Pictured are Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who is Black, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and former Chicago schools CEO Paul Valas, Valas and Johnson the top two vote-getters in Tuesday's election who will move on to the nonpartisan runoff in April for Chicago mayor. Lightfoot finished third Tuesday night,  ending her rein as mayor of the largely Black major American city

CHICAGO, Illinois-In an election that drew more than half a million people to the polls, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the city's first Black female and openly gay mayor, lost her bid for a second term on Tuesday, coming in third in a crowded field of nine contenders and failing to qualify to move on to a non-partisan runoff set for April.

Former Chicago schools CEO Paul Valas, whom firefighters and other first res-ponders championed and who promised voters that he would fight crime and poverty, led the field of candidates, followed by Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner who was supported by progressives, the Black religious community, and the Chicago Teachers Union. Valas and Johnson will square-off next month in what pundits say will likely be a heated runoff election relative to public policy issues impacting the city and its residents.

Valas finished with 34 percent of the vote and Johnson 20 percent while Lightfoot got a dismal 17 percent.  And Chicago voters made it clear that race does not always matter in politics as Lightfoot and Johnson are Black, and Valas, the top vote-getter and a former school teacher turned schools CEO, is White.

A Democrat and an attorney, Lightfoot, 60, made history in 2019 when she became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the city, but her popularly began to wane as crime went wild and the pandemic took an already struggling and largely Black major American city into deeper despair, financially and otherwise.

The third most populous city in the U.S. behind New York and Los Angeles, Chicago has a population of roughly 2.6 million people. As the seat of Cook county it is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area. It is also the international hub for finance, culture, commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Laura E. Klingler of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland

Hello from Legal Aid!

CLEVELAND, Ohio- As March begins we have a busy calendar of free legal advice clinics coming up in Kirtland, Chagrin Falls, Cleveland, Oberlin, Ashtabula, and Lorain! We encourage you to circulate this information with your networks.

-Legal Aid is Hiring

Pictured are Tamara McLoyd and then 25-year-old Cleveland police officer Shane Bartek, whom McLoyd shot to death on New Year's Eve in 2021

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND, Ohio - A 41 page appeals brief has been filed in the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals on behalf of the young Black Cleveland area woman convicted  of murder in connection with the 2021 New Year's Eve carjacking and shooting death of off-duty Cleveland police officer Shane Bartek in the Kamms Corner neighborhood on the city's largely White west side

Tamara McLoyd was sentenced last year to 47 years to life in prison.

Her lawyers argue on appeal in legal terms that she did not get a fair trial before Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell and that her convictions go against the manifest weight of the evidence