News

WATSONVILLE—As a new teacher, Brogan Dahl knows how difficult it can be to live in Santa Cruz County on an educator’s salary. She also has experienced the frustration of wanting to bring creativity into her lessons while under the limiting mantle of a strict...

Entries are sought for the 41st Annual Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau Apple Pie Baking Contest during opening day of the Santa Cruz County Fair, Sept. 13. The entry deadline is Tuesday, Sept. 5, postmarked no later than 11:59 p.m. This contest is sponsored by the Pajaro Valley apple growers, shippers and related industries as well as pie lovers throughout Santa Cruz County and the Pajaro Valley. It has been organized by the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau since 1977. 

APTOS—Since Caroline’s Nonprofit Thrift Shop opened its doors in 2010, owner Christy Licker has given tens of thousands of dollars to local organizations that support children. In 2017, Licker handed out $275,000 to 26 organizations, which at the time was a record-breaking amount for the...

The 15th annual Monterey Bay Birding Festival is on deck for a three-day run of lectures, field trips, pelagic journeys, scintillating slide shows and local foods and wines.

Supporters of a proposed ballot measure to fund Santa Cruz County transit will hold a campaign kickoff event later this month as organizers ramp up signature gathering ahead of a qualification deadline. The Friends of Santa Cruz METRO initiative is scheduled to host the event...

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY—Santa Cruz County Health Officer Gail Newel on Thursday indefinitely extended the shelter-in-place order issued on March 31. She also closed the county’s beaches between the hours of 11am and 5pm. Both moves are meant to further reduce the spread of COVID-19 by...

SANTA CRUZ—The family of the 8-year-old girl who was murdered in 2015 is facing a new tragedy after someone stole the urn containing her ashes. Madyson “Maddy” Middleton’s family says that her father Michel Middleton was keeping the urn in the glovebox of his unlocked...

New Leaf Community Markets is hiring more than 100 positions for its new Aptos Village location, set to open in the spring.

In the early 1980s, when her eponymous bakery was in its infancy, Gayle Ortiz learned that a developer planned to turn the land surrounding the Rispin Mansion in Capitola into a senior living complex and several private homes. That plan did not sit well with...

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...