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Back in 1971, when Aretha Franklin crooned, “Rock steady, baby / That's what I feel now,” she was following in the footsteps of Alton Ellis & The Flames, who sang “Better get ready / Come do rock steady, ooh / You got to do...

According to “Our Old English Fairs” by R. W. Muncey, the internal trade of England once depended heavily on fairs that sprang up in the Anglo-Saxon period, welcoming merchants from Hamburg, Bruges, Strasbourg, Rouen and Bordeaux, among other far-flung locales. “Indeed many foreigners assembled among...

The County of Santa Cruz has released its 2023-24 Proposed Budget and interactive website, giving residents unprecedented digital access to County spending and revenue forecasts, line-item details and insight into how the budget connects to ongoing strategic priorities. The $1.1 billion Proposed Budget includes a...

FEMA extends individual assistance deadline FEMA has granted a request to extend the deadline to apply for individual assistance due to the February/March storms for 60 days, announced Santa Cruz County Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience. The new deadline is July 20. A Disaster Recovery...

Scotts Valley Police Department may not quite have enough officers yet to restart its investigations unit, but the patrol department is finally fully staffed, Chief Steve Walpole Jr. told the Scotts Valley City Council on May 17. This addition of novice law enforcers and lateral...

Scotts Valley hosted a virtual public workshop May 30 to discuss the draft Housing Element that was released May 19, but the meeting yielded few comments and was cut off after less than an hour—before all comments could be aired verbally. The all-important residential development...

Scotts Valley Rotary Club honored 42 Scotts Valley middle and high school students with a certificate of recognition for outstanding academics, visual and performing arts and community service at an awards ceremony May 8 at Scotts Valley High School. The club also provided five college...

From their perch in their home atop the mountain in Bonny Doon, partners Tonje Wold-Switzer and Sebastian Little took in a panorama of lightning strikes that would go on to devour more than 900 homes in the region, including theirs. They were aware a storm...

A Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge threw out the California Department of Transportation’s request for a new trial in a case where a jury decided a key thoroughfare in the Santa Cruz Mountains was so dangerous it contributed to the 2019 death of...

One was a girl who suffered from anxiety and fell behind academically, the other was a mechanically-inclined guy who couldn’t bring himself to do homework and ended up with failing grades. Both managed to turn things around in-class through senior year, while growing leaps...