Local News

When news breaks, rest assured that 10-year-old kid reporter Ella Porter is on the story. Ella is one of 45 young journalists from 10 countries who were recently chosen to write for the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps.

Coming across wildlife in Santa Cruz County isn’t an uncommon thing. A unique meeting of land and sea, the area is host to a number of species that often make themselves known to their human neighbors. But certain creatures are much easier to spot than others.

The Santa Cruz County Department of Public Works has reduced traffic flow along Soquel Drive at Aptos Street to one lane to repair the road damaged by winter storms.

WATSONVILLE—Meri Henriques Vahl vividly remembers her first major exposure to the world of art quilts.  Vahl was born in New York in 1945, and years later, during a visit to the Frick Museum in the Upper East Side of Manhattan with a friend, she viewed...

WATSONVILLE—Local realtors and brokers are urging the community to be aware of an online rental scam that is taking advantage of desperate renters. The scam strips information from sale listings on various websites, repackages them as hyper-affordable rental listings and posts them on sites such...

WATSONVILLE—The Pajaro Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees on Wednesday voted to permanently end its School Resource Officer program at Watsonville, Pajaro Valley and Aptos high schools, and to redirect the funds to socio-emotional counselors. The district will also look into creating wellness centers...

APTOS — Last year, the Aptos High School robotics team took top honors in both state and international competitions for building a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that performed a series of complex underwater tasks. In doing so, the team bested competitors from around the globe. The group of 12, who are aged 15-17, is called Watsonville Firefighters Seal Team 1272 after the group that sponsored them. “The competition was an amazing experience and a great place to observe and learn from the machines other people built,” team programmer Pratham Rathi said. ROVs are human controlled robots that are employed to solve a variety of jobs in places where humans cannot reach. The ROV Jason, for example, was used to observe the wreckage of the sunken Titanic. The team’s ROV is Argo V, a nod to the ship of Greek myth in which Jason and his compatriots sailed to retrieve the Golden Fleece. Now, having again won the Marine Advanced Technology Education center annual ROV competition at Watsonville High School on May 12, the team is once again preparing to defend its international crown. That competition — held this year in Seattle, Wash. from June 22-25 — draws elite young engineers from around the globe who pit their homebuilt, underwater robots against each other.

Santa Cruz METRO recently announced that riders can now purchase single-ride tickets in advance to expedite bus boarding for passengers to help keep buses on time, and reduce the need for bus riders to carry cash.

LA SELVA BEACH — Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating after a woman’s body was found on Manresa Beach Friday morning.

Big changes are under way in Aptos. On top of the sprawling Aptos Village Project, which saw the opening of New Leaf Community Market Wednesday, next comes Betty Burgers.