Cleveland Scene

Flock’s 100 cameras may be remaining in Cleveland after all, Cleveland City Council’s Safety Committee decided in a 5-2 vote following a marathon, four-hour meeting on Tuesday. The six-month renewal will go before full Council next week. Michael Polensek, Charles Slife, Richard Starr, Joe Jones and Kevin Conwell voted yes—Conwell switching his vote from a previous hearing in which the commitee voted against renewal. Council members Nikki Hudson and Stephanie Howse-Jones remained opposed.

One year ago, the Republican “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” made the largest cuts to food stamps in the history of the program. Now 100,000 Ohioans are going without help and the state is bracing for enormous new costs without federal help. The Trump/Republican spending law made the largest cuts ever to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is largely used by children, older adults, and those with disabilities. The cuts to SNAP have impacted millions of in-need Americans.

Taj Mahal has won five Grammys, one as recent as last year, along with a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy. He has played with the Rolling Stones numerous times. The 84-year-old legend has cemented himself as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, performer, recording artist, and sought-after collaborator, but he’s not ready to look back just yet. “I’m always engaged in it, every day,” says Mahal, who plays the Music Box Wednesday night.

Three years ago, indie rockers Death Cab for Cutie embarked on a tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their fourth album, Transatlanticism. On that trek, they discovered the less-is-more ethos that would inform their latest album, I Built You a Tower. “With any artist, you dip into different recording means,” says singer-guitarist Jason McGerr via phone from his Bellingham, WA home. Death Cab for Cutie performs at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15, at Jacobs Pavilion.

Our weekly picks of the best things to do in Cleveland this weekend. Also check out our full Cleveland event calendar. THU 07/09 BorderLight Theatre Festival Founded in 2015, BorderLight Festival is a nonprofit whose mission is to present innovative theater that “inspires, builds cross-cultural understanding, and celebrates the diversity of the human experience,” as it’s put in a press release.

Average Ohio residential utility bills are now projected to be about $800 for the summer, a new report says. That’s a 17% increase over the $682 Ohioans paid last summer, said the report, by Washington, D.C.-based Third Way. The estimates are of total average electricity costs from June to September. They were done using data from Heatmap News, which collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create the Electricity Price Hub.

Ohioans will see changes to student loans as a result of the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill. A handful of policy changes for student financial aid borrowing and repayment took effect last Wednesday, one year after President Donald Trump signed the massive bill into law. “We’re already facing a huge affordability crisis, and folks are already saddled with so much debt that isn’t just student loan debt,” said Amy Czulada, senior advisor for outreach & engagement for Protect Borrowers.

Welcome to Ask a Cleveland Sex Therapist. Want to ask Matt a question that could be tackled in a future column? Click here. Now, onto this week’s topic. One of the most common concerns I hear as an AASECT certified sex therapist sounds something like this: “I don’t understand what happened to my sex drive.” People often assume there is something wrong with them.

Ah, the 1980s. Aquanet, a burgeoning new trend called “music videos” hosted by “VJs” and a synthesizer, helped to rewrite the music scene. A trifecta of bands played the recently rechristened Northfield Park Racino last week. The 1980s produced a ton of British bands, aptly named the Second British Invasion, as they took over MTV’s airwaves for the better part of the decade. Three of those outfits played an almost-four hour concert in the beautifully air-conditioned venue.

“It’s Friday night and we’re slammed,” says Nolan Konkoski, chef and owner of Soho in Ohio City. “You have a rail full of tickets in the kitchen to deal with and the power goes out. The cooking equipment still works because it’s all gas, but the hoods stopped working, the AC stops working and suddenly it’s 90 degrees inside. Diners are asking for their checks, everybody’s miserable.