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Watsonville
February 3, 2026

Restoration of iconic Watsonville High mural begins

watsonville high mural yermo aranda
WATSONVILLE—The Watsonville High School community last year was shaken when a beloved three-decades old mural on the wall of the school’s cafeteria was painted over during a construction project. The move, directed by site administration and the district facilities department, outraged the artists involved in...

Tsunami warning issued after Russian earthquake

Officials from the National Weather Service have issued a tsunami warning after magnitude 8.7 earthquake occurred at 4:25pm 80 miles southeast of Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka in Russia. The resulting tsunami is expected to hit California’s coastal regions at about midnight. According to the National Weather Service, a...

UPDATE: Domestic dispute leads to highway closure

A domestic quarrel between a man and a woman in Watsonville led to a police pursuit on Highway 1 Friday that shut down the northbound lanes for nearly an hour. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies spotted the separate vehicles being driven by the man and...

Pajaro River Levee project at risk after Trump claws back some funding

pajaro river levee alex padilla jimmy panetta
President Donald Trump has taken millions of dollars already allocated to blue states—and reallocated the funding to red states—impacting a wide array of ongoing critical infrastructure projects, including the Pajaro River Flood Management Project. In a press conference Thursday,  U.S. Democratic Senators Alex Padilla and...

Santa Cruz Police warns of phone scam

The Santa Cruz Police Department on Tuesday warned residents to beware of a scam in which callers purporting to be police officers threaten arrest unless the victim pays money.

About Town, Week of Oct. 21

Oct. 25, 2019 Tarmo Hannula: Twelve wildland fires are burning around the state, forcing widespread evacuations, destroying scores of homes and buildings, closing freeways and roads and sending herds of firefighter strike teams to out-of-county responses. In Sonoma County, 21,900 acres have burned in the...

Watsonville man arrested for allegedly sexually abusing girl

Francisco Guzman-Marin watsonville
WATSONVILLE—Watsonville Police on Friday arrested a man for allegedly sexually abusing a young girl. Francisco Guzman-Marin, 66, was charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14. He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, jail records...

PVUSD: Strong voter support for possible bond

pvusd trustees
Pajaro Valley Unified School District would likely have enough voter support for a $315 million bond if it went on the November 2024 ballot. That was the message to the Board of Trustees Wednesday from Dale Scott, whose eponymous consultancy company conducted a straw poll...

WPD: Two DUI drivers crash into police cars on same night

Two men were arrested within a 30-minute period on Friday for two separate incidents during which they allegedly got behind the wheel while drunk and crashed into Watsonville patrol vehicles, Watsonville Police spokeswoman Michelle Pulido said Monday.

New interim manager: the Santa Cruz County Fair is a go

ken alstott santa cruz county fair interim CEO
The interim manager of the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds has a message for the community as the summer draws near: with a team of people ready to help and a community ready for the much-loved event, the fair is on track to open as...
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Jim Barsi talks about the sale of Barsi's Liquor Store in 2019.

Jim Barsi—owner of Barsi’s Liquor Store—dies

James Joseph “Jim” Barsi, who ran his eponymous liquor store on East Lake Avenue for a half-century before selling the business and retiring in...