By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under six different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) /

(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM ARTICLE-WASHINGTON, D.C.- President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (pictured) met at the White House on Monday, the first time the powerful pair has talked face-to-face in nearly a year, and on the heels of the controversial Iran Nuclear Deal that Congress approved in September that Netanyahu vehemently opposes.

Both Obama and Netanyahu pushed  for  peace  in the Middle East during the meeting in the White House Oval Office as prospects for an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians are becoming increasingly inevitable.

"I  want to thank you for this opportunity to meet with you and to discuss the enormous challenges facing the United States and Israel in the Middle East,'"said Netanyahu relative to the meeting, according to a White House press statement."There’s definitely a new Middle East.  I think it poses new dangers, but it also presents new opportunities."

The president said, in particularly, that he wants children safe during the midst of war between Israel and Palestine.

"I think we also recognize that we have to find ways to change the status quo so that both Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire, but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well," said Obama.

Reached with the United States and five other world powers, , excluding Israel, the Iran Nuclear Deal lifts crippling sanctions against Iran, places a variable freeze on sensitive nuclear materials for at least a decade, and prevents the middle eastern country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, led by the United States, hope the compromise will ultimately end a twelve-year crisis over Iran's suspicious nuclear work.

Formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal is one of the most comprehensive measures reached in several decades and follows a change in Iranian leadership since 2013 when Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ousted longtime president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel since 2009, and who won reelection to the religious state on March 17 of this year, spoke to a joint session of Congress on March 3, and said then that the nuclear deal is too lenient, and lacks adequate safeguards.

Obama did not attend the speech, which was  arranged by then House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio , who has since resigned from Congress, saying it was "politically motivated."

Netanyahu denied then that his speech was hinged on political posturing, and said that he meant no disrespect of America's first Black president.

"My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to President Obama or the office that he holds. I have great respect for both," Netanyahu told thousands of activists at a pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's annual conference shortly before his speech to Congress in March that several Democratic members of Congress boycotted.

Pictured are Cleveland Municipal Court Judges Pauline Tarver and Ed Wade, and Annette Blackwell, who was elected mayor of Maple Heights, a  largely Black Cleveland suburb, in Tuesday's election. Wade ousted Tarver, a former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP, in a  close election, and Blackwell is Maple Height's first Black mayor.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under six different editors, including Connie Harper, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Issue 3, a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in Ohio for the Nov 3 general election that would have legalized marijuana for medical and recreation use did not pass Tuesday night in spite of a multi-million dollar campaign by its sponsor,  ResponsibleOhio, and public support from some Cleveland area Black leaders, including former Cleveland City Council president George Forbes and city council members Mamie Mitchell, Jeff Johnson and Ken Johnson. .

The pot measure lost 65 percent to 35 percent, an indication, said political pundits, that the conservative state of Ohio, a pivotal state for presidential elections, is not yet ready for such drastic changes in its drug laws.

Issue 2, a competing measure placed on the ballot by state legislators upset that Issue 3 was designed for a monopoly that would have given only a cadre of some 10 companies, those that funded the Issue 3 campaign, authority to make the monies from the weed sales, simultaneously passed.

Issue 1, a statewide proposal that reforms the process for redrawing state legislative district that both the Republican and Democratic Party pushed, cruised to a landslide victory, winning with roughly 81 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results announced by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.,

In Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties that includes the city of Cleveland and 58 other municipalities, villages or townships, Issue 8, an extension of the cigarette tax  for the arts that voters initially approved in 2006, passed.

And Blacks were both winners and losers last night in non-partisan contested races for mayor, city council and judge-ships in municipalities across Cuyahoga County, which is 29 percent Black and a Democratic stronghold.

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge James Hewitt, a Republican appointed by Gov. Kaisch to fill the unexpired term left when Anita Laster Mays was elected to the Cuyahoga County Eighth District Court of Appeals, lost to Democrat Susan Marie Sweeney in a four way race that also included Anthony Jordan and Edwin Vargas,   .

Sweeney , who is White and enjoys a popular last name that voters often embrace in Ohio, particularly in Cuyahoga County, won with 47 percent of the vote to Hewitt's 27 percent.

Cleveland Judge Pauline Tarver also lost, but in a close race against sitting judge Ed Wade, who is also Black, with Wade garnering  53 percent of the vote to Tarver's 47 percent.

A former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP, Tarver faced repeated criticism from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, for her poor attendance record on the bench over the last year or two years due, in part, to personal and family illnesses.

Tarver, who was endorsed by the county Democratic party and a host of others, has said that she was a target of the establishment for standing up against the purported mistreatment of select Black judges on the 13-member largely Black Cleveland Municipal Court bench.

A Republican and prolific campaigner, Wade said that he who took on his Democratic judicial colleague in the non-partisan race because his current term expires in 2017 and by then he would have turned 70-year, the age limit for judicial candidates seeking judgeship in Ohio.

Beford Heights prosecutor Deborah Turner lost to Michelle Paris in a three-way race for judge of the Bedford Municipal Court that also included Lon Stolarsky, who came in third place. Also endorsed by the Plain Dealer, which gave her and edge,  Paris beat Turner 49 percent to 37 percent.

Annette Blackwell trounced councilman Bill Brownlee, 68 percent to 32 percent, in the  race for mayor of Maple Heights, while Ruth Gray lost badly in South Euclid against incumbent Georgine Welo, Welo winning with 65 percent of the vote to Gray's 35 percent.

A former city councilwoman, Blackwell, who won the Plain Dealer endorsement, is the first Black mayor of Maple  Heights, a Cleveland suburb that is 68 percent Black.

Bedford Heights Mayor  Fletcher Berger easily won reelection election Tuesday night over Kathy Kelso Perez, and got 61 percent of the vote to  Kelso-Perez 's 38 percent.

Warrensville Heights  Mayor Brad Sellers, a former NBA basketball player and political protege of 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, ran unopposed, as did the candidates in three separate city council races in the city, a largely Black middle class Cleveland suburb.

Barbara Thomas was reelected to  East Cleveland City Council and Joie Graham won without opposition to to the city council seat held by Councilman Mansell Baker, who did not seek reelection.

Una Kennon, a retired Cleveland Municipal Court judge and president of the Black Women's Political Action Committee of Greater Cleveland, was reelected to the East Cleveland Board of Education that she currently leads as board president,

Dr Mary Rice of Cleveland Heights, a newcomer who resides in the section of her city that is included as part of the East Cleveland School District, also won one of the three board of education seats up for grabs in East Cleveland, a Black and impoverished Cleveland suburb, and one of the poorest cities in Ohio.

Dr. Patricia Blochowiak, the only White on the five-member East Cleveland school board, also won reelection  (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

By Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473.

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cleveland Fox8 News, a Republican sponsored local television station with a national affiliate that is often called racist and politically biased by most Democratic Black elected officials and Black people in general, criticized community activists of the Imperial Women Coalition that sponsored the 6th Anniversary rally of the Imperial Avenue Murders on Thursday, Oct 29, and said in a news story published later that day that the three Democratic Black elected officials slated to speak at the annual event should not have been included.(Editors Note: The news director of Fox8 News in Cleveland is Andy Fisher, and the national Fox News television station sponsored the first Republican presidential debate held in Cleveland this summer. Other mainstream media at the anniversary rally where Cleveland News Channels 5, 3 and 19 Action News. and the Call and Post Newspaper, a Black Cleveland weekly).

But when rallies are held for non-Black victims of rape or murder by the Imperial Women Coalition, such as Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight, who were held captive for a decade and raped and tortured by Ariel Castro on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland at his since demolished home on the city's largely majority White west side, Fox8 News and the local mainstream media promote White elected officials to speak out without question, data show, (Editor's note; The Ariel Castro victims, whom activists still support, got more than a half of million dollars each for the torture while the families of the 11 murdered Black women got practically nothing).

Thursday's event, which drew some three families where some eight families of the 11 Black women murdered by Sowell on Imperial Avenue on the city's majority Black east side did not attend, also drew the Black community, and attention to the unprecedented murders. (Editor's note: Cleveland Urban News.Com was advised that most of the family members stayed home saying that  city officials and corrupt judges have done them wrong, and that police and city officials allegedly wanted to use them to lure White cops to the rally to harass community activists).

"We are pleased that Fox8 News saw fit to credit the Imperial Women Coalition for the well-attended and peaceful rally, and we hope that Black elected officials, the families of the 11 Black women murdered on Imperial Avenue, and the Black community in general can come together with community activists and policy makers to deal with this epidemic of violence against women, Black women in particular" said Kathy Wray Coleman, who leads the Imperial Women Coalition and has been a key organizer of the annual anniversary rallies since 2010.

Coleman said also that Black elected officials draw the media and that the city has to first make the families whole and compensate them for pain and suffering as to documented police malfeasance and neglect relative to the murders for the community to move forward.

"In addition to bringing the media, Black politicians bring an ear, which is important to our cause of fighting violence against  women," said activist Lavitta Murray, a member the Imperial Coalition and the leader of the activist group the Million Women March Cleveland.  "Fox8 News is angry because most Black elected officials of Cuyahoga County are Democrats and are for the poor."

Murray said that Fox8 News and the mainstream media in general are themselves political, and that "White people want to silence Blacks that stand up against their ongoing oppression of Black women, and the Black community."

Eleven cops are accused of harassing Black women activists at the rally on Thursday.

Activists say that they were threatened by police and told they could only rally across the street, a 1st amendment violation, they said.

"The media were there to promote nothingness and to harass Black women activists that will not sellout,  and we were harassed by police and Black preachers that appeared at the rally to stalk us, and who have no respect for Black women," said activist the Rev Pamela Pinkney-Butts. "

Sowell's convictions, including 11 counts of murder and three counts of rape relative to three other Black women, and his death sentence, are on appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court, and Sowell and his lawyers want a new trial.

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pauline Tarver was supposed to speak as well as state Rep Bill Patmon and Cleveland Ward 6 Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell. All three are Black.

Patmon, a Fox 8 News ally and Cleveland Democrat who has long supported the Imperial Women Coalition at nearly every rally, did not show, and Tarver, also a Cleveland Democrat who is up for reelection and  a former Cleveland NAACP executive director once illegally strip searched by police who worked previously for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, came to the rally but did not speak after activists suggested she lay low to avoid anticipated political  harassment from Fox8 News

Mitchell did show, but was torn between standing up for the disenfranchised women activists that police tried to subordinate, and some self serving Black clergy sent by the mayor and police to quiet free speech.

But the Imperial Women Coalition said that they want Black elected officials there, whether they are running for election or not, and said that they welcome all elected officials and the entire community each year to the anniversary rally, particularly for necessary policy changes.

Judge Tarver, said Coleman, has fought for women  as the former executive director of the Cleveland NAACP, and she worked at the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

"We were honored that Judge Tarver agreed to speak," said Coleman

.  (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

By Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com).

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