Afternoon News Update: Wednesday November 5
- Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn has conceded to Republican businessman Bruce Rauner in the Illinois governor's race. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Rauner had a nearly 5 percentage point lead over Quinn. Quinn stated it was clear that his campaign didn't have the votes to overcome Rauner's lead.
- Republican Governor-Elect Bruce Rauner spent much of the day planning his transition to governor. He's named running mate Evelyn Sanguinetti to chair his transition team. Rauner stated that he's "committed to assembling a diverse and talented team to drive results" for Illinois. He's staying out of the public eye for the day.
- Republican Gary Caruana won his bid for Winnebago County Sheriff last night. The candidate for sheriff touted experience as a reason to elect him after having spent decades for law enforcement.
- Illinois voters have approved a non-binding ballot question on raising the minimum wage. The advisory referendum asked whether the state should raise its minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2015. Supporters hoped widespread support of the question would add momentum to a legislative proposal to raise the wage.
- Illinois' state climatologist says October was considerably wetter than usual. Jim Angel says the statewide average precipitation for the month was 4.5 inches. That's 36 percent more than the 3.3 inches of precipitation Illinois usually gets for the month.
- Stateliners will be able to get an even earlier start for Black Friday shopping. Sears and Kmart are among the national retailers to announce Thanksgiving shopping hours. Kmart will open at 6 a.m. and stay open for 42 hours straight, that's one hour longer than last year. Sears stores will open their doors at 6 p.m.
- Rockton and Roscoe police are searching for two male suspects who allegedly were passengers in a vehicle that failed to pull over after an accident earlier this week. Authorities tell our partners at Eyewitness News they tried pulling over the suspect vehicle for a minor traffic violation. The suspect was heading south on N. 2nd St. when she tried to go around a semi truck, while fleeing the police, but ended up crashing into it. After the crash, two male passengers took off on foot, but the female was arrested. The driver of the semi truck wasn't hurt.
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