*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* River Bender | EV Manufacturer Ymer Technology Announces Opening of U.S. Headquarters in Illinois: Ymer Technology, a manufacturer of electric vehicle (EV) components for the heavy equipment industry, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), Lake County Partners, and the Village of Buffalo Grove, announced the grand opening of its new U.S. headquarters in Buffalo Grove. The company’s $5.7 million investment, bolstered by a Reimagining Energy and Vehicles in Illinois (REV Illinois) agreement, will enable Ymer Technology to produce cooling technology and thermal management systems for EVs while supporting Illinois’ clean energy economy.

* Lake County News-Sun | Efforts underway to revitalize naval station’s ‘zombie village’; ‘No one should be living in Halsey Village’: Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth called it a “zombie village,” and Lake County Board Chair Sandy Hart suggested, “There is not a neighborhood in all of Lake County in a worse condition.” They were referring to the privately managed Halsey Village at Naval Station Great Lakes, where approximately 70.5% of the houses are uninhabitable. Of those, 44 are fenced off in the southwest corner of the project near Green Bay and Buckley roads.

*** Statehouse News ***

* WTTW | Homeowner Associations Can’t Ban Native Plants, Thanks to New Illinois Law: “This law gives all folks an opportunity to be part of a collective movement,” said state Rep. Laura Faver Dias (D-Grayslake), who introduced the bill in the General Assembly. “The reality of climate change can be debilitating, it’s hard to know where to even start. But now anyone can help restore native habitat right in our own yards.”

* WAND | Illinois lawmakers could create prescription drug affordability board to tackle high prices: A recent Public Policy Polling survey found 75% of Illinois voters take prescription medications on a regular basis. Although, an alarming amount of those people ration their drugs due to cost. “You are being pitted against how much money is being made off the stock market or off of someone’s profit,” said Sen. Robert Peters (D-Chicago). “To me, when we have have a healthcare system that pits you versus the quarterly earnings and there’s no controls to that, that is extremely dangerous to you as the patient.”

*** Chicago ***

* Crain’s | Judge hits Amazon with $148M in interest on Chicago patent verdict: Adding interest to injury, a judge tacked on $148 million in interest payments to a $525 million jury award against Amazon Web Services in a case brought by a small Chicago software maker. […] Kennelly ordered Amazon to pay accumulated interest on the jury award for the more than five years that the case took to work its way through the courts. The two sides finalized the amount yesterday.

* Sun-Times | Chicago Latinos shared some of their top issues at the Democratic National Convention: Ahead of Monday night’s opening events, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza shared that reproductive rights are at stake for Latinas this election. “I’m a woman with a uterus,” Mendoza said. “As far as I’m concerned, Donald Trump has had way too much access to way too many uteruses in his lifetime and he shouldn’t have access to one more,” she said.

* Tribune | Cook County judge who implemented controversial courthouse ban over cellphone ordered to undergo training: A Cook County judge who controversially banned a law clerk from the county’s main courthouse for using a cellphone in her courtroom will undergo training and mentoring, officials said. The order comes after an executive committee convened by Chief Judge Tim Evans investigated the nine-month courthouse ban implemented by Judge Peggy Chiampas for Robert Almodóvar, an exoneree who was issued a certificate of innocence in 2018 and now clerks for a high-profile law group.

* Chalkbeat | Who are the Chicago school board candidates for the 2024 election?: To learn more about the new school board districts and find out which one you live in, Chalkbeat created an interactive map. Many candidates have also begun fundraising for their campaigns, reporting contributions to the Illinois State Board of Elections.

* Crain’s | Chicago Teachers’ Pension prepares to pull Wamco bond investment: The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund is preparing to liquidate its investment in one of Western Asset Management Co.’s flagship bond funds, in an early sign of the potential fallout from federal investigations into the firm. The pension’s investment committee voted Tuesday to recommend terminating Wamco’s Core Plus fixed-income mandate, Fernando Vinzons, Chicago Teachers’ chief investment officer, said in an emailed statement. Wamco managed $550 million for the pension fund at the end of June.

* Sun-Times | COVID-19 also attended last week’s Democratic National Convention, infecting ‘too many’: Health officials say they saw no sign of a COVID-19 uptick after the convention, while attendees grumble on social media about getting sick. One union official said he knows at least 14 people who tested positive since attending the convention.

* Sun-Times | Developers of color shut out of multi-unit family housing in Chicago, analysis finds: Less than a quarter of the developers building multifamily housing in Chicago are led or managed by a person of color, a newly released analysis from the Urban Institute found. The analysis looked at building permits from 2019 to 2023 to identify 207 developers who were requesting permits for housing that included 10 or more units, according to the Urban Institute. From the 207 developers, the Washington, D.C.-based organization narrowed its scope to 177 developers, determining that only 17 had Black leaders, six had Latino leaders and seven had Asian leaders.

* Sun-Times | Girls running lemonade stand get $2,000 gift to attend Chicago Sky Barbie Night game: Jade and Joy Lee, 12 and 11, set up a lemonade stand on the corner of 111th Street and Princeton Avenue with a goal of raising $700. On Tuesday they received a gift of $2,000 for tickets to Friday night’s game. When philanthropist Early Walker, CEO of I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot, heard about the lemonade stand he said he wanted to make sure the sisters were able to attend.

* Sun-Times | Chicago breaks heat record at 99 degrees: The temperature around 3 p.m. reached 99 degrees at O’Hare, surpassing the previous record for Aug. 27 of 97 degrees, set in 1973. With heat and humidity, it could feel somewhere between 105 to 115 degrees outside, the weather service said.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* WGN | Dolton mayor’s Texas trip tab: Tens of thousands billed to taxpayers: Based on a review of Dolton’s credit card statements, WGN Investigates found village taxpayers were charged an additional $33,920 for the same trips to New York, Atlanta, Portland and more. Expenditures include a five-day trip to Austin in July 2023. In attendance were Henyard, her top aide Keith Freeman and three township officials. In all, the group spent more than $20,000 of Dolton taxpayer money in Texas.

* Daily Herald | DuPage County Board welcomes beekeeping on smaller lots: County board members voted 10-8 Tuesday to support zoning code changes to allow beekeeping on lots smaller than an acre. Before the vote, the county only allowed beekeeping on lots greater than an acre. The change sparked debate among board members who worried the potential increase of honeybees would adversely impact native pollinators, like the endangered rusty patched bumblebee. However, board members supporting the change noted honeybees have buzzed about for centuries.

* FOX 32 | Lake County welcomes first courthouse comfort dog: Desi, a highly-trained one-year-old Standard Poodle, has officially joined the courthouse team, becoming Lake County’s only designated courthouse dog. “When first thing in the morning you see this little muppet face who loves to be petted and is such a calm, good girl, I think it changes your attitude about the start of your experience,” said Judge Patricia Fix, Desi’s primary handler.

* ABC Chicago | Illinois reports first West Nile Virus death this year: The person was in their 80s and lived in Lake County, Illinois. They developed symptoms in the middle of this month and died soon after. The Illinois Health Department says nine people across the state have come down with the virus so far this year.

*** Downstate ***

* SJ-R | Massey family makes presence felt at ex-deputy’s court hearing: About 20 to 30 members of Massey’s family and allies packed the courtroom Monday. “Every time Sean Grayson is here for court, you will see the Massey family,” promised Shadia Massey, Sonya Massey’s cousin, afterwards.

* WAND | Blue Mound employee fired due to ‘actions detrimental to the Village’: The village board voted to terminate Jennifer Prasun at a meeting on July 1st. According to minutes from the meeting, employees and board members were encouraged not to discuss particular issues and were instructed to say that she was terminated due to “Actions detrimental to the Village.”

* SJ-R | Rarely before seen Abraham Lincoln-related images now available to public. What to know: According to the library, 129 of the photos are of Lincoln. Some are from his time in Springfield, and some are from his presidency. Almost 200 of the photos are of Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, including some of Lincoln’s coffin when it was unearthed during a construction project in 1901.

* KFVS | Southern Illinois Food Insecurity Summit held at John A. Logan College: Numbers from Feeding America show food insecurity affects approximately 13,000 children across southern Illinois. Jennifer Paulson is working to change that by supplying food and teaching sustainable farming methods through the non-profit Food Works. ”That can look like a lot of things: workshops for farmers, farmers markets, food hubs, and then the snap and link program at farmers markets across southern Illinois,” Paulson said.

*** National ***

* Reuters | AI’s race for US energy butts up against bitcoin mining : The electricity scramble is jolting the energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining industry. Some miners are making huge profits leasing or selling their power-connected infrastructure and sites to tech, while others are losing access to the electricity needed to stay in business. “The AI battle for dominance is a battle being had by the biggest and best capitalized companies in the world and they care like their lives depend on it that they win,” said Greg Beard, CEO of Stronghold Digital Mining (SDIG.O), opens new tab, a publicly-traded bitcoin mining company. “Do they care about what they pay for power? Probably not.”