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Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

25 years later: Santa Cruz, Bay Area first responders honor 9/11 victims with memorial stair climb

By Kevin Painchaud

More than 60 people honored the fallen first responders of 9/11 by climbing Seacliff State Beach’s stairs 13 times – equal to the World Trade Center’s 110 stories – at Friday’s 25th anniversary memorial climb in Aptos.

Credit: Kevin Painchaud / Lookout Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz County’s heat wave, one job at a time

By Lookout Santa Cruz staff

As a heat wave gripped the region, Lookout journalists spoke with workers from Santa Cruz to Capitola to Watsonville about how they were getting through it, shift by shift.

Credit: Bruce Harman

New Capitola Village public art brings Monterey Bay wildlife to Monterey Avenue railing

By Alia Yee Noll

Capitola artist Bruce Harman has spent months painting 50 aluminum panels along a 625-foot stretch of railing on Monterey Avenue, turning it into a mural of jellyfish, otters, seahorses and other Monterey Bay sea life. The panels go on public display this weekend when the street closes to cars for the Capitola Art & Wine Festival.

Credit: Kevin Lohman

Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s ‘Private Lives’ is deliciously funny — and gloriously toxic

By Jana Marcus

Santa Cruz Shakespeare opens its fall season in delicious style with Noël Coward’s “Private Lives.” Charles Pasternak and Paige Lindsey White are marvelous as the spectacularly combustible couple who can’t seem to stay together or apart, bringing sparkling chemistry and impeccable comic timing to Laura Gordon’s stylish, laugh-out-loud production.

Credit: Alex Gould

How California is kicking its natural gas habit

By Dan Gearino / Inside Climate News

Solar and batteries matter, but they’re not the only reasons for the steep decline in gas-fired electricity in California.

Credit: Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press

California enacts laws restricting chatbots and banning teens from ‘addictive’ social media

By Colin Lecher / CalMatters

California teens will be barred from “addictive” social media products and limited in their interactions with chatbots under two of the 13 bills signed into law Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to protect kids online.

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Max Chun is the general-assignment correspondent at Lookout Santa Cruz. Max’s position has pulled him in many different directions, seeing him cover development, COVID, the opioid crisis, labor, courts...