Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States despite losing in Illinois.  Hillary Clinton received around 55-percent of the vote yesterday in her native state, but Trump ran away with Morgan County bringing in 9,060 votes, compared to Clinton’s 4,693, Gary Johnson’s 667 and Jill Stein’s 187.

Tammy Duckworth is moving from the US House to the Senate. She coasted past incumbent Rupublican Mark Kirk last night and told her supporters her message hit the right target…

Senator Kirk didn’t waste time making his concession speech, and it clearly had an upbeat tone…

Breaking down the voting totals from Morgan County, Kirk brought in 9,095 votes compared to Duckworth’s 4,727, Kenton McMillen’s 504 and Scott Summers’ 284.

The Democrat becomes the second woman to represent Illinois in the chamber.

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger is proud of her campaign despite losing on Election Day.  The Republican spoke to supporters last night following her defeat to Democrat Susana Mendoza.

Mendoza looks forward to being a champion for the hardworking men and women of Illinois.

Munger was appointed comptroller by Governor Rauner following the death of Judy Baar Topinka in 2014.  Mendoza will serve the remaining two years of Topinka’s term.

Despite her loss, Munger was the popular vote in Morgan County. Munger lead voting at 9,047, followed by Mendoza with 4,682, Claire Ball with 451 and Tim Curtain with 304.

Audio in the story comes from Metro News.

One of the hottest races in Morgan County has been won by the incumbent.

The Morgan County State’s Attorney race has been the talk of the county for the past few months, as Democrat Tyson Manker mounted a campaign against Republican Gray Noll.

Almost 2,000 people tuned into a debate between the two on 1180 WLDS and our WLDS Facebook Live feed on Friday.

On Tuesday voters made their voice heard by electing Noll, who took home 8,552 votes, compared to Manker’s 5,896.

WLDS-WEAI spoke with Noll moments after he received word of his victory.

“I’m incredibly grateful. My wife and I moved over here in March from Springfield. My son was born in June and the county has welcomed us with open arms. The community has been great and very supportive of us. We walked a lot of precincts the past two months and everyone has been very kind here,” says Noll.

Noll says his experience gave him an advantage in the race.

“I’ve been a prosecutor for the last 14 years. As a prosecutor, every day you have to go in and do your best in court. Everyday I go to court and the judge says ‘present for the people of Morgan County.’  I think that gives a prosecutor an inspiration on a daily basis to do their best,” says Noll.   .

Noll’s election is a four-year-term.

A tax rate increase is on the ballot for a specific group of Scott County residents.

Road District 2, which covers 42.3 miles of roadway around Alsey, falls under the lowest tax bracket in Scott County at 0.33 percent.

The Road District Commissioner Glen Jefferson says the other districts in the county receive a 0.66 percent tax rate. According to Jefferson, the previous road commissioner didn’t want to raise taxes, so Jefferson has been following that system.

But taking care of roads is expensive and Jefferson feels a slight tax increase is something Road District 2 could definitely use.

“This is for equipment, repairs, fuel and other stuff that the motor fuel package doesn’t pay for. The newest truck I have is a 96′ and the backhoe is one of the older ones. If you don’ have the equipment to do stuff you can’t take care of these roads,” says Jefferson.

Jefferson works alone on Road District 2. His responsibilities include cutting ditches, making sure the water drains, clearing trees, patching the road and mowing the grass.

Jefferson encourages voters approve the proposition, but the decision is up to them.

A pair of teenage boys are still in the hospital after being shot this weekend in Carlinville.

In a press release from the Carlinville Police Department, Macoupin County 911 received a call from 33-year-old Joy Hart of Carlinville at around 1:45 a.m. on Sunday.

Hart said her husband had someone at gun point near a fence in the 500 block of Johnson Street.

Once officers arrived, 43-year-old Jason Hart of Carlinville was located, standing near two white males who were on the ground.

Upon further investigation one of the males had been shot and first aid was applied.

Additional officers began searching the area and a second white male was located with a gunshot wound. A total of four juveniles were located, two were transported to Carlinville Area Hospital and were later transferred to St. John’s and Memorial hospitals in Springfield.

Based on initial investigations, Jason Hart was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and is being held in the Macoupin County Jail.

Law enforcement wouldn’t confirm where the teenagers were from. We hope to have those details in more this afternoon.

Crimestoppers is looking to expand in West Central Illinois.

Loren Hamilton with the Morgan/Scott Crimestoppers tells WLDS/WEAI News that new chapters could be popping up in Greene, Calhoun and Jersey Counties in the next three to five months.

Hamilton says bringing in new administration to neighboring counties is a big positive for Crimestoppers.

“We would just assist in facilitating that and getting it going. It would be run by its own volunteer board of directors, in cooperation with local law enforcement down there.”

Hamilton says talks of a Crimestoppers organization in Greene County have been in the works for at least a year.

A meeting to gauge the interest has been set for November 15th in Jerseyville.

“Its going to be an open forum town hall meeting at the Super 8. We hope to get a lot of law enforcement the public. We encourage the public to come so we can answer a lot of misconceptions about Crimestoppers, like we we are and what we do,” says Hamilton.

The event will be hosted by the Illinois State Crimestopper Board.

Illinois’ 13th District Representative is reacting to the FBI’s announcement that criminal charges won’t be made against Hillary Clinton.

In a letter to members of Congress, FBI director James Comey said the bureau had finished its review and found nothing to change its previous position.

Rodney Davis released a statement this weekend saying, “Unfortunately, this doesn’t change the fact that Hillary Clinton, who is running to be the leader of the free world lied, to the American people, broke the rules, and put our national security at risk by having a private email server in her home. I believe this disqualifies her from being president of the United States.”

The two-term congressman faces Democrat Mark Wicklund in the 13th District race.

The method in which board members are selected for a Cass County School District has found its way onto the November 8th ballot.

Under the current board election rules for Virginia School District, no township can have more than three members that live in that township on the board at any given time.

Superintendent Brent O’Daniel says that creates a problem for the small city of Virginia with a population of less than 2,000 people.

“Since I’ve been superintendent we’ve had to appoint five different open seats after elections, because we didn’t have enough people run, because they knew they could run. That is because the Virginia township, which is where Virginia proper is and has the most population, already had three members on the board. So some people may have wanted to run or did run and couldn’t get on because of the limitations of the current language,” says O’Daniel.

This isn’t the first time this proposition has appeared on the ballot. O’Daniel explains why he believes the measure has been voted down twice.

“The former language stated a majority of all members of each township within the school boarders had to pass the referendum. We have some townships in the school district with literally five or six people, because it is just a partial piece of that township. Both times that the referendum failed, more than two thirds of the popular vote was in favor of doing this. One or two very small townships, who possibly weren’t educated on it, voted it down. That meant the referendum didn’t pass.”

The proposition would pass if a majority vote for each township is in favor of the item or two-thirds of the overall voters approve.

O’Daniel says the Virginia School Board would be fall into an “interesting situation” if the proposition is passed.

“We have four board members with terms that will be up (in April). However according to our legal council, if this legislation is passed in November then all seven seats will be available, because they will be governed under a new statute.”

The Virginia School District has seven townships in Cass County and a small portion in Morgan County.

Financials from the 2016 Concert in the Cornfield were the highlight of last night’s South Jacksonville Board of Trustees Meeting.

The concert brought in $59,240.50 in revenues and contributed $58,851.07 to the Village’s Tourism Fund.

Trustee Paula Belobrajdic-Stewart says the concert is really about being able to give back to the community.

“The main objective of the Concert in the Cornfield is a tourism event, and in the past there was always a question about the ways the funds were handled, so the past two years we were really careful about making sure the Board knew everything we were doing. So I think now, the numbers we have the past two years, they’re solid numbers, so we can bring those to a committee meeting now and we can talk about it and see what does the Board want to do with the this. Do they want to expand the concert? Do they want to give us an even bigger budget so maybe we can get a bigger name talent? You can’t make decisions like that unless you know what your bottom dollar is,” says Belobrajdic-Stewart.

One addition to this year’s Concert in the Cornfield was a beer tent with local bands performing. Belobradjic-Stewart felt the beer tent had an extremely positive impact.

“People were telling us that they wanted a true beer tent. In past years we just had a tent, you’d walk in and get your beer and walk out, that’s not really a beer tent where you enjoy music. The attendance in there was great, it was wall-to-wall people and that’s what we want. So if we can give the people something that they’re asking for, that naturally means they’re going to attend. We sold much more in beer than we did in past, and there are different things we can do to improve on that some more, and that’s what we want to do, get bigger and better every year. But again, it’s at the Board’s discretion, and now I feel like they have the tools to make a really wise decision,” Belobrajdic-Stewart explains.

While Belobrajdic-Stewart says a lot of times, people get too caught up on how much money the concert made or how many people attended, she was quick to emphasize the hard work of John Green and Tiffany Peters.

“Unless you’re really involved, you don’t understand the man-power hours that really go into creating an event like that, and our Water and Sewer Superintendent, our Utilities Superintendent John Green, he’s tremendous, he knows everything and when you say there’s a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ it’s definitely John Green. And this year we had the addition of the Office Manager Treasurer Tiffany Peters. She’s incredible because our bottom line is numbers, valid, transparent, clear numbers, and if anyone’s got a question she’s got the answers. And it’s the public, they have a right to ask, and we have the answers and that’s because of Tiffany,” says Belobrajdic-Stewart.

Also discussed at last night’s meeting were the events during the week of Veteran’s Day, as well as an update on the tablets for the South Jacksonville Police Department.

Stay tuned for our afternoon broadcast to hear from South Jacksonville Police Chief Josh Hallock on the progress of those tablets.

An Illinois College graduate was among the thousands of Chicago Cubs fans who witnessed Game Seven of the World Series in Wrigleyville.

Even though the final game of the series was being played in Cleveland, die-hard Cubs fan Spencer Campbell made the trip to Chicago to see the Cubs break a 108 year World Series drought.

Instead of paying $100 to get into a bar outside of Wrigley Field, Campbell and his friends walked about a mile down Clark Avenue to the Hutch American Bistro. Campbell says the packed bar went through an emotional ride of highs and lows throughout Game Seven.

“I don’t think you could draw it up any better than that. We go up 5-1, they tie it up at six and when that game got tied up the whole energy of the city escaped. Everyone’s heads were down, nobody said a word and the bars were silent. You go to extra innings and that place erupted. It was incredible,” says Campbell.

Campbell says experiencing the thrilling extra inning classic in the Windy City was “the best sports moment of his life.”

“It was absolute mayhem. We came out of the bars a mile from the stadium and the streets were jam-packed with people. We were just getting shoved around the second we got into the street. It didn’t matter though because everyone was smiling. I’ve never experienced so many high fives in life,” says Campbell.

Preliminary Nielsen ratings show the Cubs 8-7 win over the Indians was the most watched World Series since Game Seven of the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks.