All Santa Cruz County Articles

California has used reclamation districts to turn millions of acres of unusable swamps into fertile agricultural land, starting in the earliest days of the Gold Rush. Here’s how it happened.

More California police departments are deploying body cameras. A new court ruling restricts how prosecutors can use footage of witness accounts at trial.

Three fossil fuel plants will stand by to provide emergency power for three more years despite California's mandate to switch to clean energy by 2045.

Two of the three troubled California hospitals are especially vital to their communities because they’re the only emergency providers in their rural counties. Health care chains could keep them afloat.

By channeling funds to a number of nonprofits working on various issues in a given region, community foundations help solve big problems throughout California.

A conversation with Stacy Caldwell, CEO of Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation

A recent state survey reveals 2 in 3 Black women are breadwinners; 8 in 10 worry about discrimination or mistreatment and more like Gov. Gavin Newsom than Vice President Kamala Harris.

A discrimination complaint filed by Native American tribes and environmental justice groups alleges that California has failed to protect water quality in the Bay-Delta. The EPA is investigating.

Medi-Cal and other programs are testing food prescriptions that advocates say could improve chronic conditions, lower health care costs and reduce hunger.

Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis finally agreed to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom after a feud hat has lasted for more than a year and included DeSantis dumping planeloads of immigrants in Sacramento.

Travis Air Force Base in Solano County is now surrounded on three sides by a Delaware company with millions of dollars and no public record of who is behind it. And the federal government hasn’t been able to solve the …

The Santa Cruz County Veterans Memorial Building serves as a hub for veteran services—and much more, as Good Times writer Mat Weir reports.

Showing solidarity with other social classes is a prominent union strategy in the so-called “hot labor summer” sweeping California. It’s too soon to say if the inter-union activity will get employers to bargain.

Strikes by the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild have shut down Hollywood. As workers demand fair compensation and regulations on artificial intelligence, college students aspiring to break into the industry are caught up in the historic moment.

After a historic drop in enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic, California community colleges are ramping up marketing efforts, spending more than $40 million in state and federal dollars to lure students back. Is it working?

Waste would undergo extensive treatment and testing before it’s piped directly to taps, providing a new, costly but renewable water supply. The state’s new draft rules are more than a decade in the making.

Three of the biggest housing bonds in state history are bound for the 2024 ballot. But with no shortage of crises facing the state, California can only borrow so much and voters may succumb to “bond fatigue.”

Renter protections and eviction bans put in place for the COVID-19 pandemic have expired. By keeping them in place, California could slow the spread of homelessness. But that's not happening.

Almost half of the jobs for doctors and psychiatrists in California prisons are unfilled. Now, their union says it’s ready to strike over pay even as the state faces a steep budget deficit.

California grants school boards much local control, but recent events have pushed the state to take steps to stop local school board meetings from turning into potentially dangerous culture war battlegrounds.