For the majority of Americans under forty, measles is the kind of illness that is mostly depicted in old photos: kids in hospital beds, parents in waiting rooms, a public health emergency that was proclaimed eradicated in 2000 following decades of vigorous vaccine campaigns. The MMR vaccination was so successful that it became one of the few instances of a medical procedure that accomplished its goals. The immunization rates then began to decline gradually and in ways that didn’t always make headlines. Kansas City confirmed the first measles case since 2018 on March 3, 2026. Just one instance. an adult…
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.
Deputy Gabriel Ramirez stopped a white Chevrolet Silverado just after 3:50 on a Monday afternoon in the remote area south of Highlandville when farmland opens out and traffic becomes less frequent. It was a standard traffic stop in the type of county where routine traffic stops are just that—a brief conversation, paperwork, and a wave. What followed was anything but. During the stop, 45-year-old Richard Dean Bird shot Ramirez and ran away. Ramirez, 30, passed away from his injuries just eleven months after joining the Christian County Sheriff’s Office following his discharge from the U.S. Army. By dusk, over 150…
A blowout isn’t often the type of defeat that remains with a squad. It’s the one in which everything appeared to be going well for six innings, your starter pitched 71 pitches and allowed just one run, you scored first and then again, and you had a two-run lead with six outs remaining. That’s the kind of loss Detroit experienced at Kauffman Stadium on May 8, and the sequence of events that led to the collapse—one misplayed ball in right field, one reliever who failed to record an out—tends to repeat itself in a dugout long after the last out.…
Business Class seats on the Missouri River Runner via Jefferson City were sold out early on June 16, 2026, the day of the first World Cup game in Kansas City. On a typical Tuesday, the train passes through the state capital, which is located roughly in the midway of the 283-mile route between St. Louis and Kansas City, with little notice. However, there were more people attempting to board the River Runner than there was room to accommodate them that day due to an Argentina-Algeria match that began at eight in the evening and tens of thousands of foreign visitors…
A deputy sheriff in Laclede County receives a report regarding a lost tractor on a June morning. No witnesses, no surveillance film within 10 miles, no physical description other than color and make. The closest law enforcement officer is forty minutes away, and the farm is located down a gravel road that doesn’t show up on Google Maps at the proper scale. The tractor is probably already in a different county—possibly even a different state—by the time the paperwork is submitted. This isn’t speculative. Variations of this scenario play out across rural Missouri every week, and they rarely make the…
Councilman Jonathan Duncan of Kansas City boarded a bus at the Plaza on the evening of June 16 and spent the next two and a half hours attempting to go to a stadium that was roughly ten miles away. He was so irritated by the time he got there that he expressed it in public, which is noteworthy for a local elected official on what was meant to be a joyous event. Thousands of other fans shared similar stories on social media: park-and-ride lots with intermittent bus arrivals, crowded security gates with only two doors open, shuttle lines that remained…
As soon as you enter Arrowhead’s gates in June 2026, you can tell something is wrong. The signage isn’t there, or it’s incorrect. Fans are not used to seeing the Chiefs’ red and gold throughout the concourses. FIFA logo covers the Ring of Honor, the lengthy scroll honoring team greatness that encircles the stadium’s interior. The field is also unfamiliar: it’s a broad, level soccer field where the NFL hashmarks once stood, with a different kind of grass and a surface designed to meet various requirements. The building itself wouldn’t let you know you were in the Kansas City Chiefs’…
At 3:30 in the morning on August 23, 2020, Kansas City police were called to a hospital after two women with gunshot wounds arrived by private car. Jazmyn Henrion, a 23-year-old mother of three, was one of them. There, she passed away. The other made it out alive. After gathering witnesses and obtaining security footage, detectives charged KaShawn Nicola Roper with second-degree murder eighteen days later. Roper had already left by the time the allegations were brought. What followed was nearly six years of movement — Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, South Dakota — a fugitive routing that covered enough…
The first tornado struck just south of Clinton at 6:03 on a Wednesday night in April, close to the expansive, serene Harry S. Truman Reservoir shoreline. The aircraft was an EF-1. As it crossed East Calvird Road and headed northeast into the city, the wind reached 98 miles per hour. It followed a 2.5-mile route until weakening to an EF-0 close to East Clinton Street. The same spinning storm cell produced a second tornado six minutes later, this time in the northern section of town, close to East Lincoln Street. EF-0, less than a minute on the ground at 70…
In Ireland, Revenue releases a list every quarter. It is published in Iris Oifigiúil, the official state gazette, and it lists people and businesses that have either settled with the tax authorities or been fined by the courts. Outside of the communities that are immediately impacted, the list is routine, public, and mostly unread. However, seeing a well-known local name on it carries a weight that goes far beyond the numbers on the page in places like Ballaghaderreen, a sleepy market town in the west of County Roscommon. Gerard Cafferkey, a property developer and director of a company, was one…