Local News

Police prepare to rush into a home on the 100 block of Arista Lane Friday where a man reportedly broke into the occupied home.

Fourteen middle school students from the small agricultural community of Kawakami, Japan, arrived with their chaperones Wednesday in Watsonville, their sister city.

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Law enforcement officials around the county are gearing up in an effort to keep illegal fireworks off the street this summer, as Fourth of July approaches and residents who have been cooped up for months look to blow off steam. Enforcement has become...

Santa Claus greets Tricia and Oliver Potts of Watsonville (center) and others Saturday during the Aptos Holiday Craft Fair and Tree Lighting in Aptos Village.

On Monday, 27-year-old Brenda Duarte was standing alongside a pile of her belongings in between the train tracks and the Pajaro River Levee, wondering where she was going to sleep that night after a planned levee eviction uprooted her.  Surrounding her were scores of recently...

WATSONVILLE—About 15 people sat quietly in rows of chairs facing an altar of votive candles, flowers, photographs and memorabilia in a carport near downtown Watsonville on Sunday. Just hours prior, an 18-year-old man who, family says, had moved to the U.S. from Oaxaca, Mexico a...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville City Council on Tuesday approved an additional $207,445 charge from Harris & Associates, Inc. for design services on the Rail Trail Lee Road to Walker Street Project. In total, the city will now pay the Concord-based company $329,110 to design its stretch of...

SANTA CRUZ—Service Employees International Union Local 521, the union representing the majority of Santa Cruz County workers, has called for a strike after a majority of employees voted in favor of the action. While saying that they are still willing to negotiate, union officials say...

A weekly column that celebrates local businesses — especially eateries, watering holes, coffee shops and the like.

For 15 years, city leaders have been looking for ways to re-envision the Capitola Mall, which like many of its shopping-center brethren across the U.S., has lost a measure of the luster it had a few decades ago, the neon-colored heyday of the 80s. And...