurring in the corners of Reddit and X, and it revolves around a single username with an unusual spelling: Cyberleek. Since August 18, an anonymous account or group has been releasing what it says are authentic Grand Theft Auto VI clips, and the gaming community has been going crazy trying to figure out who is responsible. The brief snippets of maps, settings, and gameplay mechanics in the clips themselves don’t reveal anything about the plot, which is somewhat telling in and of itself. This person appears to know exactly how much…
Most travelers are unaware of a small airport located close to the town of Marignane, southeast of Marseille. It’s not a tourist destination. However, it also serves as the hub of the largest helicopter manufacturer in the world, which discreetly produces almost one out of every three rotorcraft that fly anywhere in the world. That was not the original name of Airbus Helicopters SAS. The helicopter divisions of Germany’s DASA and France’s A Réspatiale combined their operations to form Eurocopter in 1992. Approximately one-third of the global helicopter market was acquired by Aïspatiale. DASA contributed less, perhaps 8%. That imbalance…
By Saturday nite, the hills above the flatlands of Nevada were already lit up. By Sunday, the Hawk Fire had burned through more than 15,000 acres in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and it still couldn’t be checked. Not at all. There is a number in every briefing, press release, and worried text message from someone in Washoe County who hasn’t slept: 0%. The fire began on Saturday and moved quickly, helped by strong winds that sometimes made the work of ground crews seem pointless. About 42,000 people living near Reno were told to leave their homes. 45,000 more…
Shelley Fabares is hard to put into a single sentence. She sings and acts. Stay alive. TV is an institution. A woman died in Los Angeles on a Saturday at the age of 82. She was all of those things, and the labels still don’t do justice to someone whose career spanned six decades with a quiet persistence that most entertainers can’t match. She was born in Santa Monica in 1944, and by the time she was ten, she was already on TV. It wasn’t because someone forced her, but because she looked like she belonged there. She got her…
In football, there’s a time when everything stops. The only thing that can be heard is a player lying still on the ground while everyone else is quiet. That’s what took place at the Las Vegas Raiders’ training camp on Sunday, and it’s the kind of thing that sticks with you. An impressive young player in the league, Ashton Jeanty, a running back for the Raiders in his second year, got hurt during 11-on-11 drills. He went in the wrong direction after running a route and dove for a low pass from veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins. The grass took care…
A certain kind of worry spreads faster than any virus. It’s the kind of worry that turns every sneeze into a possible outbreak and lives on in news stories and group chats. The most recent health data for Delhi, which came out on August 22, has that kind of energy right now. This year, the city has had 2,392 cases of Influenza-A, and 1,777 of them have been confirmed to be H1N1. 114 new cases were recorded in a single day, August 20. You don’t just scroll past those numbers without stopping. Some people still call Influenza A H1N1 “swine…
Some relationships start with a lot of noise, like a red carpet event, tabloid rumors, or a publicist’s well-timed announcement. Then there are stories like the ones by Peyton List and Jacob Bertrand. Slow and quiet. They were friends for years before anyone used the word “couple.” This timeline makes you think that Hollywood might get something right once in a while. They met for the first time in 2015. List was already well-known on Disney Channel for her long-running role on Jessie, and Bertrand was making a name for himself on Disney XD’s Kirby Buckets. They were both teenagers—she…