Apple’s CEO John Ternus has been in charge for less than two weeks. He has already done something that his predecessor never quite got to: he stood on a stage and announced a product that really surprised people. At Apple’s annual fall event on Wednesday, Ternus showed off the iPhone Duo, a foldable smartphone that looks like a small iPad when opened flat. In the US, it starts at $1,999. It costs up to $3,200 in its most expensive form. It’s not enough to say that this is different from the usual black rectangle that most people carry in their…
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.
When Karate Kid: Legends debuted in theaters on May 30, 2025, it did something the franchise had never really tried before: it asked two completely different cinematic universes to coexist. After living in the original 1984 continuity for forty years, Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso finally gets screen time with Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han, who joined the Miyagi-Do universe in the 2010 reboot alongside Jaden Smith. The fact that this merger is successful at all is worth investigating, and the specifics of how it was put together are more fascinating than the film’s conflicting reviews might imply. An origin story dating…
Johnny Cade doesn’t occupy much room. He is described as being smaller than the others in S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders. He has large black eyes on a darkly tanned face, greasy hair, and shaggy bangs that fall across his forehead. He is likened by Ponyboy to a puppy that has received too many kicks. It’s an image that sticks because it’s subtly accurate rather than dramatic. Once you know where he spends his nights, Johnny’s cautious demeanor throughout the book makes perfect sense. It’s usually an empty lot. Anywhere but the house. He is sixteen years old, a member…
Dallas Winston spends more time in a room than he enters it. Dally’s eyes are described by Ponyboy Curtis in S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders as “cold with all the hatred in the world,” and that description, along with the platinum-blonde hair falling in wisps, the 6’2″ frame, and the sharp animal teeth, tends to stick. He is the type of character who unnerves other characters, even those who support him. Ponyboy acknowledges that he makes him uncomfortable. It’s not a small detail. It reveals something about Dally’s demeanor and the impact years of living on the streets of New York…
Early in Cobra Kai, Miguel Diaz is shown standing in a mini-mart parking lot with Pepto-Bismol poured over his head by the school bully. It’s one of those scenes that reveals a lot about a character’s beginning. He is clearly out of his element, meek, asthmatic, and the new kid in the San Fernando Valley. The same child has won the All-Valley Karate Tournament, recovered from a spinal injury, participated in the Sekai Taikai world championship in Barcelona, and received an acceptance letter from Stanford in the middle of a fight by the time the series concludes six seasons later.…
A young actor who wasn’t raised in Los Angeles, didn’t have a showbiz manager for a parent, and didn’t come from a famous family is refreshing. Born in Portland, Maine, on January 5, 2006, Griffin Santopietro’s path seemed more accidental than planned, at least from the outside. He was hardly a teenager when he was cast as Anthony LaRusso in Cobra Kai. However, something was obviously present from the start. Not exactly a Hollywood pedigree, his father, Dr. John Santopietro, is a senior vise president at Hartford HealthCare’s Behavioral Health Network. However, the family listened. During a children’s theater production…
Seeing someone who was considered Hollywood’s favorite villain for decades finally receive his just desserts is somewhat satisfying. William Zabka, who played Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid in 1984 and truly unnerved teenagers, is thought to be worth between $3 and $4 million. For a career that almost completely stalled in the 1990s, it represents something more intriguing than just a dollar figure, even though it’s not the kind of figure that makes tabloid headlines. Zabka was born in 1965 in New York, the son of film industry professionals. During Johnny Carson’s early seasons as host of The Tonight…
Karate Kid: Legends came in third place when it debuted over Memorial Day weekend in 2025. Not initially. Not second. Third, behind Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning and Disney’s Lilo and Stitch revival, which had just set an all-time Memorial Day record. That opening seemed worthy of a different discussion for a franchise with 41 years of history and two of its most iconic faces appearing on screen for the first time. In its first three days, it brought in $20.3 million domestically from 3,809 theaters. The difference wasn’t disastrous because pre-release estimates had indicated $25 to $30 million. However,…
Reactions to the 2010 Karate Kid remake, which was set in Beijing and starred Jaden Smith learning kung fu from Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han, were largely divided along generational lines. The movie had very little to do with karate, as older fans pointed out, sometimes loudly. Younger audiences were unconcerned. With a global box office total of $343 million, the film presented Chan’s Mr. Han as a subtly captivating mentor figure who was soulful in a way that felt truly earned rather than appropriated from Pat Morita’s legacy. The announcement of a sequel starring Jaden Smith was followed by a…
A certain amount of creative math has always been required of its audience by Cobra Kai. At the time of filming The Karate Kid III, Ralph Macchio was 27 years old, portraying a teenager, while his co-star Thomas Ian Griffith, who was nearly exactly the same age, played a Vietnam veteran. This is not new to the franchise. However, nothing can match what Joe Seo subtly accomplished over the course of six seasons as Kyler Park in the long run. On July 30, 1980, Seo was born in San Francisco. Cobra Kai was 38 years old when he made his…