In only its first full calendar year, HeartlanderNews.com broke a number of substantial stories in 2022, and exposed vital details of news that other media in Missouri and Kansas ignored.

Here are some of the most significant of them:

* John Wood, an erstwhile Republican living in Virginia and working for the Jan. 6 committee, rented a modest Kansas City apartment this summer and “moved” here – leaving his family back in their multimillion-dollar home in the D.C. area – to run for the U.S. Senate from Missouri. He did so as an “independent” running against multiple Republicans. The Heartlander exposed his tenuous ties to Missouri in several investigative stories – and not long after, he withdrew from the race.

* Four top legislators asked the Missouri attorney general to investigate the state’s former lottery director, after The Heartlander reported she went to work for a vendor she tried hard to steer lottery business to.

* While other news media almost cheered on the passage of recreational marijuana in Missouri, The Heartlander reported on the likely deadly consequences of it.

* As other media shrugged their shoulders and walked away, ignoring the seriousness of it, The Heartlander broke the news that an April hack of government computers in Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, was actually a ransomware attack that the county was scandalously ill prepared for and slow to respond to.

* The Heartlander broke the news that a savage stomping death of a senior citizen at the Wyandotte County courthouse Oct. 5 occurred brazenly inside the busy main security checkpoint itself.

* The Heartlander was the only media outlet to report fairly about the pro-life community’s views on the Kansas “Value Them Both” constitutional amendment that would have allowed some regulations on abortion.

* Only The Heartlander delved into the fact that Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas used up to $450,000 in tax dollars to fund a lawsuit that was likely obsolete soon after its filing. His lawsuit, which he filed as a private citizen but with taxpayer funds, aimed to forestall the state-ordered minimum in funding for the Kansas City Police Department. Missouri voters soon approved Amendment 4 authorizing the funding requirement – yet despite that, as of this week Lucas was still pressing his lawsuit in court.

* The Heartlander also alerted readers to the fact that Mayor Lucas, as part of the lawsuit fighting the minimum police funding requirement, hired a high-priced attorney who was also an advocate for an “unrepentant cop killer.”

* Mayor Lucas claimed after the midterm election that Kansas Citians opposed Amendment 4 raising the city’s minimum funding for police. But as explained only by The Heartlander, full vote totals showed a near 50/50 split in the city. The statewide vote approved the amendment handily.

* In December, The Heartlander alerted readers to the fact that “A Drag Queen Christmas” was coming to The Midland Theatre in Kansas City on Dec. 20 – an event advertised as an “all ages” affair, but which understandably included a warning for “adult content.”

* In another exclusive, The Heartlander detailed how organizers wasted millions of out-of-state dollars in a failed effort to get a “ranked-choice voting” scheme on the Missouri ballot. Better Elections’ version of ranked-choice voting would have eliminated partisan primary elections and implemented a single primary for all candidates. The failed effort, which would have eliminated majority rule in Missouri, was called by Heritage Action “a scheme to disenfranchise voters by taking away binary choices, propping up unpopular candidates, and changing crucial election process rules.”

Additionally, as reported exclusively by The Heartlander, not only did ranked-choice petition organizer “Better Elections” receive over $6.7 million from a Virginia-based 501c(4) nonprofit called “Article IV,” but its campaign was funded almost exclusively by the dark money group. According to reports filed with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Article IV’s donations to Better Elections made up 98.7% of all funds given to the campaign – for a referendum supposedly by Missouri voters.

* The Heartlander revealed that Sophic Solutions, a “change management and consulting firm” hired by multiple schools in the Kansas City area to address “racial inequity” and to train teachers in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), nonetheless holds radical views that include “dismantling” America’s capitalist system and pursuing Marxist ideology by “redistributing power.” KC-area schools that hired Sophic Solutions included Platte County School District, North Kansas City School District, and Pembroke Hill School, considered the most elite private school in the state.

* In February The Heartlander reported the University of Missouri employed an adjunct professor who had a felony conviction for sending $270,000 to Iraq, in violation of a 1990 executive order by President George H.W. Bush prohibiting U.S. citizens from sending funds to the country. The Heartlander quickly learned the professor was no longer employed at MU.