Superintendent Christine Elow has been named acting commissioner of the Cambridge Police Department, effective Saturday. She takes over for Branville G. Bard Jr. as he leaves for a role with Johns Hopkins University after leading the department for four years.

Local minority- and women-owned businesses looking to get in front of customers may get an opportunity at CambridgeSide this month with MPowered, a pop-up shop.

Police commissioner Branville G. Bard Jr. is leaving the Cambridge Police Department to become vice president for public safety at Johns Hopkins University, where he will lead a 1,200-person security and safety operation for the university and health system enterprise.

Boston-based Viv For Your V, which ships its environmentally conscious menstruation products to people’s homes, is planning a bricks-and-mortar Feminist Bodega pop-up shop for August, including goods from a woman-owned business in North Cambridge.

The immediate issue facing the City Council concerns creating a new first response to some calls for help that go to the 911 dispatch system. We hope the city will move forward to do so. But the first response is just that. We must build up the resources and systems available after that first response.

Public meetings this week look at a digital equity timeline, outdoor dining and Alewife traffic congestion; the next fiscal year’s budget, department by department; Covid vaccinations for kids and an Eversource brochure backlash; and affordable apartments proposed for 2072 Massachusetts Ave.

Cambridge city government leaders have good intentions but mixed performance when it comes to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive city workforce, a long-waited consultant’s report says.

Loyalists have often been described as selfist, elitist and cowardly. But they were a more diverse group who opposed revolting against England for a variety of economic, religious, emotional and political reasons, and defining a Loyalist woman is complicated.

A 2021 Diversity Directory of local businesses owned by women and minorities is available to Cantabrigians looking for everything from pastry and home decor to acupuncture and computer repair, with listings up by 54 percent over the previous edition.

This coronavirus edition of movies to shelter with includes a reminder of Tuesday’s Women’s History month film discussion and “Moxie,” an Amy Poehler flick that joins the canon; and the amazing one-shot “Russian Ark” at the Brattle, now in its 20th year as a nonprofit.