Affordable housing took center stage at budget hearings Tuesday, with city councillors hoping to increase lower-income homeownership and worrying about even maintaining the status quo amid a change in leadership.

Public meetings this week look at LGBTQ+ issues, Alewife zoning and development, the use of federal Covid recovery funds, the budget for the next fiscal year, a school district sexual misconduct policy, implementing a 988 crisis line and some food, drink and event issues – including a new bubble tea business for Harvard Square.

Public meetings this week look at trash bins and Alewife development (and IQHQ’s plans there), budgeting for the next fiscal year, infrastructure for The Port and meeting candidates to become the next city manager.

Five days after violence that crossed the border into East Cambridge, a public housing project in Somerville was the scene of another gun attack. Two people were arraigned for the Feb. 20 gunfire incident while others were still being looked for, law enforcement officials said.

The harassment of trans and other LGBTQIA+ students in the district has increased dramatically this school year. An incident reporting system called Speakfully was to launch Monday to better capture the extent of the problem, along with complaints about other kinds of sexual harassment.

An 18-year-old Prospect Hill Academy student was arrested Wednesday after bringing a loaded gun to school, police said. The gun lacked a serial number or manufacturer information, making it a “ghost gun” of the sort called a priority of the White House this month.

Public meetings this week look at pausing Porter Square bicycle lanes for removal of a concrete median and overhead trolley wires, removing “hostile architecture,” jobs for a Cambridge Green New Deal, a school sexual misconduct policy and zoning face-off over the North Charles drug therapy clinic.

Orders that could change life significantly for Cambridge’s lower-income residents were approved Monday by city councillors, including a call to put some of the $65 million in federal Covid aid the city is getting into a guaranteed-income program and one that would give all high school students free CharlieCards for bus and subway rides.

Public meetings this week look at approvals and timelines for the next set of bike lanes and a study of their business impacts, a 400-foot tower for Kendall Square that would be the city’s tallest, a pause on office and lab development around Alewife, a possible guaranteed income program for the city’s poorest and much more.

With its second year shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic, the MetroHacks EmpowHer competition helped teens interact over science, technology, engineering and math topics while school was remote and they weren’t seeing peers face-to-face.