Opinion

This week, for the first time, The Star has given over its news section to taking note of the people in the area’s hamlets and villages who have gone above and beyond during a time of crisis.

The annual charity Polar Bear Plunge at Main Beach will not be held this New Year’s Day, leaving East Hampton food pantries without the many thousands of dollars usually generated by participation fees.

Here was television at its best: a short documentary in the CBSN “Originals” series following asylum seekers coming up from Colombia into Panama through the Darien Gap. And then they take their chances at the U.S. border.

The East Hampton Town Board is considering banning gas-powered leaf blowers during the warm-weather months and placing curfews on them during the off-season.

Howard Lebwith, who died recently, embodies the Christmas spirit for me inasmuch as he genuinely cared for and celebrated others, acted on their behalf, and always marveled at the beauty of life.

The foot and automobile traffic was considerable when we set out for a ramble at Barcelona Neck just before sunset on Boxing Day.

There has really never been any question about the right thing to do where the Montauk downtown ocean beach is concerned.

They say that in ancient times conjunctions such as Saturn and Jupiter’s were considered ill omens — the gods, people thought, were conspiring.

I would not be surprised to learn that there is a run on puppies this December, and a shortage, as there has been a run on and shortage of Christmas trees here on Long Island.

In a year of unrelenting bad news, the region got an end-of-December gift in the form of language in a federal appropriations bill that would stop the looming sale of Plum Island to the highest bidder.

When East Hampton resident Philip Whitley Churchill-Down, age 63, died last month in a freak clam-shucking accident, America lost its foremost oenological bibliophile and I lost a dear friend.

We could learn something about how to handle a pandemic from 17th-century England.