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Watsonville
June 19, 2026

Photo story: Hundreds gather to protest

Around 200 people gathered at Watsonville Plaza Thursday as part of a nationwide movement to protest the Trump administration’s attack on civil and human rights. Organized by Indivisible Santa Cruz County, local union groups, Black Voters Matter, and others, the “Good Trouble Lives On”...

San Juan Road operation not related to immigration

On Wednesday morning, law enforcement officials from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office, the California Department of Cannabis Control, the FBI and the DEA amassed at a business on the 1400 block of San Juan Road in Monterey County to serve a search warrant...

PVUSD trustees approve SRO program

Watsonville SRO
The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday approved contracts with Watsonville Police Department and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office to place uniformed law enforcement officials at the district’s three comprehensive high schools as school resource officers (SROs). These SROs will...

Long-awaited pedestrian bridge opens over Highway 1

As the usual weekday rush-hour traffic began to build up on Highway 1 in Mid-County Wednesday afternoon, it appeared that commuters were facing yet another interminable slog on their way to their destinations. But one thing was different. The first pedestrians and bicyclists began to use...

Man arrested in levee death

Monterey County Sheriff’s deputies on Friday arrested a Pajaro man for the murder of Watsonville resident Jesús Alfonso Duarte Figueroa, whose body was found buried along the Pajaro River levee in April. Bernardino Rickie Sanchez, 61, was booked into Monterey County Jail in lieu of...

Valle del Pájaro park opens in South County

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...

Students visit from Croatia

Four high school students from Croatia arrived July 2 in Watsonville from the Student Ambassador Exchange Program of the Slavic American Cultural Organization (SACO).  They are part of Watsonville’s Sister City program they share with Cavtat, Croatia.  Using Watsonville as their home base, their visit includes...

Health providers sound alarm on OBBBA

A group of state lawmakers and local medical providers gathered Tuesday at the Santa Cruz Community Health Center in Live Oak to sound the alarm on President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA). Despite its name, the bill will remove millions of people...

Community invited to National Night Out

The public is invited to National Night Out, a series of gatherings held in communities throughout Santa Cruz County on Aug. 5 from 3-7pm. National Night Out Against Crime is a chance for people to meet the police officers, firefighters and first-responders who help them...

Monterey County Sheriff: ‘Bomb’ was lost computer

A suspicious bag left leaning against a California Highway Patrol vehicle in Prunedale Monday—which prompted a response from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad and the brief detainment of the man who left it—turned out to be nothing more than a lost computer bag. According...
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cesar chavez middle school mural

Cesar Chavez Middle School’s possible new names unveiled

When the news broke in March that civil rights leader Cesar Chavez allegedly sexually assaulted multiple women and girls, it sparked a nationwide reckoning...

Speaking of cults