About Town

On a drive along San Andreas Road, Reach Road and Riverside Drive this morning I noticed more field workers harvesting and grooming fields that I’ve seen in a while. I noticed they were wearing masks and gloves. • An early morning fire tore through Master Car...

California weighed in with its single worst death toll Wednesday with 117 people dying from COVID-19. The overall state death total at the close of Wednesday was 1,433. Gov. Gavin Newsom in a news briefing said there are 37,679 state cases. There were 1,877...

Fireworks stands are now popping up around Watsonville in preparation for Fourth of July celebrations. • Summer officially started Saturday with the summer solstice. I still marvel that the folks as long as 5,000 years ago knew about the solstice when they started the massive Stonehenge...

Smoke from the CZU August Lightning Complex fires has been really bad most of the day. We got something of a break Monday and Tuesday, with blue sky dominating the weather picture. Maybe the wind shifted? I spoke with several people in Watsonville and...

I was out by the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse and Santa Cruz Surfing Museum yesterday and saw the workers from Cardiff Pest Control had the lighthouse wrapped in a  termite extermination tent. It was surreal, to say the least. Loads of folks were stopping...

There are now 1,931 cases of Covid-19 in Santa Cruz County. The Bay Area has 91,246 cases while the state reports a total of 741,593 cases. Law enforcement put extra personnel to work over the Labor Day weekend in an effort to keep people...

Tony Nuñez: On a tear-filled night, Watsonville councilwomen Rebecca Garcia and Trina Coffman-Gomez were sworn in as mayor and vice-mayor, respectivley, Tuesday. Garcia, a Watsonville native who has more than 30 years of experience in politics, replaced Francisco "Paco" Estrada. Estrada will continue on the council...

Tarmo Hannula: The San Francisco 49ers just barely edged past the Seattle Seahawks last night in a cliffhanger finale. The 49ers have not beaten the Seahawks in Seattle since 2011. The harrowing closure ultimately came down to a mighty blunt tackle by Dre Greenlaw...

Tarmo Hannula: This evening marks the first First Friday Art Tour of Santa Cruz of the New Year. The free, informal event is an arena for the public to visit area artists and take in the bounty of their work at various venues, including...

Tarmo Hannula: There’s a slight chance of rain this evening, the National Weather Service said. But the big news is several more episodes of rain next week starting Tuesday and then picking up again late Wednesday through Friday. • Video footage and evidence recovered on the...