Spotted Lanternfly Season: CLE Daily

🌩️ 78°; Thunderstorms

🛝 Slide On: Slick City, a 34,000-square-foot indoor slide park, just opened in Parma — the franchise's first Northeast Ohio location and a rainy-day antidote for stir-crazy kids.

🎨 Mischief Managed? MSCHF — the viral art collective behind Satan Shoes and giant red boots, its name pronounced "mischief" — wants to plant permanent sculptures on Cleveland's lakefront, but the city just hit pause on the rushed approval to rethink it.

🎸 Hooked: The Rock Hall lands 2026 inductee Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order for an Aug. 24 Hall of Fame Series interview, a day after Peter Hook & The Light play the Agora — with tickets on sale July 30.

ICYMI: Pro soccer is coming to Cleveland — Forest City Cleveland kicks off in 2027 and Cleveland Astra in 2028 — and our CLExplained video breaks down the teams, their names and the Downtown stadium plans.

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Trivia Question

This economist, raised in the Cleveland area and a graduate of University School, came up with an eponymous curve that serves as the basis of supply-side economics.

News: Spotted lanternfly season is here.

By Annie Nickoloff

Get ready to stomp: Spotted lanternflies will be flying around Northeast Ohio soon. Adult versions of the invasive insect are already emerging in Northwest Ohio, according to Jonathan Shields, the Ohio Department of Agriculture Inspection Manager, and Northeast Ohio will follow suit. So will much more of the state — last year, populations were confirmed in 32 counties.

• Bugs Everywhere: From 2020 until 2024, only 18 counties in Ohio had spotted lanternflies. That number nearly doubled in 2025.

• Local History: Spotted lanternflies were first seen in Ohio in 2020, and in Downtown Cleveland in 2021. While it's harmless to humans and animals, they can be an annoyance for homeowners and can damage some plants and trees, including tree of heaven.

The spread of spotted lanternflies has been so intense that the Department of Agriculture issued a statewide quarantine for the pest this February. The quarantine primarily focuses on commercial industries, Shields says, so that the department can limit the spread of spotted lanternflies hitchhiking on products into new parts of the country.

Jonathan Shields: “It allows us to work with nursery growers, which is probably the highest risk industry, and we get them under a compliance agreement that basically says that they're going to take the steps that are necessary to ensure that the products that they send out of the state of Ohio are free of spotted lanternfly. For the most part, that means they're treating before they're shipping it out.” 

Read more about spotted lanternflies' spread in Ohio.

Talk of the Town

Renting is getting pricier. Ohioans now must earn $24 an hour to afford a two-bedroom rental, up 5% from 2025, according to a new national housing report. 

Cleveland's grid is on notice. Federal regulators have given PJM — the grid serving 67 million people across 13 states, including Ohio — a two-month deadline to overhaul its system amid rising demand.

The state auditor is eyeing City Hall. The Ohio auditor is scrutinizing Cleveland City Council's practice of handing out grocery-store gift cards to residents, questioning how the giveaways are tracked. 

More than books. A peek inside Cleveland Public Library's renovated Stokes Wing reveals a MakerSpace with 3D printing, a rare map collection and a 10th-floor lounge with lake views — a free downtown escape. 

A boost for Highland Square. Business owners in the Akron entertainment district approved a special improvement district to fund added security and beautification projects.

Sports: Cleveland Public Library gets a moment in the spotlight with Donovan Mitchell.

By Chloe Banno

It isn’t every day that Cleveland Public Library allows dribbling of basketballs between its shelves. For Donovan Mitchell, they made an exception.

On July 18, Adidas Basketball released an advertisement as part of its campaign with Cleveland Cavaliers star and fan favorite Donovan Mitchell. The backdrop for the advertisement promoting the D.O.N. Issue #8 shoes is not what you’d expect. It isn’t Rocket Arena, or any other basketball court for that matter. Instead, bleachers are replaced by bookshelves and onlookers' shushes take the place of applause, as Mitchell weaves through the elegant lobbies and aisles of Cleveland’s historic Main Library.

Authentically Cleveland: With golden chandeliers, artistically moulded and painted high ceilings and Roman-esque cement columns, the historic integrity of the building shines bright behind Mitchell’s resonant performance. The library itself was not the only authentic piece, though. The librarian shown sporting a bright red beret in the ad is actually one of its librarians, Annisha Jefferies.

Andrianna Sheriff, CPL marketing communications Manager: “The final product is absolutely beautiful. It was really surreal to see when they finally dropped the ad on Instagram. The library is already a place for creativity and learning and community, so it just felt like a natural backdrop for a campaign about imagination and inspiration for the city.” 

Read more about Donovan Mitchell and the library.

Give the local style scene some love by voting for your favorite shopping spot in Cleveland Magazine's Best of Cleveland. Fashion boutiques, spas, hair salons, gift shops, markets and more are taking the stage, as the spots that received the most nominations face off in final voting.

But we're all winners for simply living in Cleveland, right? Cast your vote now through Friday. 

Find the ballot, here.

Yesterday's Trivia Answer

In the 1970s, a World Team Tennis League was started, and Cleveland got a team, which played variously at Public Hall and then at Richfield Coliseum, as well as “home” games in Pittsburgh, Nashville, Miami and New Orleans, where the team eventually moved in 1978. What was that team’s name? The Nets

Check back tomorrow for the answer to today's question

From the Editor

This spot has been a little sports-heavy recently, so bear with me. But Donovan Mitchell deserves a hat tip today.

The Cavaliers star, since he arrived in 2022, has chosen Cleveland over leaving every time. He points to the city and to how ownership treats him and all of the players as the reasons why. Now if someone paid me $273 million over four years, I would have nice things to say, too.

But Mitchell seems to back his words with actions. He is around town. He does promote the Cavs and city to the rest of the sports world. So while our greatest superstar elected not to return for a third time.

Our present star is here.

— Ron Ledgard

Have a story idea? Tell us what we should cover at conversation@clevelandmagazine.com.

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