Residents can cast their ballots on Tuesday in fire district elections across the region, granting five-year terms to commissioners who oversee finances and operations in local fire departments. The Springs and Bridgehampton districts have contested races this year; in Amagansett, there is a separate proposition on the ballot.

The Town of East Hampton has finalized an agreement with Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource, the developers of the proposed 15-turbine South Fork Wind project, that grants the companies easements to land the installation's export cable and bury it on a path to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton in exchange for a nearly $29 million community benefits package.

Christopher Avery Clark, a lifelong visitor to Drew Lane in East Hampton and the founder of Clark Construction in New York City, died of congestive heart failure in New York on Sept. 26. He was 62.

A common theme emerged this year as school districts went through their routine audits: The Covid-19 pandemic has motivated some to hold on to more surplus funds than in past years, despite a state law limiting the amount of money a district can retain.

For those seeking to shop locally this holiday season, the Village True Value Hardware Store in East Hampton now has a special section of locally made products.

Moooove over, chickens. At the Bridgehampton School, which welcomed a flock of barred Holland hens earlier this year, kindergartners have "adopted" a calf through a Discover Dairy adopt-a-cow program, the school recently announced.

The East Hampton School District on Tuesday began offering free breakfasts and lunches to all students as part of a state-funded program intended to relieve the stresses of Covid-19 on families. The program will run through June 30.

The Bridgehampton School was the beneficiary in November of expedited work by the Suffolk County Water Authority to install mains that connect the district's newly built classrooms and fitness center to the public water supply.

The new Pushcart anthology of the best of the small presses is heavy on sincerity, light on cynicism; heavy on depth of feeling, light on cheap shots.

A fabulous variety show, tree decorating, book clubs, and activities galore from Project Most.

Bill Evans, chief meteorologist at WLNG Radio and the National Weather Service, was at least honest about the likelihood of a white Christmas on the East End this year. "Eleven percent chance," he said apologetically, adding, "That's why, when Bing sings, he says, 'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.' He's dreaming of it!"

Saint Augustine points to the early Christians’ tradition of celebrating Christmas in the winter as anything but coincidental. In the Northern Hemisphere, we have just passed the darkest day of the year and now move into a period of ever-increasing light and a new year brimming with hope and enthusiasm.

Christmas was a new experience when I married into a local family and settled in Amagansett in the early 1960s. Neither my upbringing, which was secular and Jewish, nor my college years or gad-about life in New York City as a young woman of bohemian leanings had been at all Kris Kringle-y.

Calls for change — for justice system reforms and an end to systemic racism — echoed throughout 2020 in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and others. That is why, when James Banks of Southampton celebrates Kwanzaa this December, he will reflect a little more closely on some of the principles of the holiday — most notably, he said, "unity."

At Christmastime in East Hampton, the festive lights across town enliven holiday spirits. This is the story of one of those spirits.

With the opening of the Sag Harbor Cinema Center delayed because of the pandemic, Jamie Hook, the executive director, is using the time to brainstorm ways to usher the theater from its art house past to a blockbuster future.

Thanksgiving wasn't just a one-day holiday, in the eyes of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. It marked the start of 37 days of dangerous revelry — 37 days in which state and local officials are predicting Covid-19 infection rates will surge as people shop, gather, travel, and celebrate.

Many brilliantly talented chefs declare "I hate to bake; I can't do pastry." That is because while cooking and baking are life skills and arts, pastry and baking are also science and chemistry and require precision without variation. To start with basic baking, you don't need a lot of equipment, but you do need the correct equipment.

Fish and farmers markets through the winter holidays, wine tastings virtually, dinner specials, and more

A last-gasp effort by the Trump administration to mess with the 2020 census to undercount as many as 10.5 million people living in the United States with proper documents appears to have run into immovable opposition from the Supreme Court.