A president suing a federal agency he runs almost sounds like something out of a movie. That’s pretty much what happened in January 2026, when Donald Trump sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns in 2020. The breach was caused by contractor Charles Littlejohn, who later admitted guilt and was sentenced to five years in prison. The lawsuit made people look twice right away. If you are the head of the government you are suing, how do you argue in an adversarial court case? It turned out that you don’t. We couldn’t tell because…
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.
Millions of Americans were supposed to get money from one of the biggest privacy settlements in tech history, but they never did. It’s kind of strange. Over 200,000 paper checks were not cashed. Three million digital payments stopped working. A hundred million dollars just… sat there. That money is now being sent back out. The lawsuit against Facebook as a whole, officially called In re: Facebook Inc. There is a lot more to the Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation than just a court filing. The first company to do this was Cambridge Analytica, a British company that scraped personal information…
There is a slight unease in the air around smart speakers in our homes. They are always listening for something that was never said because they are always on and waiting. That pain has now a price tag for the millions of Americans who bought Google Home speakers, Nest displays, or Pixel phones in the last ten years. The price tag ranges from $2 to $56, depending on how closely Google’s microphones followed you around. Google LLC and Alphabet Inc., which owns Google, have agreed to pay $68 million to settle a class action lawsuit that said Google Assistant recorded…
Due to the large number of spam emails promising lottery winnings and robocalls saying your Social Security number has been “suspended,” a real legal settlement got lost in the noise. The settlement for Facebook users’ privacy, which is officially called In re: Facebook, Inc. There is real consumer privacy user profile litigation. It took years to finish, with multiple appeals, but money has already started being sent to people who are eligible. That is pretty amazing on its own. The case started because people said Facebook, which is now part of Meta, mishandled user data and let outsiders see personal…
In St. Louis, there is a line that you can’t see but can feel. It goes through neighborhoods and school districts and can be seen in crime rates, tax rates, and decades of quiet anger. The City of St. Louis is on one side. St. Louis County is on the other side. Few things unite them besides a name and a river. It all starts with a vote in 1876 that most people agree should not have happened. Before the split, St. Louis was one of the cities in the country with the most rapid growth. Within the city limits,…
Most people have driven at least one stretch of Missouri’s Interstate 70. It’s the long, flat road that goes from the suburbs of Kansas City to the edges of St. Louis, passing through Columbia, Kingdom City, and a dozen other smaller towns. For years, that drive had a steady beat: construction cones, bumpy roads, and lane narrowings that make you grip the wheel a little tighter than usual. Most drivers might have thought things would always be this way. They’re not going to be. The Missouri Department of Transportation doesn’t think so. It will cost $2.8 billion for MoDOT to…
Sometimes people are so tired that it doesn’t show on their face right away. It sets in slowly, like when someone walks through a gutted living room without flinching or talks about how they watched four feet of water swallow their furniture like it was the weather report. That tiredness has become a kind of local language in some rural parts of Missouri. Here, people speak flood very well. They’ve always done that. In Missouri’s flood-prone river towns, like Rhineland, Pattonsburg, and Mosby, the cycle is well-known: the water rises, homes fill with water, people tear them down and rebuild,…
Around midnight, when the chant stops and the bar bill goes over, you realize Kansas City isn’t just hosting a soccer tournament. It’s hosting a version of itself that it’s been working on behind the scenes for years. That Tuesday, Katie Vallee, who works at Up-Down KC in the Crossroads Arts District, ran out of Modelo. It’s not Saturday. This isn’t a playoff weekend. It was a Tuesday in June after Lionel Messi scored three goals against Algeria in Kansas City’s first-ever World Cup game. At least for one night, the arcade bar felt more like a global living room.…
North of Rolla, there is a part of Highway 63 where the road gets narrow to two lanes and trees are close together on both sides. Not a median. Not a problem. There is only a thin strip of paint separating the traffic going north and south, and the speeds are so fast that there is almost no room for error. After just one drive, you’ll really understand why the numbers look the way they do. The rate of motor vehicle deaths in Missouri is 16.0 per 100,000 people, which is about 30% higher than the national average. That number…
Central Kansas’s skies went from clear to terrible in what seemed like minutes on April 13 evening. In three counties, baseball-sized hail tore through the air. It was hit by two tornadoes. And the official forecast from the regional storm prediction center said there was no chance of thunderstorms at all. Thomas Winter, who is in charge of emergencies in Franklin County, Kansas, remembers it very well. The twister happened without much warning, and that wasn’t a coincidence. It was caused by something quieter and slower-moving than a storm: budget cuts, staff reductions, and a data network that’s been slowly…