The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center has become one of the first educational institutions here to announce a pause on in-person attendance following the holiday break, with planned closures Monday and Tuesday.

Starting in January, the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons will become a vaccination site operated in partnership with Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. It replaces the Parrish Hall vaccination site near the hospital and will allow for three times as many appointments each day.

During the 101st Audubon Montauk Christmas Bird Count, 125 species were spotted, the rarest a western kingbird found by Mike McBrien just off Fernwood Drive. The birds are great, but so are the people, some of whom have returned to take part in the count for 50-plus years.

East Hampton Library will collaborate with LTV to preserve and make freely available noteworthy content in LTV’s archive of more than 22,000 programs, depicting more than a century of East Hampton’s history.

A deteriorating bulkhead on Lake Montauk and lingering questions about a large yoga pavilion are the main sticking points for a proposed “artists’ retreat” that would involve the complete reconstruction of 17 cottages and a large single-family house at 31 East Lake Drive in Montauk.

Many of us are once again struggling with a sense that this pandemic will never end. History tells us this isn’t the case, that this pandemic, like all of the others that have come before, will eventually cease and life will return to some semblance of “normal.”

When he leaves East Hampton for retirement, Richard Barons will leave behind big shoes to fill — most likely a pair of shoes dating back to the 18th or 19th century, donated by a family that lived here for generations and whose original owner, judging by the worn soles, might have been a merchant or a schoolteacher.

As Covid-19 cases have risen, demand for testing has too, with long lines reported at East Hampton Town’s test site at its Center for Humanity on Stephen Hand’s Path, run by CareOne Concierge, and the town warning that results may be slower in coming — and that testing materials are in short supply. The facility was closed Thursday to patients seeking tests for that reason.