News

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has issued evacuation orders for hundreds of people in the north and south areas of the county after heavy rains fell overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning. Residents living near Holohan Road, Laken Drive and College Road in Watsonville...

Smoke from wildfires burning in northern California and southern Oregon drifted over the Monterey Bay Area Tuesday and has degraded air quality in parts of Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties.  The Monterey Bay Air Resources District (MBARD) said concentration of smoke has reached...

I see that The Chop Shop barbershop is close to opening in the former Plaza Jewelers on the ground floor of the Resetar Hotel on Main Street at West Lake Avenue. The jewelry store moved nearby to East Fifth Street. • Renovation work continues on Taqueria...

WATSONVILLE—With the purchase of Watsonville Community Hospital now a certainty, the nonprofit formed to make the acquisition got another bit of good news Tuesday when Kaiser Permanente announced it was donating $4.5 million to the cause. With a goal of $67 million to cover the...

Watsonville High School senior Nayeli Lopez is about a year away from being old enough to vote, but that hasn’t stopped her from getting involved in local activism. Lopez, 17, is president of the school’s Education, Community, Humanitarian, Outreach (ECHO) Leadership Academy. She and other...

“This is a game changer,” Gov. Gavin Newsom exulted last week during a news conference. “We are very, very enthusiastic.” Was he talking about his recent coronavirus vaccination? The latest poll in the recall campaign? No, he was reveling in news from what has long been California’s sweet...

WATSONVILLE—The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has identified the second man that died in a head-on crash on Highway 129 on June 22 as Nestor Emmanuel Beltran Quiroa, 20, of Los Banos. Quiroa, one of three passengers in a 2008 Honda Ridgeline pickup, died at...

Aptos native Nikki Hiltz guaranteed their spot at the upcoming Summer Games following a record-setting performance at last weekend’s U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials.   The 29-year old middle-distance runner won the women’s 1500-meters finals in 3 minutes, 55.33 seconds, setting both a personal-best and...

PAJARO—Pajaro/Sunny Mesa Community Services District, the agency that provides water to the Pajaro area, has lifted a do-not-drink order that came in the wake of the March 11 flood. The April 7 decision came nearly a month after the Pajaro River levee broke and released...

WATSONVILLE—Watsonville officials on Tuesday questioned the validity of an anonymous letter sent to various local media outlets and past and present city officials that accused City Manager Matt Huffaker of trying to bury an investigation into Fire Chief Rudy Lopez Sr. Promoted to the department’s...