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Don’t look now: Tax-filing day coming quickly

When the Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 3 that the coming tax season is destined to cause headaches for filers, many taxpayers no doubt already were fearing the worst. The last two filing seasons, for 2019 and 2020, were nightmarish for millions of taxpayers, especially those who had filed paper returns and were due a refund. For many tax filers, the tax-filing seasons covering those two years were complicated by taxpayers who not only filed paper returns, but who also opted to receive their refunds by paper checks delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, which has been having its ...

Our view: Chance for communities to look within

This new year, amid its “infancy,” is witnessing investigations on numerous fronts, domestic and foreign. In the United States, criminal, political, medical and disaster-related probes are only a fraction of the points of determined, seemingly unrelenting focus. Some of those investigations, many details and parameters of which remain under the proverbial radar, will no doubt move to center stage as the months of 2022 come and go. Meanwhile, few people tie the word “investigation” to the day-to-day routines of local-level communities and their units of government, but ...

Pandemic’s effect on kids should be focus

At some point during the hopefully not-too-distant future, whether or not COVID-19 has been defeated or at least relegated to an ailment no worse than the “common” flu, school districts of this region should launch a cooperative mission aimed at assessing fully the impact of the pandemic on their students and, perhaps as much as possible beyond that, students’ households. Regardless of the methodology used to turn the information into a comprehensive “manual” for future reference, the important point is what educators, schools, parents and school districts are learning from ...

Let’s work to assure 2022 isn’t a sequel to 2021

Regarding the motion picture industry, most people look forward to sequels about as often as brand-new movies. News about a forthcoming sequel, in probably most instances, generates as much genuine excitement among moviegoers as when they hear that certain new films are on the way. As moviegoers can attest, Christmas is a time of the year when a number of new movies debut on the big screens. It was obvious that the movie industry would not be spared adverse impacts of COVID-19. Now it can be said the industry, like the rest of the economy, will continue to feel negative impacts in ...

Our fragility has become new reality

There will be myriad expressions of opinion about 2021 put forth in the days ahead, probably most of them bad. But, all considered, the Bedford Valley Assembly of God Church along Route 220, south of Bedford, expressed one kind of opinion that should be dominant as people reflect on the happenings of the past 12 months. On its message board in front of the church, during part of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the church proclaimed “Be thankful for God’s love.” No doubt such thinking helped guide many people during the darkest days, weeks and months of COVID-19, ...

Christmas Eve is time of gratitude

Too frequently, adults can be heard muttering the words “I’ll be happy when Christmas is over and life can return to normal,” amid their frustrations regarding gift-buying and all the other preparations leading up to the holiday. However, let the truth be told: Christmas melts the hearts of even the most “sour souls” among us who proclaim, as the holiday season is getting underway, that they do not have time for it. By the time Christmas Eve — today — arrives, most are caught up too in the preparations that have been consuming others around them for weeks. The last ...