Stepping into Diaspora Salon, tucked into a cozy corner of Charles Village, is instant sensory time travel, transporting me back to hanging out at the beauty shop with my grandmother on a Saturday morning. It’s in the sound of chatter and easy laughter over soulful music. The feeling of fingers pressed lovingly but firmly into your scalp. The sight of Afrocentric art. The women of all ages and every imaginable warm shade of brown, united in the hopes of transformation.

Summer is here for American workers, and that often means vacation time. Many workers, however, are spending their days off checking work emails, getting bombarded by texts from bosses and answering phone calls from colleagues.  A new survey of 2,300 people by online learning platform ELVTR found that about 20% of workers have been asked to check their emails while on vacation. Another 25% get work-related text messages while off.

A “large gun apparatus” that was used to blow plumes of medical cannabis smoke into people’s mouths is among a slew of violations that led to the shutdown of the Cookies dispensary in Federal Hill barely a week after it opened. The Cookies dispensary had its license suspended by the Maryland Cannabis Administration on June 2, just days after its grand opening on May 27.

State officials are edging closer to an official start of a long-awaited effort to resurrect a canceled east-west transit line. Gov. Wes Moore (D) vowed on the campaign trail to revive the project formerly known as the Red Line. The governor is poised to make a transportation announcement in Baltimore that has some advocates watching in anticipation of a sign of life for the long dormant project.

There was an intriguing poll released recently by Gonzales Research & Media Services, the Anne Arundel County-based polling and data analysis firm. Gonzales pollsters asked Marylanders what they thought of Gov. Wes Moore’s plan to end sales of new gas-powered vehicles in Maryland by 2035 in order to switch to electric — as California has done.

City Council members don’t have powers to touch Baltimore’s share of $641 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act aid — a source of frustration for some on the panel. But the budget season coming to an end soon has offered a window into what could be an evolving plan to spend the city’s pandemic windfall in time for federal deadlines.

Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) is unlikely to run for the Maryland 6th Congressional District, based on a statement from her team. “Miller plans on continuing to serve the people of Maryland and serving as a partner to Governor Moore. She has stated there is nothing she’d rather be doing than serving as Lieutenant Governor,” a spokesperson told MoCo360 in an email Monday morning.

The Maryland Stadium Authority is seeking tenants for 50,000 square feet of office space in The Warehouse at Camden Yards, a tough sell in a market where vacant space is bountiful. The Maryland Stadium Authority Board of Directors approved three leases totaling about 15,000 square feet at the warehouse at its June meeting. But the focus of the board’s discussion centered on the remaining vacant space in the 430,000-square-foot warehouse.

Nearly a quarter of all Montgomery County Public School students are currently considered “chronically absent,” according to new data shared with MoCo360 this month. A comprehensive action plan to address absenteeism was mentioned publicly in March and is expected to be released before the start of next school year.