News

Holding open a door, picking up litter, loaning a pencil — any of these small deeds can be seen as an act of kindness. It is this character-building that teachers are hoping to instill in summer school students at EA Hall Middle School.

Santa Cruz County officials on Friday cut the ribbon on the first new park to open in South County’s unincorporated region in decades. The 38.5-acre Valle del Pájaro (Valley of the Birds) County Park, under the mantle of Department of Parks, Open Space and Cultural...

Several community leaders and community members gathered at MacQuiddy Elementary School Tuesday evening to call on Driscoll’s, Reiter and other companies to stop using toxic pesticides around schools. “Choosing to farm organically is a decision based on hope and a deep understanding of our interdependence...

WATSONVILLE—For the past year, a group of five local artists has held a series of virtual pop-up art sessions, where participants learned about the artists’ process and were given guidance on how to create their own work. Now, Pajaro Valley Arts (PVA) is displaying the...

WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville man who was shot and killed Sunday afternoon in downtown was working to turn his life around, his mother said. On Wednesday, at a large makeshift altar at the site of where her son died, Roxanne Ortiz said Adrian Ayala, 19, was one...

In celebration of Juneteenth, local arts organizations will come together for Murals / Art / Activism, a multimedia project highlighting the importance of public art in activism. Juneteenth is the oldest national celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. The holiday has seen...

WATSONVILLE—Roughly 60 people—many of them on bikes—gathered on the southwest outskirts of Watsonville on July 17 to celebrate the completion of the first phase of the city’s segment of the Coastal Rail Trail. The ribbon-cutting for the 12-foot wide, quarter-mile-long strip of asphalt between Walker...

Do you have a recent photograph you’d like to share? Send it to us for consideration by emailing it to [email protected] or mailing it to 21 Brennan St., Suite 14, Watsonville, CA 95076. Please include a brief description of the photo as well as the name...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County on Wednesday announced that a man in his 60s died from Covid-19 on Aug. 15. County spokesman Jason Hoppin said that the man was unvaccinated and had underlying health conditions. The death was the 210th in Santa Cruz County attributable to...

The Western Flyer is a 77-foot wooden boat made famous by expeditions of author John Steinbeck and his biologist friend Ed Ricketts. The purse seiner has now found a new home in the Monterey Bay. Built in Tacoma, Wash., in 1937 to fish for sardines in...