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Polls closed at 8pm CST. Opening Results: Jean Stothert (R, Incumbent) 57% 17941 Heath Mello (D) 43% 13387 http://www.omaha.com/news/politics/city-election/ (updated every 45 minutes) Live Tweets from Jean's campaign office: @jeanformayor

It took an almost incoherent and incomprehensible opinion from the Supreme Court of Illinois to restore Emanuel to the ballot. It was supremely ironic that Michael Kasper, one of Emanuel’s lead attorneys, had the audacity to argue that the same one year residential requirement for municipal candidates that was in controversy in the challenge to Emanuel’s mayoral candidacy ought to have barred an aldermanic candidate from the ballot in the 27th Ward. As the Irish cynic and scholar, Jonathan Swift, famously observed there are lawyers who can argue “White is Black and Black is White” according to how they are...

In a unanimous decision, which revealed divisions within the Supreme Court, released yesterday, the court ruled that Rahm Emanuel was eligible to run for mayor and that he was a resident of Chicago for one year next preceding the election. The Court held that the candidate’s intent to return after being absent from the city for twenty months and having leased his residence to tenants for approximately two years, through and including June 30, 2011, trumped the fact that he had no permanent abode in the city during the relevant time frame for determining candidate eligibility. The majority opinion written...

Rahm Emanuel is expected to spend hours testifying under oath Tuesday at a hearing on whether he can remain on the mayoral ballot, with a long list of objectors quizzing him about whether his time away from Chicago at the White House makes him ineligible to run. Objectors to Emanuel's candidacy argue he does not meet the requirement that candidates live in Chicago for a year before an election because he was serving in Washington. Emanuel is lined up as the first witness Tuesday morning, facing veteran election lawyer Burt Odelson, who is representing the lead objectors. Odelson said he...

Something’s missing from Chicago’s mayoral candidate forums: Rahm Emanuel. On at least three nights next week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — just about all of the major candidates for mayor, except the former White House chief of staff, have agreed to sit side-by-side at community forums and take questions from voters or panelists. But Emanuel is taking a pass, as he has done with other forums this week and last. “I don’t think he’ll do any of them,” Emanuel spokesman Ben Labolt said of next week’s forums.

When aides to Rahm Emanuel recently wheeled a cart loaded with tall stacks of his nominating petitions into the city election board’s downtown offices, the more than 90,000 voter signatures were a show of force meant to prove deep grass-roots support across the city for the former White House chief of staff. In reality, his petition drive had received even greater support from many campaign workers who live far beyond the city limits, according to documents filed last week with elections authorities. The Chicago News Cooperative’s review of all of the nearly 5,300 petitions for the Emanuel campaign found that...

Emanuel isn't eligible to run for mayor because he doesn't meet city residency rules. Candidates are required to live in the city for a year before the Feb. 22 election. Emanuel was working as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff until he returned to Chicago early last month to start his campaign. The crux of the dispute: Emanuel says he meets the standard because he owns a home here, has voted here and always intended to move back. Odelson says the fact that Emanuel rented out his home, instead of leaving it empty, means he can't claim he's...

Next week, a veteran election lawyer plans to file a legal attempt to knock mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for allegedly failing to meet the residency requirement to run for mayor. The issue is whether, by leasing out his house when he moved his family to Washington, D.C., to be President Obama's chief of staff, Emanuel ran afoul of the Illinois Municipal Code, which requires mayoral candidates to be residents of the towns they run in for a year before Election Day. The only exception is for active-duty members of the military.

Anthony Weiner, get thee to a phar macy -- fast. If ever anyone would appear to be a candidate for medication, it's the terminally excitable Brooklyn Democrat, who threw yet another temper tantrum Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives. There was Weiner, his voice screeching, flailing away at Republicans who opposed the Zadroga health-care bill for folks who claim to be victims of 9/11- related maladies. The bill fell short of the two-thirds majority demanded by his fellow Democrats. "Sit down! You sit down!" shrieked Weiner, as one Republican tried to get him to yield. Nor is...

<p>Margaret Croft/The News-Star Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo addresses his supporters after being re-elected Saturday.Incumbent Jamie Mayo will get another full four-year term as the city's mayor.</p> <p>By a comfortable margin, Mayo defeated challenger Don Spatafora on Saturday in Monroe's mayoral runoff election. Complete but unofficial results showed Mayo with 55 percent, or 7,649 votes, and Spatafora with 45 percent, or 6,209 votes.</p>

<p>Mayor Jamie Mayo and challenger Don Spatafora reiterated their campaign themes of bringing more jobs to Monroe and cutting wasteful spending from the city's budget at the meeting, which was sponsored by the University of Louisiana at Monroe and The News-Star. The one-hour forum also featured repeated verbal sparring between the candidates.</p>

<p>NEWARK, N.J.--More than 30 million passengers a year pass through the international airport here, but few spend any time in the gloomy city. But there are interesting political stirrings in Newark, whose mayor, 66-year-old Sharpe James, heads an old-fashioned political machine. In his bid for a fifth term, Mr. James faces a serious challenge from fellow Democrat Cory Booker, a reform-minded city councilman who has collected campaign contributions from figures as diverse as Bill Bradley and Jack Kemp.</p>