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Residents in Santa Cruz County will face steep fines for using fireworks this Fourth of July, including at area beaches. “Illegal fireworks can be a threat to public safety, spark wildfires, and be harmful to the environment, vulnerable residents, and pets,” Santa Cruz County spokesman...

Watsonville Police on Sunday used a newly acquired drone to capture a man in the act of allegedly burglarizing a marijuana growing business. Omar Cortez Ramirez, 40, was charged with first-degree burglary and resisting arrest. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail in lieu...

Just across the Pajaro River from Watsonville in Monterey County, hundreds of seasonal farmworkers are now living in a recently completed housing complex created for them at the end of Susan Street. Buses take them to their job sites, and return them to the gated...

A proposed law that would have retroactively invalidated voter-approved tax measures throughout the state was removed from the November ballot by the California Supreme Court Thursday, a move that came as a relief to jurisdictions that had already budgeted the revenue. The Taxpayer Protection and...

It was 17 years ago that a group of volunteers began to restore the Rancho San Andreas Castro Adobe, a structure whose endurance over its 176-year lifespan helps paint a picture of California history. Now fully restored and equipped with interpretative displays, touchable exhibits and...

Three years after the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors voted to purchase the former West Marine building on Westridge Drive, a convergence of city and county officials gathered at the site Tuesday to celebrate its new incarnation. The 121,000 square-foot South County Government Center...

A man died at Moran Beach along East Cliff Drive in Live Oak Friday. Ashley Keehn of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff'’s Office identified the victim as Hans Materne, 45, of Atlanta, Ga.   The Sheriff’s Office said deputies, Harbor Patrol, State Parks, and fire personnel were...

Elaine Johnson was 15 before she realized that the “aunt” who lived with her grandmother was actually her grandmother’s partner of four decades. In those days, LGBTQ largely had to live in the shadows, lest they draw scorn from a society not yet evolved enough...

This story was updated May 31 at 6:00 p.m. UC Santa Cruz Police called upon law enforcement agencies from several jurisdictions from across the state early Friday morning to dismantle a pro-Palestine encampment and secure the entrance of campus, where roughly 100 students were protesting...

For Michelle Martinez Kamalani and her mother, Judy Martinez of Watsonville, Memorial Day meant setting time aside to visit Valley Catholic Cemetery.  With an electric weed-whacker, a whisk broom,  hand clippers and two bunches of fresh flowers, the pair wandered through the rows of flower-festooned...