COVID-19

SACRAMENTO—Outdoor dining and other services can resume after Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ended the state’s regional stay-at-home order based on intensive care unit (ICU) capacity.  In its place, the state has returned to the Blueprint for a Safer Economy and the color-coded tier system...

WATSONVILLE—Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s budget has improved somewhat since the summer, when grim projections showed the district possibly unable to meet expenses for the next three years. The district’s Board of Trustees heard the news in a budget update on Wednesday. That situation, known as...

The staff at the Santa Cruz County Clerk's office were busy late last night and early today hauling in the ballots from Tuesday’s voting across the county. Evelyn Jones, who has been Clerk III since 1990, said she enjoys the work and recalls, in...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The Santa Cruz County Office of Education said Tuesday that every school district in the county is working together to address the outbreak of coronavirus, also known as COVID-19. There have been no cases of the virus confirmed in Santa Cruz County, and...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—The World Health Organization on Wednesday classified COVID-19 as a pandemic, as lawmakers and leaders worldwide grapple with rapidly growing numbers of cases. There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have died. Thousands more have been hospitalized,...

Sweeping measures are unfolding across the globe in dealing with the coronavirus, which has sickened more than 187,000 and killed 7,400 people, including 111 in the U.S. The White House is now pushing for a huge stimulus package of $1 trillion to help bolster...

WATSONVILLE—“Hello?” “Yes, are you there?” “Can you hear us?” “Please, unmute your mic.” Those tech-trouble-induced phrases dominated Watsonville City Council’s Friday morning emergency meeting concerning a proposed eviction moratorium for tenants affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. The pleas of roughly a half-dozen property managers and landlords that scrambled to...

MONTEREY COUNTY—Monterey County health officials on Saturday announced the first death of a county resident that had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Officials said the victim was an “adult individual” who had an “underlying health condition” that made them more susceptible to the highly-contagious virus that...

Congress is still hammering out details on a $2 trillion rescue package to help the country weather the coronavirus outbreak. Financial relief in the package is aimed at helping large corporations, the airline industry, hospitals and public transportation. In addition, around $367 billion is...

MONTEREY COUNTY—The Monterey County Agriculture Commissioner’s Office, Supervisors Luis Alejo and Chris Lopez, along with Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, Monterey County Farm Bureau, Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association, Coastal Growers Association and California Strawberry Commission recently released a model Advisory for Agriculture...