News

More than 150 volunteers gathered Saturday at Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz with a simple mission: make sure thousands of Santa Cruz County students are ready to begin the school year. Working assembly-line style during the 17th annual Stuff the Bus Stuff-A-Thon, volunteers filled...

Editor's note: an earlier version of this story contained the incorrect spelling for Steamer Lane. A woman died early Thursday morning after the car in which she was a passenger plunged off West Cliff Drive and landed upside down in the sea.  According to Santa Cruz...

More than 600 housing units, open public spaces, “world class” retail brands, distinguished local and national restaurants and a luxury cinema have all been part of the plan during Merlone Geier’s presentations to City of Capitola officials and members of the public.

SANTA CRUZ—Defense attorneys came forward in the Superior Court of Paul Marigold Tuesday to represent the four suspects in the Oct. 1 kidnapping and murder of tech executive and Pleasure Point resident Tushar Atre. Stephen Lindsay, 22, Kaleb Charters, 19, Kurtis Charters, 22, and Joshua...

Christian Chavez was struggling with anxiety while attending Pajaro Valley High School and frequently refused to go. “I was just staying home,” he said. Christian, 15, was eventually placed at Sequoia High School, a smaller campus tailored for students struggling academically and emotionally. He also joined Aztecas...

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.

A new art exhibit at Pajaro Valley Arts, “Hot off the Walls: Art to Go!” is set to run from March 17 through May 2 at the Porter Building in downtown Watsonville. From ceramics, glass and metal works, to paintings, photography, encaustics, textiles and...

"We are so happy that we got to participate," she said. "We are also so said that it's going to be the last one. We hope something will continue." In January, the Capitola Begonia Festival committee announced that the 2017 iteration of the festival will be the last. Golden State Bulb Growers, which grows the begonia blossoms in Marina, is retiring from the business of growing begonias, but agreed to donate the blossoms for the festival for one final time.

SANTA CRUZ—Second Harvest Food Bank hosted a drive-thru community food distribution Friday at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Supported by numerous volunteers and members of the California National Guard, the distribution unfolded under overcast skies as part of ongoing county-wide distributions that alternate between the...

These boys examine the damage where a Watsonville woman rammed into a room at the Rio Sands Hotel, 130 Aptos Beach Drive, in Rio del Mar Monday. California Highway Patrol officer Sam Courtney said the woman claimed the brakes failed in her Honda Accord as she pulled into a parking space at the hotel around 11:20 a.m. No injuries were reported. The driver reportedly did not have a license.