Members of the National Guard’s 145th Maintenance Unit returned home from Iraq on Dec. 29 after the company’s first overseas deployment. The unit, which is based out of the Kingsbridge Armory, spent the last 13 months fixing vehicles and air conditioners in the southern city of Nasiriya.

It’s hard to walk a Bronx block without seeing a bright poster announcing the next bachata or reggaeton concert. The signs seem exotic – emblazoned with tough looking men and sexy women – but many originate from a modest printing plant in Bedford Park.

A controversial management company has taken hundreds of tenants to housing court at an extraordinary pace since purchasing dozens of Bronx buildings last year, according to court records.

Much of the time, democracy can run on autopilot without much more than cursory direction from the citizenry. The checks and balances of the three branches of government and annual trips to the polls are sufficient to prevent tyranny.

I knew what was ahead of me when there were no screeching sounds on Tuesday morning. The No. 7 subway track looms outside my bedroom, and the trains emit a hair-raising noise when they go around my bend in Long Island City, Queens. It was eerily quiet at 8 a.m., as it would be for the next three days of the transit strike.

Region 1 Superintendent Irma Zardoya announced that she will retire at the end of next month after more than a decade of overseeing local schools. She will be replaced by Yvonne Torres, a district supervisor and former local principal, on Feb. 1.

The city has identified some possible sites for new school construction in the perennially overcrowded region, but a lack of state funds is preventing work from progressing.

When 2674 Valentine Ave. went abandoned in 1978 and only one tenant was left, residents of its neighbor to the south, 2670 Valentine, rallied to help. Having learned from their own school of hard knocks, they paid the fuel bills so the pipes wouldn’t freeze and eventually people moved back in.

At approximately 2 p.m. on Dec. 7, a construction worker fell five stories to his death while working on a Bedford Park apartment building.