Ranking the past year’s top news stories in Southern Ocean County as reported in the pages of The SandPaper often feels like shampooing hair: lather, rinse, repeat. Some stories hang around for years and affect the area’s population so powerfully that they become almost perennial contenders. Thank goodness some can be scratched for the 2023 list.

COVID-19, for example, was high up on the list in 2020, 2021 and 2022. It’s still around.