Asbury Park Press
Nonprofit begins work on home in Eatontown
EATONTOWN — At the end of a side street just off Tinton Avenue, in a cul de sac, sits a grassy property a bit larger than a third of an acre. On Oct. 14, officials from Monmouth County Habitat for Humanity gathered there with shovels to celebrate the...
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VOTER ELIGIBILITY INQUIRY PROCEEDS
TOMS RIVER – A state Superior Court judge on Tuesday, Oct. 13, cleared the way for the Ocean County Board of Elections to proceed with inquiries into the voting eligibility of dozens of Bay Head residents, setting the stage for a raucous, emotionally...
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Verizon seeks to retire NJ landlines
For more than a century, copper phone lines were a fixture in New Jersey homes. Now Verizon wants to retire what remains of that network, raising questions about whether the state’s last landline customers are ready to switch to newer technology. By...
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Feline lovers unite
No kitten – the return of the Catsbury Park Cat Convention brought scores of cat lovers together for a weekend of felines and fun. Happening on Oct. 10 and 11 at Bell Works in Holmdel, the annual event included adoptable cats, educational...
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Trump uses federal power to boost GOP
WASHINGTON – Americans are seeing taxpayerfunded television ads promoting President Donald Trump, government checks are hitting nearly 1 million mailboxes across the country, and federal agents are scouring voting rolls as a midterm election marked by...
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If it’s local you want, we’ve got it.
Our Sunday refresh offers more local news and sports, as well as “Weekend Exclusive” content to help you navigate your lives. So enjoy your Sunday reading filled with stories that will inspire, educate, inform and entertain you.
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A ‘different level’ service
Each Sunday, as Alfred DuBois settles into the pews of Sacred Heart in Clifton and begins singing the traditional Latin hymns, he feels a sense of peace wash over him. “A Latin Mass is more spiritual than the standard service. You definitely feel it on...
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2 schools dominate campus rapes
One of every three rapes reported on New Jersey college campuses in the last four years happened at one of two state universities, according to recently released data. Rowan University in Glassboro and Rutgers University’s main campus in New Brunswick...
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Filling a lot of needs
STAFFORD – The windows gleamed and the paint was spotless inside Ocean County Library’s newest branch as officials and community members gathered to watch the opening of a building that took years to complete. The Stafford branch on Monday, Oct. 5,...
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Lessons from Clyde
COLTS NECK – The only landmark on Heyers Mill Road is town hall, and paying the tax bill isn’t exactly an incentive to stick around. It’s a boring, rural road in a boring, rural town. So you’ll be forgiven – ethically, if not legally – for nudging...
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Child struck, killed by car in Upper Freehold
fatal injuries when a Chrysler SUV reversed out of a parking space and struck both pedestrians, New Jersey State Police Trooper Christopher Postorino said in a statement. The New Jersey State Police provides police services to Upper Freehold, which...
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Dispensary looking to elevate, educate
NEPTUNE – Pink Balloon is the new dispensary on Route 66 that is owned by a local woman who wants the shop to be the cannabis spot for the community while ridding any stigma associated with the drug’s use. Pink Balloon opened on Sept. 9. The name...
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If it’s local you want, we’ve got it.
Our Sunday refresh offers more local news and sports, as well as “Weekend Exclusive” content to help you navigate your lives. So enjoy your Sunday reading filled with stories that will inspire, educate, inform and entertain you.
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VAN DREW TALKS AFTER STORM
HOLGATE – In the wake of a September nor’easter that robbed New Jersey beaches of several feet of sand and dunes, a southern New Jersey congressman wants a new source of federal funding to rebuild eroding coastal areas and protect them from future...
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A long tradition of acclaimed chowder
BEACH HAVEN – Two hundred clams. A 17-gallon pot. Three generations. And stirring. Lots of stirring. This is the recipe behind Country Kettle Chowda, a decades-old family-run business in Bay Village, a collection of shops near the southern end of...
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ROCK OF AGES
Jim and Sandy Lortz first started listening to AC/ DC’s hard rock music in the late 1970s, and it was not by choice. Their adolescent sons used to blast the band’s tunes at their home in Wall. It was a stark departure from the Elvis Presley, Johnny...
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Storm carves cliffs along Jersey Shore
Where there were once sand dunes sloping toward the surf, joggers and dogwalkers and the occasional lookie-loo emerged on Sept. 28 to find towering, sharp sand cliffs carved into what was left of the beach. In the worst-hit communities, the beaches...
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Nor’easter rolls through the Shore
The nor’easter that rolled through the coast this weekend left flooding and damage in its wake across the Jersey Shore. As residents, officials and business owners continue to survey the damages, here’s a roundup of some of the storm’s effects. Stay...
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SHORE FAKERS BEWARE
SEASIDE HEIGHTS – How can you tell when a canine visitor to the borough’s boardwalk is a service dog? It’s become increasingly difficult to figure out, Mayor Anthony Vaz said. After several disputes involving dogs on the boardwalk that code...
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If it’s local you want, we’ve got it.
Our Sunday refresh offers more local news and sports, as well as “Weekend Exclusive” content to help you navigate your lives. So enjoy your Sunday reading filled with stories that will inspire, educate, inform and entertain you.
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FOLLOW TIPS TO BE PREPARED
SEASIDE HEIGHTS – As wind gusts increased across the Jersey Shore on Wednesday, Sept. 23 and a strengthening nor’easter threatened to bring flooding to low-lying areas of the coast, Robby Fuggi was already prepared at his Seaside Park home. Fuggi’s...
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SHARING THE PAIN
The total gas tab for North Jersey-based Chris James Landscaping was just over $68,000 in 2025, according to its longtime owner, Chris James. Significant, sure. But something the business was able to budget for. This year, with gas and diesel prices...
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Artists Guild seeks home help
ISLAND HEIGHTS - Walking into this 146-year-old Victorian mansion that overlooks the Toms River is like going back in time. There’s a wraparound wooden porch. High-ceilinged parlor rooms. Ornate fireplaces. Even a secret back-stairway likely used by...
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GUNMAN SOUGHT IN STORE KILLING
TOMS RIVER – Police were still looking for a gunman Monday who they say shot and killed a motorist in the parking lot of a Wawa convenience store on Sept. 18. Law enforcement officers surrounded the McKinley Avenue home of Douglas Cobb on Sunday,...
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Shore farmers draw buyers to harvest
COLTS NECK – It’s a different kind of fall at Eastmont Orchards this year after a rogue spring freeze destroyed the farm’s apple crop and any hope for a pick-your-own apples season for 2026. “We’re telling customers that we don’t have our primary...
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09.20.26
While digital options are hurting most radio markets, Monmouth and Ocean county stations are bucking the trend by keeping it local
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More homeless people gathering in Toms River
TOMS RIVER – Latesha sat on a bench facing the Ocean County Library on a recent warm late summer day, watching videos on a mobile phone. Beside her, stacked in a small shopping cart, were clothes and shoes, including a bright orange pair of sneakers...
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Music event returns
We know what’s up at the beach, but what’s kickin’ on Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park? The Kickoff on Cookman, presented by Netflix, will include Snacktime, DJ Shepard Fairey, Dentist, the Lakehouse Music Academy Band, and Church and State TM, which...
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U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS SCORES PLUMMET
In the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections, how is the U.S. government performing in terms of human rights? Listening to politicians, it can be difficult to know. On one hand, some have pointed to a number of potential human rights abuses committed...
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Delayed relief
The price of gasoline and diesel usually declines late in the summer, but New Jersey motorists this year are getting hit with higher prices instead as fighting in the Middle East and Russia sends shock waves through the oil market. The stubbornly high...
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NJ HOSPITAL GETS RECORD DONATION
NEPTUNE – An anonymous donor has given $125 million to Hackensack Meridian Health — the largest gift of its kind ever in New Jersey health care — to expand Jersey Shore University Medical Center, the shore’s largest hospital. In a statement on Sept....
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AT THE HELM
New Jersey’s 51st governor In early September 2001, acting New Jersey Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco was marking time as he planned an exit from politics. h Months earlier, the Scotch Plains attorney had abandoned a bid for governor amid a crush of...
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Edward B. Winslow ship part of an era that is gone
Would you love to see a six-masted wooden schooner sailing off the coast of New Jersey or a festival in New York Harbor? To put it bluntly, none of us ever will. Our great-grandparents might have spotted one as they walked along the Asbury Park or...
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‘Food farmacy’ now at Long Branch site
LONG BRANCH – RWJBarnabas Health is launching a “food farmacy” at Monmouth Medical Center, offering nutrition counseling and food to patients who don’t have regular access to fresh produce and other healthy groceries. The program essentially treats...
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‘God’s given me another chance,’ says man pulled from 9/11 rubble
MANALAPAN – In the foyer of Joe Torrillo’s home is a sign depicting the New York City skyline, as it once was, with the words “Never Forget.” For the past 25 years, since he was dug out of the rubble of the World Trade Center’s South Tower on 9/11,...
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Hazlet man fights for first responders
On Sept. 11, 2001, Gary Smiley rushed to the World Trade Center as a paramedic with the New York City Fire Department. He was searching for colleagues who had issued a mayday after the South Tower collapsed. Then he heard rumbling overhead. The North...
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‘I FELT THE HEAT OF THE BLAST’
NEW YORK – On a recent Saturday afternoon, Ed Schmitt stood next to the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan, gazing at the engraved names on the waisthigh monument that marks what was the perimeter of the World Trade Center’s South Tower. His eyes...
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Photographer retraces his steps
Three firefighters stand atop a pile of twisted steel and debris, raising an American flag above the ruins of the World Trade Center. Smoke drifts through the background. The towers are in rubble behind them. The landscape is gray, scarred and...
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3 deaths in 2 years at Stellantis plants
DETROIT – Three workers were repairing a machine at Stellantis NV’s Dundee Engine Plant in Michigan on April 7, 2025, when two stepped away for a break, leaving their third colleague to toil on the large industrial washer alone. Minutes later, one of...
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REMEMBRANCE & RESILIENCE
HOW 9/11 SURVIVORS, NEW YORK CITY AND THE NATION REBUILT.
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Skee-Ball became top game at Jersey Shore
POINT PLEASANT BEACH – Earlier this summer, the Bohler family of Readington — dad, Cody; mom, Allison; and 2-year-old son, Cooper — saddled up to a Skee-Ball game here at Jenkinson’s Boardwalk. “It’s just fun,” Cody Bohler said. “We used to play it...
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‘YOU ALWAYS COME BACK’
COLTS NECK — Marie DeVenezia and Dorothy Featherstone met on the first day of kindergarten in 1937. h “We had just left our mothers, and for some reason, Miss Fisher (the teacher) had us sitting together on a bench,” Marie recalled. “So that’s how we...
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It’s time to say goodbye
A bell-to-bell cell phone ban in New Jersey public schools goes into effect this school year as governments within and outside the United States try to curtail social media’s impacts on youth by limiting access in the classroom. The ban, imposed...
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Kaye remembered as ‘gold standard’
FREEHOLD — For a man who served one of the longest tenures ever in New Jersey in a position that is largely political, former Monmouth County Prosecutor John Allan Kaye was remembered Aug. 31, as a public official who transcended politics and led...
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Columbia House faces the music
Afew months ago, my baby boomer inner child could not resist a novelty T-shirt I saw online. It read: “Columbia House: Life Lessons in Music and Debt Collection.” If you know, you know. If you don’t, gather ’round the turntable, millennials and...
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Eatontown has its first cannabis crop
EATONTOWN – Like any farmer, Richard “Richie” Neale, the CEO of Exotica Gardens, has invested heavily into his crop. But in this case, his crop is high-craft cannabis and his farm is an airtight indoor facility on Industrial Way East. Rather than...
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The Mill Street Tavern
Located at 67 Mill St. in Mount Holly, the Mill Street Tavern has been in business as a bar, restaurant and small hotel since 1723. Look at it this way: by the Revolution, this tavern was already five decades old. While the history of this historic...
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Dolly Parton maze opening at local farm
MANALAPAN – The Stockel family had no way of knowing what was to come when they began planning their farm’s annual fall corn maze earlier this year. h Carved into eight acres of corn at Happy Day Farm on Iron Ore Road is the likeness of Dolly Parton,...
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LGBTQ+ fans mourn Curry, Parton deaths
Tim Curry and Dolly Parton, who both died on Aug. 25, both at age 80, are linked by more than a sad coincidence of timing. Both had strong connections to the LGBTQ+ community. Both were, simultaneously, idols and allies. For many gay people, they were...
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Shark River flooding solutions take shape
NEPTUNE – Fiddler crabs popped in and out of burrows along a stretch of man-made beach, a ribbon of sand along the Shark River that provide important habitat for these tiny crabs and protects homes just yards away. This beach along South Riverside...
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‘Mysterious and important’
HOLMDEL – Almost as “mysterious and important” as the work at Lumon Industries is the filming going on at Bell Works, which is maybe, probably, almost certainly, the hit Apple TV television series “Severance.” No one will admit that “Severance” is...
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Author dedicated to the Westside
ASBURY PARK – Kelly Walker Edwards remembers Asbury Park as a melting pot. Sitting on her grandmother’s porch as neighbors told stories about shared dishes as a little girl on the town’s Westside, she also remembers standing on the corner and watching...
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Lawsuit
to a police radio, and have blocked Salonis from having administrative access to the department’s official Facebook page. The suit also named New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport as a defendant in the case, although she is not named in the...
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Maritime catastrophes are often puzzles for historians
On June 26, 1894, the steam tug Nichol was on its way from New York to Sea Bright and back on what might be considered either a fishing trip or a fun day in Raritan Bay. The New Jersey Maritime Museum Shipwreck Database reports that Captain John Hyde...
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Jackson HOA defends its gender segregation
JACKSON – Attorneys for a homeowner association accused of segregating its community pool by gender claim they have a right to do so because the majority of residents are Orthodox and are following their religious law. In papers filed with the New...
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Family pioneered Black life at Shore
BRIELLE – It’s by the grove of trees on the north side of Green Acres park, where the town once piled the wood chip mounds up high. It’s on the streets between Harris and Agnes, and Old Bridge and Union Avenue. That is the place. That is the place...
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Grandfather in deadly boat crash is out of jail
the outcome of the criminal case against him. Stephen Schneider, 64, of the Bayville section, has been held at the county jail since his arrest on Friday, Aug. 14. He is facing two second-degree counts of reckless vessel homicide, operating a vessel...
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Al-Qaida, Islamic State group integrating AI
Artificial intelligence may not create a new kind of terrorism, but it makes existing tactics cheaper, faster and easier. That is the central argument of a July report from the U.S.-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. It...
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Distinction has eluded lifeguards
The commotion on the Belmar beach on a 95-degree day during the height of the pandemic looked to the veteran lifeguards like a quarrel that turned physical. But when they arrived on the scene that day in July 2020, they discovered a child had gone...
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Building blocks
New Jersey Education Commissioner Lily Laux’s to-do list is daunting — as districts’ budgets flail under a torrent of rising costs, and students — especially in urban districts — lag behind in early reading and college readiness, all while the Trump...
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Alloways Creek ship graveyard holds hidden WWI history
Alloways Creek ship graveyard is a line of 18 World War I wooden steamships. Located in Salem County, southwestern New Jersey, and flowing into the Delaware River, Alloways Creek meanders for 23.2 miles. The mouth of Lower Alloways Creek is the site...
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NJ doctors, nurses push back at order
President Donald Trump’s executive order altering the schedule for pediatric vaccines is likely to be impractical and expensive, and it could continue to chip away at a proven defense against serious illnesses, New Jersey health providers said. Health...
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NJ’S CHAOTIC JULY WEATHER RECAP
July brought some wild weather to the Garden State, with heavy rain and severe storms leading to flash flooding, power outages and downed trees all over New Jersey. On top of that, the state was hit with multiple extreme heat waves throughout the...
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STILL SPINNING
Why is a cockpit called a cockpit? Why is a nightmare called a nightmare? How did sassafras get the name sassafras? Some questions are not so easy to answer. But we can tell you, absolutely, why a Tilt-A-Whirl is a TiltA-Whirl. It tilts. It whirls....
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Quarry plan sparks resident backlash
MANCHESTER – Hundreds of residents flooded a town hall meeting Monday, Aug. 10, to oppose a plan that could permit data center development at a former mining quarry in the northern portion of Manchester. So many residents tried to attend the meeting...
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BIG BITE OF THE APPLE
With a month to go before kids and college students return to school, parents are already getting socked with some of the highest prices in years for back-toschool shopping, experts are saying, as retailers struggle with the effects of the Trump...
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Frost battled with copters and candles
Orchards in New Jersey are typically flush with ripening stone fruit every late July and early August. This year, things aren’t so peachy. A series of freezes — dips in temperature below 32 degrees — hit much of the mid-Atlantic region in April; in...
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Nixon’s Store in Tabernacle
If you recognize the title above – Nixon’s Store – you will smile. If not, get out a New Jersey map or check your car’s GPS and take a ride to the rural, farmoriented area of Tabernacle. You will see old, historic farmhouses and smell the distinctive...
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Sea Bright site still a landmark
SEA BRIGHT − They called it “Poor Man’s Riveria.” When it opened in 1976, Donovan’s Reef had 900 square feet, an outdoor grill, and live music. Its customers included bankers, fishermen and Monmouth Park jockeys. And its drinks were cheaper than the...
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Teachers accused of sexually abusing students at OCVTS
TOMS RIVER – An Ocean County public performing arts high school became a “breeding ground for predatory teachers,” while school and district administrators turned a blind eye, a former student alleged in an explosive lawsuit. At least three teachers...
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A lifeline for movie theaters?
Movie theaters have been experiencing a slow demise since the mid-2010s, with revenue dropping significantly during the pandemic and not returning to former levels. This decline has been exacerbated by streaming services like Netflix, which, since the...
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Curator of NJ curios
A travel influencer is showing the world what residents already know about the Garden State, that New Jersey is anything but boring. From mini-castles in the woods to crumbling stone mansions on clifftops to the Pine Barrens searching for the...
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Surfrider’s family teaches kids safety
ASBURY PARK – A semi-circle of small children watched intently as lifeguard Joe Bongiovanni, Asbury Park’s beach safety supervisor, gave them advice about swimming in the ocean. “While the ocean is a lot of fun, it can be very dangerous,” Bongiovanni...
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Study: Colon cancer home testing risky
When at-home colorectal cancer tests hit the market years ago, they were seen as a more convenient but less precise alternative to a colonoscopy. But a new study led by a Rutgers University doctor shows that many people don’t use the tests correctly....
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Only 2 covered bridges remain in New Jersey
Do you know there are only two covered bridges now in the state of New Jersey? And one may not count because it was built as a showplace for a residential area. New Jersey can brag about many things within our small state: from farming to industries;...
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Residents tired of waiting for cleanup
KEYPORT – Salvatore Liguori Jr. stood before a crowd on the lawn of his Keyport home, where concerned neighbors gathered to discuss the pollution buried just yards away from where they stood. Were those buried metals responsible for cancers in the...
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