STEVE JOHNSON / Missouri River Communities Network 200 Old 63 South, Suite 203Columbia, Missouri 65201573-256-2602

Last fall, wealthy Chinese gathered at a Beijing hotel to hear a pitch by Patrick Quinn, the governor of Illinois. He wanted them to invest in a convention center project at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

"You can't have capitalism without capital," Quinn said to the group of potential investors. "So we really are interested in encouraging people from everywhere, particularly here in China ... to consider the state of Illinois as a place to make investments."

The required minimum investment: half a million dollars.

All of the Republican presidential hopefuls take on President Obama in their stump speeches, attacking his health care plan, his jobs record and more.

But the shorthand former House Speaker Newt Gingrich uses, calling the nation's first black president the "food stamp president," is raising questions.

It's a theme Gingrich has used since Iowa, and he returned to it during a forum in Charleston, S.C., over the weekend.

Opponents of Wis. Gov. Scott Walker will deliver a truckload of petitions to the state's elections board Tuesday in an effort to force a recall election. Thousands of volunteers have spent the past two months canvassing the state collecting signatures.

Organizers are confident Walker will need to face an election this year in order to keep his job. Talk of recalling the governor began nearly a year ago, after he signed a bill into law that strips most public unions of collective bargaining rights.

Jay Nixon will deliver his fourth State of the State Address as Missouri Governor Tuesday night. 

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