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,…
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.
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…
There’s something almost everyday about how this story began. A man goes to a Florida Trader Joe’s, buys some food, gets his receipt, and leaves to go home. Millions of times a day, all over the country, this kind of deal is made without giving it much thought. But Brian Keim seems to have looked twice at that receipt. What he saw in March 2019 was the start of a lawsuit that would last more than five years and cost Trader Joe’s $7.4 million in the end. The problem was clear and important to understand. FACTA, which stands for the…
It’s a little unsettling to think that the phone you carry around with you all the time—the one you use to call your doctor, order groceries, and argue with your partner about dinner—may have been recording conversations you didn’t want to share. That’s basically what the people who sued Google in the privacy class action said. After years of going to court, Google has finally agreed to pay $68 million to get rid of the case. People who bought a Google-made device in the US between May 18, 2016, and March 19, 2026 are covered by the settlement. These people…
This story sounds like one you’ve heard before. A company raises its prices by saying that its costs are going up, and then, quietly, the reason it gave for the increase goes away. The prices don’t change. People no longer buy. A lot of the time, no one does anything about it. This time, someone did it. A group lawsuit filed on June 30, 2026, in federal court in Washington, DC, says that Lululemon took hundreds of millions of dollars from customers by raising prices because of tariffs that were later found to be unconstitutional. The filing was made by…
Like many big court cases, it began with a simple question: Are you paying more than you should? In the case of De Coster et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc., a federal court in Seattle has decided that the question should be put to a jury. The answer could affect about 288 million American customers. A lawsuit was first filed on May 26, 2021, by a group of consumers led by Elizabeth De Coster. They say that Amazon used its huge market power to stop other online sellers from offering lower prices. Think of Walmart, eBay, and Target as examples of…
Gatorade has been almost mythical in American sports culture for many years. It was thrown at coaches who won. It was in every locker room. As kids, they thought that was what serious athletes drank. Because the branding was so good, questioning whether the drink does what it says it does seems almost rude, like questioning the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. However, a federal class action lawsuit brought in May 2026 does just that, and the issues it brings up are harder to ignore than one might think. People from PepsiCo and The…
Standing in line at a Starbucks and watching baristas write names on cups with happy markers can be unsettling because you know that, somewhere in the background, attorneys are debating labor violations and benzene levels in federal court. The picture, which shows a class-action lawsuit against a warmly lit counter, perfectly depicts the company’s situation in 2026. Consumers represented by Hagens Berman, a firm with a long history of taking on big businesses in consumer protection cases, filed a class-action lawsuit in January of this year in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. There are two…