A Petsense store will soon close in a small town in Arkansas or Virginia. The shelves with flea treatments and dog toys will be cleared out. The groomers will find new work, and a strip mall will have one more empty unit. This kind of shopping retreat isn’t as loud as a department store falling down, but it’s real and important. This week, Tractor Supply said that it will close about 75 Petsense stores that aren’t doing well after doing a strategic review of the business. Along with the closings, the company has significantly lowered its full-year financial outlook and…
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.
As usual, it took place in Hall H, with thousands of people crammed into a room in San Diego. The lights were just right, and Kevin Feige walked onstage with that energy that means something important is about to be said. There wasn’t polite applause when Ryan Gosling’s name came up next to Ghost Rider. The noise a room makes when it really can’t believe what it heard was that one. Gosling will play Johnny Blaze in a Marvel Studios movie called “Ghost Rider,” which will be directed by Shawn Levy and come out in 2028. It’s Gosling’s first major…
The picture was easy. Simone Biles was in a hospital gown and cap, and medical bands could be seen on her wrist. Her husband Jonathan Owens was standing next to her. It said “His birthday, but he takes me to get my procedure.” It was July 22. The next day, she sent it out. It told you something without telling you much, like most of what Biles has said about her health in the last six weeks. This is the second time since the middle of June that the most decorated gymnast in history has shown up in a medical…
A lot of people in the US have taken Tylenol or naproxen at some point. Most likely both, but at different times and for different reasons: a headache on Wednesday morning, a pulled muscle from moving furniture, and the dull ache that comes on after a long week. They had a choice between them for many years. The FDA approved a product that gets rid of the either-or on July 24, 2026. Kenvue Brands LLC makes Tylenol with Naproxen. It was the first over-the-counter fixed-dose combination of acetaminophen and naproxen sodium to get FDA approval. Every 12 hours, a tablet…
For most of the last 100 years, most stories about where modern apes came from pointed to East Africa. There are well-known fossil sites there, as well as places where the Leakeys worked and where evidence gathered. In contrast, North Africa had monkeys since the Early Miocene, but no apes. That absence shaped the way a generation of scientists thought. Then some people from Mansoura University dug in the desert of Egypt and found a jawbone. The fossil was found in Wadi Moghra in northern Egypt in 2023 and 2024 while working in the field. It is from a species…
Something about an animal the size of a small boat that most people have never heard of is kind of creepy. The Pacific sleeper shark, whose scientific name is Somniosus pacificus, has been living in the deep ocean for longer than most species do, and they still surprise us. This new one came with amazing video that was shot about 1,630 meters below the surface of the South China Sea. Sun Yat-sen University and the Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory researchers put out the results of a study in June 2025. The study seemed a little odd at…
SPECIAL CONFLICT DASHBOARD The U.S.–Iran War: Financial Cost, Timeline & Paths to Resolution A breakdown of human and economic expenditures, critical timeline milestones, and the legal/political requirements needed for a ceasefire. Human & Economic Cost of War U.S. Direct Cost $37.5B Projected military spending U.S. Service Casualties 18 Dead ~500 personnel wounded Global Oil Impact $100+/bbl Crude prices spike on Red Sea/Hormuz blockades Public Opinion ~70% Americans oppose continued war U.S. Estimated Expenditure ($37.5B) Direct Air/Airstrikes (45%) Logistics & Force Deployment (30%) Munitions & Naval Escorts (25%) Iran Operational & Economic Impact Infrastructure Damage: Strikes targeted air defense, missile launching…
Courtney Scott was driving her 8-year-old son home from school in St. Louis last spring when trees began to fall around her car. Not moving. Falling to the left, the right, and straight ahead. She quickly turned around and kept driving. Later, the authorities said it was a tornado that cut through the city a mile wide. Scott thinks that turn kept them alive. In Missouri, even twenty years ago, this story would not have seemed likely. In Kansas, there were tornadoes. In Oklahoma. There wasn’t much to hit out on the flat, windswept plains. That’s what people thought. That’s…
When you talk to a farmer, you quickly question what you thought you knew. The weather or crop prices aren’t talked about for very long. At some point, it turns inward, to the weight of carrying on a family tradition, the worry of a dying pasture, and the strange loneliness of working land with nothing but sky above. Emma Alexander, who is from Rogersville, Missouri and is a seventh-generation farmer, said it clearly: it’s not that farmers can’t handle things. It’s just that there’s more to deal with than ever. In Missouri’s farming communities, that thought has been going around…
Somewhere along the White River in north-central Arkansas, on the right morning, you can see mist rise from the cold water while a fly line cuts through the air in silence. It looks like something that would be in a magazine. Not only that, but this kind of scene quietly supports a whole regional economy that is shaking in ways that don’t make the tourist brochures right now. For decades, trout has been a big part of life in the Ozarks. It’s not just fishing on the weekends; it’s world-class fishing that brings people from all over the country willing…