The Missouri Legislature defunds Planned Parenthood ahead of voters getting a chance to restore abortion rights in the state. … The issue of a state-appointed police board taking over the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department just keeps rolling in Jefferson City. … The St. Louis Board of Aldermen is proposing a hike in the city's sales tax rate. … The city removes a refugee couple and their makeshift shelter from the sidewalk, where they'd been living in front of someone's house for more than three years. … Universities—including Washington University in St. Louis—continue to grapple with tent camps and protests against Israel’s sustained bombing and ground campaign in Gaza in the months following a Hamas-led surprise attack in Israel last October. … Former President Donald Trump endures a week of damaging testimony in his New York trial and also argues for immunity before the U.S. Supreme Court. … President Joe Biden says he will debate the former president, but he's been saying a lot of things that may not be true.

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Hancock and Kelley on FOX 2 take on the top issues of the week. On the agenda:

• Illinois’ biggest county in the St. Louis area no longer wants to be in the same state as Chicago.
• Disturbing surprises show up on the desks of members of the Missouri legislature: dessert ‘brownies’ — along with a note saying they contain dog feces.
• Donald Trump’s so-called “Hush-Money” trial has begun — is that worse for him or President Biden.

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The Wall Street Journal had an extremely unflattering front-page report about the demise of downtown St. Louis. ...

First lady Jill Biden was in St. Louis to raise money for her husband’s reelection bid. ...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey files a lawsuit to stop the latest incarnation of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. ...

Iran attacks Israel with more than 300 drones and missiles. Israel claims its air defense system stopped 99% of those drones and missiles. ...

Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden both try to address potentially the most damaging issues for their campaigns: abortion rights for Mr. Trump and inflation for Mr. Biden. ...

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces a new ATF rule that will effectively close the so-called gun show loophole by requiring more gun-sellers to run background checks on more gun buyers. ...

Our Quote of the Week had to do with the death of O.J. Simpson and painful memories and emotions felt very close to home here in St. Louis.

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We begin with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland taking note of violent crime in St. Louis and pledging to do something about it. ...

The rise of the write-in candidates and the fall of right-wing school board candidates in Tuesday's local elections. ...

We’re keeping up with former President Donald Trump's courtroom battles and a big endorsement in a key Missouri congressional race. ...

Israel admits fault for a bombing that killed World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, as a rift between President Joe Biden and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets wider. ...

Democrats go all-in on the abortion issue for the November elections. Can it turn red states like Missouri and Florida blue? ...

Is independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. fanning the flames of the January 6 Capitol riot? It's our quote of the week. 

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• Viral videos of violent, even deadly, after-school fights among teens in St. Louis County lead to calls for action from the state capital to the nation’s capital. ...
• A new bipartisan bill in the Missouri legislature would ban marriage for those under the age of 18. Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds can marry someone who’s also under 21 with parental consent. ...
• The City of St. Louis is leading an alarming population decline in the St. Louis region. Census estimates show the city has lost 20% of its population in the last 20 years—more than half of its population in the last 50 years. ...
• Riverfront Times founder and long-time Donnybrook panelist on KETC (PBS St. Louis) Ray Hartmann announces that he’s running for Congress as a Democrat against six-term St. Louis County Congresswoman Ann Wagner.
• Special Counsel Robert Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, and Hur’s assertion that the president comes off as a “well-meaning, elderly man” with a poor memory. ...
• A Georgia judge rules that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can stay on as prosecutor in the Donald Trump election interference case, but Nathan Wade, Willis’s former lover, who she hired as special prosecutor in the case, must resign his position. ...
• Pop singer Olivia Rodrigo hands out free Plan B emergency contraception (aka “morning after” pills) at her concert at Enterprise Center in St. Louis. It drew international backlash, with her core audience being made up of young girls. Plan B will no longer be handed out at her concerts. ...
• Our Quote of the Week was from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who’s proposing a national four-day week in the United States.

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A call for retired cops to help St. Louis out of its reckless driving epidemic. ... Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a self-proclaimed "mega" Kansas City Chiefs fan, is receiving backlash after pardoning the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. The coach's son, Britt Reid, was drunk and speeding when he crashed into multiple cars on an Interstate 435 ramp near Arrowhead Stadium in 2021, which left 5-year-old Ariel Young with traumatic brain injury. Reid was sentenced to three years in prison in 2022. Parson commuted the rest of his sentence to house arrest after just 16 months. Republicans and Democrats are blasting the governor over this. He's offered deepest sympathy to Young's family but said Reid has already served more time than others convicted of similar offenses. ... Are Democrats fired up after President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address? Critics claim the speech was more appropriate for a campaign rally, with President Biden repeatedly blasting former President Donald Trump without ever naming him and instead referring to him as his predecessor. Though Biden struggled with words at times, he avoided any major gaffes, and displayed passion, wit, and stamina in the nearly 70-minute speech. ... Amid all of the accolades from Democrats for the president’s State of the Union performance comes a challenge from Trump, to see how Biden holds up in a debate.  

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A FOX 2 New interview with a St. Louis alderwoman about the city’s reckless driving crisis is interrupted by blatant reckless driving: motorcyclists doing wheelies, running a red light, driving on the wrong side the road and circling cars waiting for the light to change. Alderwoman Cara Spencer is calling for booting the wheels of reckless drivers. The mayor and aldermanic president want to bring back red-light cameras, which would put citations in the mail for offenders, tickets offenders will likely be ignored, knowing they face no threat of jail time. ...

Missouri Governor Mike Parson sends Missouri National Guardsmen and state highway patrol troopers to help with the border crisis in Texas, just as the crisis shifts to California. ...

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker calls for nearly $900 million in tax hikes to help cover the cost of processing more than 35,000 migrants who’ve crossed the southern U.S. border and are now flooding the sanctuary city of Chicago. ...

Republican Congressman Mike Bost, who represents a large portion of the St. Louis area in Illinois, agrees with President Joe Biden on something. He says Congress should be in session instead of taking a two-week winter break with pressing issues like the border crisis and military aid for Ukraine and Israel demanding action. ...

Former President Donald Trump wins the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina in a landslide over former S.C. Governor Nikki Haley in her home state.

Missouri Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who is running for governor, creates a stir by saying military veterans should not get special treatment like discounts. "I don't think we ought to say if you're in the military, we'll give you this discount, but everybody else has to pay twice as much,” he said. “If it's good for veterans, it's good to do it for everyone." ...

The Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos in fertility clinics are human children. ...

Our Quote of the Week was from Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who said Governor Parson’s use of the word “thugs” to describe the suspects in the deadly mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade/rally was a racist dog whistle.

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St. Louis City’s reckless driving crisis claims the lives of two visitors from Chicago after they attended a concert downtown. It comes a year of a teenage girl visiting from Tennessee lost her legs in a reckless driving crash. She was hit by a vehicle while walking downtown. Instead of addressing the glaring lack of enforcement of traffic laws, Mayor Tishaura Jones calls out the Board of Aldermen for stalling her plan for street safety improvements. ...

Republicans and Democrats in the Missouri Legislature back Valentine’s Law, which would enact mandatory prison time for those knowingly fleeing police in a vehicle. It is named for St. Louis County Police Detective Tony Valentine who was killed by a fleeing driver in 2021. ...

Missouri Senate Democrats filibuster initiative petition reform at the state capitol. Reform measures aim to make it more difficult to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. ...

Democrat St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush lashes out at Republicans for Missouri’s lax gun laws in the wake of the mass shooting during the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade and rally, even though Kansas City and St. Louis have laws making it illegal for juveniles to carry weapons. Twenty-two people were shot and a woman was killed in what authorities say was an exchange of gunfire among juveniles. ...

President Biden blasts Russian President Vladmir Putin over the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison. Navalny had been poisoned and jailed after leading protests against Putin and the Kremlin. President Biden also called out former President Donald Trump for saying he would not protect NATO allies from invasion by Putin and Russia if those allies fail to pay their fair share toward mutual defense. ...

A New York judge levied a $364 million judgement against Donald Trump and his family’s businesses in a civil business fraud trial. ...

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis took the witness stand and admitted hiring her lover as a special prosecutor in an election fraud case against Donald Trump. Attorneys for one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants are seeking to have Willis removed from the case and possibly the entire case thrown out of court. ...

Our Quote of the Week was from Cardinals pitcher Matthew Liberatore, as the team reports to Jupiter, Florida, for spring training.

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The chief of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department heads to Jefferson City to fight a state takeover of his department. ...

There's another viral video of another Missouri Republican breaking out a flamethrower. ...

Both Republicans and Democrats lament our do-nothing Congress, from border security to aid for Israel and Ukraine to impeaching a cabinet secretary. ...

In our quote of the week, a local congresswoman calls into question President Joe Biden’s memory and also calls for his resignation. ...

There's a new Democratic candidate for Congress from St. Louis. ...

On this Super Bowl Sunday, St. Louis Aldermanic President Megan Green says the people have spoken: they want to spend NFL settlement money on city pay raises, among other things. ...

Should Missouri and Illinois follow Michigan's lead in sending parents to prison for crimes their children commit? 

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Democrat St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush is the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice grand jury investigation of her massive spending on personal security. ...

Missouri Governor Mike Parson heads to the southern U.S. border in Texas, saying Missouri has a role to play in the migrant crisis. ...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey appears in St. Louis with former NCAAA swimmer Riley Gaines. Gaines is leading a national campaign against transgender athletes in women’s sports. ...

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley calls out Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during a committee hearing on regulating social media companies. ...

President Joe Biden orders air strikes in response to Iran-backed attacks on U.S. assets in the Middle East after one of the attacks killed three U.S. Army soldiers in Jordan and injured more than 40 others. The president has notably avoided air strikes on Iranian soil. ...

The state election board in Illinois decides against removing former President Donald Trump’s name from the state primary ballot. ...

Republicans are taking issue with mega-singing star Taylor Swift and her romance with Kansas City Chief’s star Travis Kelce. ...

Our Quote the Week was from the late Jean Carnahan, former Missouri first lady and U.S. Senator, the first female senator in Missouri history. Carnahan died Tuesday at the age of 90.

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Extreme infighting among Republicans in the Missouri Senate leads to senators being stripped of leadership positions and their preferred Capitol parking spots! One senator mockingly comes up with a resolution to allow senators to settle disputes by duel! …

St. Louis County Executive Sam Page is pushing a small property tax increase to pay for a new or renovated St. Louis County headquarters building at a time when the county faces yearly budget deficits of nearly $40 million. …

Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib comes to town to launch the reelection campaign of St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush. The two progressive Democrats are members of the so-called progressive Squad in the U.S. House of Representatives. Both women have received heavy criticism for their responses to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Tlaib has been censured by the House. …

Missouri’s U.S. Senators come out against a deal with the White House to strengthen security at the U.S. border. …

Vice President Kamala Harris takes a more high-profile role in the reelection campaign of President Joe Biden as the two shift their focus to the abortion issue. …

Former President Trump wins the New Hampshire Primary but is incensed with candidate Nikki Haley, who refuses to end her campaign after two small-state contests. Trump threatens to cut ties with anyone who donates to Haley’s campaign. He also faces an $83.3 million defamation judgement in a case brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll. She has already won a judgement against him for sexual abuse. …

Former Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has a prominent role with the No Labels political organization, which is considering placing a centrist, bipartisan presidential ticket on the November 2024 ballot. …

Our Quote of the Week regards the latest attempts to legalize sports gaming in Missouri.

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