News

A man attempted to kidnap a woman Saturday afternoon as she was attending a family party at Pinto Lake County Park.

WATSONVILLE—The Monterey Bay Birding Festival has been mothballed for the second year in a row due to pandemic complications. Despite most levels of society, from schools, businesses, services and government, edging back toward normal operations, the festival—in its 17th year—couldn’t get off the ground. “The festival...

APTOS—A group of business owners from the new Aptos Village complex gathered for a meeting in early March to discuss possible events and projects they wanted to do together. Their aim was to bring the community into the blooming hub.  But days later those plans...

WATSONVILLE—A plethora of teachers addressed Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s Board of Trustees Wednesday night, asking for pay increases they say would help them live in Santa Cruz County and help the district retain its educators. District officials, meanwhile, say there is not enough in...

SACRAMENTO—The California Highway Patrol is embarking on a multiyear recruiting campaign to fill 1,000 vacant officer positions.  The “Join the CHP 1,000” campaign is an attempt to appeal to a wide array  of applicants “who may not be aware of the life-changing opportunity that awaits...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—When Santa Cruz County Health Officer Gail Newel revised her shelter-in-place order on May 1, she relaxed restrictions on summer programs such as daycare and day camp, allowing families to begin planning activities for their kids after months of restrictions. The announcement came...

WATSONVILLE—Tony’s Auto Service, nestled in a crunch of busy shops and the ebb and flow of Freedom Boulevard traffic, has been a staple auto repair spot in Watsonville for the past 26 years. If it’s new wiper blades, a smog check or full-blown valve job...

Traffic is channeled into one lane in each direction in what once was both southbound lanes of Freedom Boulevard Thursday as major improvement work continues. Joshua Nol of McKim Corporation said all traffic has been shifted to the west side of the road, while...

A suspected serial burglar was arrested Tuesday after surveillance footage helped officers identify and arrest the 32-year-old man who’d developed a reputation of breaking into businesses through the roof.

WATSONVILLE—In a mostly empty Jan. 19 meeting conducted over Zoom, the Watsonville City Council voted unanimously to join a collective of local government agencies to streamline the process of rebuilding and reenforcing the Pajaro River levee. The union, called the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency...