Santa Cruz News

Drug needles were thrown back into the spotlight Tuesday as the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors received an annual report by the county-run Syringe Services Program.

Santa Cruz >> Following the arrest of 22 UC Santa Cruz students during a two-day teaching assistant strike in April, the graduate student union has filed an additional unfair labor practice complaint against UC.

Michelle Rachleff, left, and her mentee, Claire Howell, are neighbors who got to know each other through the Big Sister, Little Sister program.

Hit >> Getting more people out on the San Lorenzo River can only boost efforts to protect it, which is why events like Saturday's recreational paddle are critical.

Body-painting, tattoo-story swapping, art and fashion transformations, plus a dress-up costume booth are all planned this Friday -- April 18 -- at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History's Fashion Art Santa Cruz .

Move To Amend Santa Cruz , activists seeking a constitutional amendment to upseat powerful, wealthy corporate influence, is presenting today to the Santa Cruz County Elections Office the signatures needed to qualify its cause for a November ballot measure.

Watsonville >> Watsonville's overall crime rate continued a five-year decline in 2013, with the lowest reported crimes per capita since 2004, according to a report released Monday by police.

As construction begins to wind down on the $1 million widening project along Soquel Avenue at Park Way, crews Tuesday will remove the old traffic signals so that new ones can be installed.

Dining out for Easter 2014? It's this coming Sunday; here are some restaurant highlights for Santa Cruz , San Francisco, and the Bay Area.

Sheriff Phil Wowak and Rep. Sam Farr get a look at the crime lab from Forensic Service Supervisor Lauren Zephro while touring the new Public Safety Center in Live Oak Monday.

Roger Crissman puts the finishing touches on a client's tax return in his Soquel Avenue office Monday.

Cementing protection for one of the largest privately owned pieces of land on California's 1,100-mile coastline, a San Francisco environmental group on Monday donated to the public the Coast Dairies property -- a pastoral expanse of rolling meadows, redwood forests and panoramic ocean views north of Santa Cruz.

Image Caption: Black Hole Caught Red-handed in a Stellar Homicide. Credit: NASA; S. Gezari ; and J. Guillochon When a star orbits too close to a galaxy's central supermassive black hole , it gets torn apart and sucked in by gravitational forces - a phenomenon known as an a tidal disruption .

A big rig driver crashed near Highway 1 and northbound Highway 17 on Monday morning.

Scott Cooper , a Bay Area music veteran best-known for fronting the popular Grateful Dead-tribute The China Cats , is bringing his Scott Cooper Band to the Crow's Nest in Santa Cruz on April 24. Cooper, who stays crazy busy with multiple, simultaneous projects, has played bass for over a decade with the Gary Gates Band and on Gates's CD "San ... (more)

Refugee Shacks. Carl Nolte writes about the more than 5,000 refugee shacks that went up after the 1906 earthquake.

The top-ranked Knights beat Santa Cruz 5-1 on Tuesday. Last Week: 1 2 St. Francis: The Sharks topped Aptos 6-3 on Tuesday, Sobrato 4-3 on Thursday and San Lorenzo Valley 8-4 on Friday.

The ban on polystyrene, also known as plastic foam or Styrofoam, includes items such as tableware, coolers and pool toys.

Day Worker Center of Santa Cruz County Program Director Mireya Gomez-Contreras hanks the center's staff and workers at Anna Jean Cummings Park in Soquel on Sunday afternoon during the center's first anniversary party.

Soquel >> Dr. Jim Engelman lives on a quiet property in the Soquel hills with a grand piano facing a garden reminiscent of a Zen monastery.