Local News

Longtime Watsonville resident Virginia Varni recently celebrated her 100th birthday surrounded by family and friends.  She was born on Jan. 11, 1923 in Breckenridge, Texas to Charles and Grace Leonard. The family moved to Southern California and Varni gave the first-ever radio broadcast from first...

Regeneración-Pajaro Valley Climate Action on March 25 was awarded a $25,000 grant for finishing runner-up in the American Climate Leadership Awards. Nonprofit Executive Director Nancy Faulstich and a group of delegates were set to travel to Washington D.C. for the awards ceremony but instead attended...

Nearly one year after she took the helm of the county’s largest school district, Pajaro Valley Unified School District Superintendent Heather Contreras sat down with The Pajaronian to talk about her accomplishments, and the ongoing challenges facing the district. “It’s been a long year, but...

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...

MONTEREY COUNTY—School districts across the U.S. were on alert Thursday after a challenge posted on the social media application TikTok urged followers to call in shooting and bomb threats to their schools on Friday. Students at North Monterey County High School were ordered to shelter...

Marie Roberts was just 3 years old when she first started to dream of flying. Born in Nebraska in 1928, Roberts watched her father install a large, multi-unit birdhouse in their home’s yard. She was immediately transfixed. “I looked up at those creatures and I started...

WATSONVILLE—An inmate at the Rountree Medium Facility on the outskirts of Watsonville escaped Friday afternoon, leading to an intensive search that ended with his capture later the same day. Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Ashley Keehn said Christopher Dicochea escaped around 3:45pm from the correctional center on...

SISKIYOU COUNTY—The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday arrested a man in connection with the shooting death of a former Santa Cruz County man. Timothy Chase McDonald, 22, of Yreka was arrested for murder and was booked at the Siskiyou County Jail in Yreka. He...

The Appleton Grill will welcome Bay Area musicians Bang Data in a concert on Saturday at 9 p.m.

Watsonville Police Department officers collect evidence on Harkins Slough Road at Sunset Vista Drive where two people were stabbed Tuesday afternoon. WPD Sgt. Mish Radich said four teen males attacked two other teen males at 3:22pm in the neighborhood behind the Target store. After...