Local News

Editor’s note: Evie Kinkead is a junior at Aptos High School. For years, monarch butterflies in California have been endangered.  This is influenced by harmful pesticides infiltrating milkweed, a critical plant in the butterfly's life cycle. This, in concert with rapid urbanization, has led to the...

A piece of Watsonville’s history was torn to the ground Monday as a wrecking crew demolished the Taqueria Mi Tierra restaurant on Freedom Boulevard.  The building was once a popular A&W drive-in restaurant, Rosa’s Mexican restaurant and Mi Tierra until they closed last year.  Plans now...

A huge, boisterous crowd of people protesting recent arrests of immigrants around the country took their message to the streets Monday following a rally in Watsonville Plaza. Several thousand people marched along Main Street to the Overlook Center (Target Store) and back again before heading...

Thousands of people filled the streets in downtown Watsonville Monday afternoon, waving Mexican flags, carrying signs and chanting, all in observance of a Day Without Immigrants, one of numerous protests nationwide against the hardline immigration policies enacted by the new presidential administration. Staying home from...

During a special meeting Friday afternoon, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees appointed a new member to fill the seat left vacant when Kim De Serpa resigned to begin her role as a county supervisor. The board interviewed two candidates who applied...

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday joined several other local elected officials and residents demanding answers into the causes of the Jan. 16 fire at the Vistra battery storage facility in Moss Landing. The board voted unanimously to ask the California Public...

More than 20 restaurants in Santa Cruz County will celebrate the art of pizza making during Santa Cruz Pizza Week, which kicks off Jan. 29.  Local restaurants from around the county are on board for the coordinated promotion, which features special pies, slices and prices. The...

The Santa Cruz County Supervisors Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution to reaffirm the county’s support for its LGBTQ+ residents and for women.  While the county already has a resolution to do so on its books, the move is in reaction to the hardline stance by...

A man considered a sexual predator was arrested Wednesday morning in Capitola when Capitola Police and U.S. Marshals served a federal search warrant on the 1100 block of Sutherland Lane.  George Paul Bishop was wanted for failing to register as a violent child sex offender,...

Santa Cruz County Sheriffs deputies on Thursday arrested a man after he allegedly entered the campuses of two Watsonville schools and banged on several doors. Michael Rocha, 31, was charged with entering school grounds without registering, disrupting school activities and being under the influence of...