Community

Scotts Valley resident Donny McNair built a series of retaining walls to house the Vine Hill Elementary School life lab using broken concrete and landscaping materials.

I managed to get out of town for a short road trip last weekend, a nice run up into the Gold Country of Sonora, Columbia and Angels Camp. But from start to finish, I was reminded of the men and women fighting the fire in Santa Cruz County.

In the United States, we label our wines according to varietal.

Saturday, Aug. 15

Bees have been getting a lot of press lately.

I’ve recently had a personal experience that punctuated the importance of background checks and that I thought worthy enough to share. The event occurred in June — the same month the now-infamous Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison. The timing is fitting.

I got an interesting call from the daughter of an old friend the other evening.

Falls are the leading cause of injury-related emergency-room visits for those older than 65. The risk of falling increases with age and is greater for women than men. Falls are also the leading cause of death from injury among the elderly. Almost 10,000 deaths in older Americans are associated with falls every year.