Homeless volunteers help clean up historic Santa Cruz cemetery

Three months ago at the Evergreen Cemetery, thickets of blackberry, periwinkle and ivy obscured eroded pathways and cracked gravestones. The cemetery’s seven acres and unmatched local history were largely inaccessible.

Donations allow UCSC’s unique Sikh and Punjabi studies program to grow

Getting singled out and patted down at American airports is something Nirvikar Singh has come to expect while traveling. Rather than act frustrated, he laughs good-naturedly while discussing it. It’s something many Sikhs have dealt with in the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, he explains.

Child abuse seminar aims to help local professionals intervene

In 1975, 24-year-old Daniel Sonkin was an intern in a San Francisco Planned Parenthood, where he gave pregnancy test results to patients. Among the many clients he delivered pregnancy news to, one woman in particular caught his attention. The woman, who he remembers as being in her 20s, had terrible bruises covering her arms. He couldn’t help but inquire.

An exploration of publicly owned utilities

The long drawn-out saga of Pacific Gas & Electric's controversial SmartMeter program has some in Santa Cruz looking for alternatives to the for-profit utility. One idea being floated is starting government-run municipal power companies, although there is little chance this change is on the immediate horizon.

Local athletic couple want to keep Santa Cruz strong

Santa Cruz Strength is located in an unassuming industrial building off of Harvey West Boulevard. It’s not like a 24 Hour Fitness or a Gold’s Gym; there aren’t miles of exercise machines and there are no televisions lining the wall. It’s a stripped down sort of place where you’re as liable to see someone lifting weights as you are to see them lift concrete spheres or a length of rope that looks like it should be attached to a ship’s anchor.

Joan Baez and others reflect on beloved local figure

Across the street from the High Street Community Church where Scott Kennedy’s memorial service took place on Dec.11, mourners wept, laughed, sang and clapped while watching a video projection of the ceremony in the Messiah Lutheran Church. The Community Church was full to capacity with mourners from Santa Cruz and the Bay Area, as well as those who flew in from Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Some also viewed the ceremony via video projection in an additional room next to the Community Church.

UCSC’s computer science program begins outreach to draw more female students

Women have been attending colleges since the late 1800s, according to the National Women’s History Museum, but their numbers were not equal to those of men until the 1980s. Currently at UC Santa Cruz, women make up 53 percent of the undergraduate population and 42 percent of the faculty. However, this is not always reflected within the individual majors— especially the computer science major, which has, historically, been disproportionately male.

WEB EXCLUSIVE > Police respond to community members' attempt to return SmartMeters to PG&E

Six Capitola Police Department officers arrived at the PG&E Payment Center off of 41st Avenue early this afternoon to help the center clear out a group of customers who were there to turn in unwanted SmartMeters.

Women’s crisis support center discusses domestic violence in Santa Cruz County

Laura Segura, executive director for Defensa de Mujeres Women’s Crisis Support center in Watsonville, once knew a woman who was verbally abused for 30 years before her husband hit her with a golf club in front of their children. The golf club broke, and the woman decided it was time to leave. She fled and called the number for Defensa de Mujeres. The center provided emergency shelter, helped her obtain a restraining order against her husband, and provided her with new housing options.

Santa Cruz student-journalist observes a movement that hits home
As Sarah Naugle and four fellow student-journalists watched hundreds of Oakland School District teachers in matching shirts rally together for Occupy Oakland’s Nov. 2 demonstration, she battled with something inside. She’d driven in from Santa Cruz to report, not participate. She had every intention to remain an unattached observer, she says, but the scene hit home.

“It’s getting to be increasingly more difficult to separate yourself from [the Occupy movement] because you’re realizing that so much of it is not just one aspect of your life but pieces of your entire life,” says Naugle, whose mother is a teacher with master’s degree in special education. “It’s just getting closer and closer to every facet of my home.”