Reaching your early sixties, choosing to continue working and paying taxes on each paycheck, and then seeing your Social Security benefits gradually decline as a result is almost ironic. It occurs more frequently than most people realize, and for years it has caused low-level annoyance among senior employees who believe they are being punished for carrying out their duties exactly as they should. The Retirement Earnings Test, or RET, is the regulation that governs this. It was put into place during the Great Depression with the intention of encouraging older workers to retire and creating jobs for younger Americans who…
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.
Flying home causes a certain kind of anxiety. The officer behind the glass who is in charge of your life’s next chapter, the long lines, and the fluorescent lights. It lasts a few minutes for most people. Chinese citizen and lawful permanent resident Muk Choi Lau’s 2012 return via New York’s JFK Airport resulted in over ten years of legal disputes and, now, a Supreme Court decision that will have far-reaching implications. In Blanche v. Lau, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday, essentially shifting the balance of power at the border from green card holders…
Every significant law enforcement announcement has a point at which the figures seem unreal. False claims totaling $6.5 billion. 90 physicians and 455 defendants. 56 federal districts in 45 states and territories have filed charges. It doesn’t quite settle even after you read it twice. That is the actual size of the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown by the US government. For two weeks, the Department of Justice coordinated what it calls the nation’s most comprehensive whole-of-government campaign against health care fraud. Neither a single villain nor a single plan served as the foundation for the operation. It was…
The way this one played out was almost cinematic. A former Major League Baseball player, two of the biggest names in country music, a fine dining establishment close to Music Row, and now a $1.4 million lawsuit pending in Davidson County Circuit Court. It’s the type of story that seems made up. It wasn’t. Located at 1628 21st Ave. S. in Nashville, E3 Chophouse debuted in 2019 as a posh, customer-focused dining establishment. The idea wasn’t new; in 2013, former Major League Baseball first baseman Adam LaRoche introduced the first E3 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. However, it was always a…
The Peterson family has been farming the same area of land in LaMoure County, North Dakota, for three generations. Like everything else that matters in rural America, the soil, the seasons, and the quiet perseverance needed to make a living off the land are all passed down through the family. No issues were inherited by Cody Peterson. He inherited a lifestyle. However, a federal agency decided at some point that it had a better idea of how to use that land. The dispute at the heart of the Cody Peterson FWS lawsuit dates back to 1963, when the U.S. Fish…
The trial was scheduled to start in the Court of Chancery in Delaware on Monday morning. The lawyers were ready. Reports submitted by expert witnesses estimated shareholder damages to be between $466 million and $957 million. After that, nothing occurred over the weekend, which proved to be crucial. The shareholders who had sued Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, Stephanie McMahon, and other WWE executives discreetly reached a settlement in principle. The trial was put on hold. The conditions were kept a secret. Additionally, any documents that may have come to light during the discovery process—documents that shareholders…
Corteva Gives Farmers $85 Million, But Was That Enough? Farmers nationwide have been observing something that didn’t quite add up for years. Herbicides and insecticides that should have been less expensive after patents expired, known as generic crop protection products, weren’t really finding their way onto store shelves as you might anticipate. The science was accessible, the patents had been revoked, but the counter prices had not decreased. As it happens, there might have been a cause for that. Farmers filed a class-action antitrust lawsuit against Corteva Agriscience, one of the biggest agrichemical companies in the US, alleging that the…
The octagon, the lights, and the cacophony come to mind when people think of the UFC. Federal courtrooms in Nevada are not typically on their minds. However, the biggest mixed martial arts organization in the world has been engaged in a different kind of competition for over ten years, one in which the judges don robes and the damage isn’t measured in broken bones. December 2014 saw the filing of the case that would eventually become Cung Le, et al. v. Zuffa, LLC. A number of current and former fighters, including fighters like Jon Fitch, Nathan Quarry, and Cung Le,…
It has an almost universal quality. The phone rings while you’re at home, but you don’t recognize the number. Before you can say anything, a recorded voice on the other end pitches you on buying or selling a house. Most people just ignore it because it irritates them in a particular, low-grade way. However, those demands served as the basis for a federal lawsuit that ultimately resulted in a $20 million settlement for hundreds of thousands of Americans. The complaint that started the case, Bumpus et al. v. Realogy Holdings Corp., was submitted in California in June 2019. The plaintiffs…
The way Netflix established its reputation is subtly unsettling. The business marketed itself for years as the environmentally friendly substitute for the Big Tech surveillance apparatus. No targeted advertisements. No gathering of data. A library of shows and a fixed monthly fee. The company’s co-founder, Reed Hastings, stated unequivocally in 2019 and 2020 that Netflix does not gather or profit from user data in the same manner as other tech behemoths. That message was heard by subscribers. A large number of them accepted it. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, seems to think that something different took place behind…