The exposed red brick and industrial bones of a building that used to be full of textile machinery give Judson Mill Lofts a movie-like feel. The building is now home to loft-style apartments with courtyard furniture and peaceful Sunday afternoons. The address is 701 Easley Bridge Road, Greenville, SC, and it’s only two miles from the city center. Near enough to the city to feel like you’re part of it. Just far enough away to feel like you’re in a real neighborhood. For most of the people who lived there, it was just a neighborhood. Inside what used to be…
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.
A certain type of actor can appear in a supporting role and manage to steal the show. That type of actor is Paul Walter Hauser. Additionally, his character Raymond Porter, better known as Stingray, in Cobra Kai, the long-running Netflix karate drama built on nostalgia and surprisingly sharp writing, turned into something no one quite expected: a genuinely moving portrait of a man who refuses to grow up, wrapped in what could have been pure comedic relief. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on October 15, 1986, Hauser’s journey to Hollywood wasn’t exactly easy. After praising him at the Academy Awards,…
A camera is set up on a pole along a quiet part of a road in Franklin Township, New Jersey. A lot of drivers don’t even look at it twice. But that camera records every car that goes by, writing down the make, model, color, and license plate number. This data is then sent to a law enforcement database that can be searched. We call that a Flock camera. And it’s either a responsible way to keep the public safe or a quiet way to spy on everyone that no one voted for. The technology comes from Flock Safety, an…
The San Fernando Valley, a vast, sun-kissed area of suburbs located just north of the Santa Monica Mountains, is where Cobra Kai takes place. You are already familiar with this world if you grew up watching The Karate Kid in the 1980s: strip malls, apartment buildings, modest bungalows, and the incessant buzz of a city that never really seemed to care about its residents. Thirty-three years after Daniel LaRusso defeated Johnny Lawrence at the 1984 All-Valley Karate Tournament, the show returns to those same streets—or at least the concept of them. At the beginning of the series, Johnny Lawrence is…
In the early 1990s, there was a certain kind of noise coming from Britain. It was loud, weird, and hard to put into a single category. Guitars were distorted, beats were taken from club nights, and samples were pulled in from places no one thought they would be. That crash sounded like the future for a short but really exciting time. One of the people who built it was Derran “Derry” Brownson. Brownson, one of the founders of EMF, died on August 13 after being treated for a brain tumor that was cancerous. Fivety-five. The band posted on social media…
There’s something almost movie-like about the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, but not in a Hollywood-made way. That’s not quite right. The agency is in charge of one of the biggest counties in the US. It includes deserts, border areas, and rural outposts where, on a good day, the closest deputy might be twenty minutes away. It’s hard not to think that this department has earned a story worth telling after seeing how it has changed and grown over the years. The department’s main office is on East Benson Highway in Tucson, Arizona. It has more than 872 civilian employees and…
The answer to the question that most Cobra Kai fans debated for months—who wins the Sekai Taikai—turned out to be more nuanced than nearly everyone had anticipated. It wasn’t just about which student finished first. At the end of the tournament, there were three different wins, a historic tie, and a final battle between two senseis that successfully completed the Karate Kid saga in a way that felt truly earned. Characters in the show have been building the Sekai Taikai since Season 5, comparing it to a hybrid of Bloodsport and the Olympics. The tournament had already been disrupted by…
Early in Cobra Kai, a quiet, nervous child named Eli Moskowitz enters a karate dojo and is largely ignored. He has a best friend named Demetri who shares his passion for Harry Potter and Doctor Who, a cleft lip scar that makes him extremely self-conscious, and virtually no social standing at West Valley High School. He is invisible by all accepted standards. It is truly difficult to sum up what happens to him over the course of the next six seasons of the show, which may be precisely why the character has endured long after the series concluded. Jacob Bertrand…
The San Fernando Valley, which includes Reseda, Encino, and Van Nuys—flat areas of suburban Los Angeles where strip malls and karate dojos seem to be on the same block—is the setting for Cobra Kai. The geography feels lived in when you watch the show. There’s a certain California flatness to the light. The neighborhoods appear to be in order. The parking lots, the low-slung business buildings, the signage—all of it reads Southern California without you ever having to think about it. The majority of it was shot in Georgia. One of the more subtly impressive production choices in recent streaming…
There were Instagram direct messages (DMs) before cameras, Casa Amor, and Fiji. That fact by itself tells us something about how Corbin Mims and Parmida Keshani met. He slid into her email and said something about wanting to work out with her when he got to Miami. Her home is in San Antonio. It did not lead to anything. But after a few months, they ended up in the same villa on Season 8 of Love Island USA and fell in love in front of everyone in the country. This is the kind of coincidence that sounds too good to…