The riot at the Capitol may have overshadowed the Georgia special election that elevated Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to the Senate, but it’s too bad it did, because that unlikely turn of events nudged the federal government closer to the ability to actually do something.

As Trump’s thugs vandalized the Capitol, hacking their way through windows and doors, and flooding in, it occurred to me that we ought to watch “Lincoln” that night, that night of all nights.

A market-based strategy to mitigate climate change is embodied in a bill now before Congress called the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The expiring Congress did not pass it, but it will be reintroduced in the new one, where it may have better prospects.

AMAGANSETT

Philip and Stephen Gellos to GBHCAL L.L.C., 22 Clinton Academy Lane, Sept. 9, $1,800,000.

Estate of Mardee Kravit to 57 Hampton Lane L.L.C., 57 Hampton Lane, Nov. 23, $1,800,000.

Melissa and Ross Muken to 8 Gansett Lane L.L.C., 8 Gansett Lane, Nov. 30, $5,750,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

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The Sag Harbor School District on Monday unveiled a preliminary plan to begin administering Covid-19 tests to its students and staff members within the next two weeks.

The list of New Yorkers eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine was expanded this week to include those 65 and older, the immunocompromised, members of police and fire departments, health workers at outpatient facilities including private medical and dental practices, teachers and school staff, child-care workers, and grocery store workers who interact with the public.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has announced that the New York State Department of Transportation has entered the design phase of a project to resurface part of Montauk Highway in Montauk.

Representative Lee Zeldin, who for the last four years has demonstrated near-absolute fealty to President Trump, abruptly shifted his tone with a late-night statement on Thursday in which he acknowledged that President-elect Joseph Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be inaugurated on Jan. 20. 

With East Hampton High School reporting 13 active Covid-19 cases this week and the middle school reporting another nine among staff and students, the two schools will switch to fully remote classes next week, the district announced Friday afternoon.

The East Hampton Clericus, a group of leaders representing the different religious organizations in the community, has planned an interfaith candlelight vigil on Saturday at 5 p.m. via Zoom.

A funeral Mass for Laura Hegner, 55, of Coram, will be said on Sunday at 1 p.m. at St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church in Montauk with burial to follow at Fort Hill Cemetery. Ms. Hegner, a former resident of Montauk, died in her sleep on Saturday. An obituary will appear in a future issue of The Star. 

An effort by some residents of Wainscott to create an incorporated village in a 4.4-acre expanse of that hamlet moved forward on Dec. 30 with the submission to East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc of a petition with over 200 signatures.

Emergency medical service personnel on the South Fork reported this week that 911 call volume was down in 2020 as a whole but up in the usually quiet months of November and December. "People are, I think, afraid to go in the ambulance to the hospital, so things we normally see, we're not seeing people calling for," said Deborah O'Brien, president of the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

Due to a limited supply of Covid-19 vaccines, and the slower-than-expected pace of inoculating frontline health care workers, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday that it would be at least a month before members of the general public can begin receiving vaccinations. 

Few small businesses in East Hampton Town have been more adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic than fitness centers, which were shut down from mid-March through the end of August. During that span, several closed their doors for good and more may soon follow.

Juliana C. Vandervloed Nash, a native New Yorker who owned houses on Montauk Highway in Amagansett and Flaggy Hole Road in Springs, died at home in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan on July 11. She was 81 and had been ill with lung cancer for eight months.

Philip Wayne Hummer, a summer resident of East Hampton who had a wealth management company for nearly five decades, died at home in Chicago on Dec. 18. He was 89 and had been ill with cancer for three months.

Kathleen E. Gosman of Montauk died on Dec. 29 at the Fairview Avenue house she shared with her husband of 60 years, Emmett Gosman. Mrs. Gosman had been diagnosed with cancer eight months ago. She was 79.

Jack S. Kelleher, who worked with the East Hampton branch of Saunders and Associates for 12 years, until 2017, died in Santa Fe, N.M., on Dec. 11. He was 66 and had contracted Covid-19 three weeks earlier.