Good morning, one and all. It’s Tuesday, Dec. 3, and another pleasant day is in the offing for Santa Cruz County, with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 60s and lower 70s.
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Max Chun was back in court Monday as the jury trial over whether to release the killer of Santa Cruz 8-year-old Madyson Middleton resumed. Jurors watched a 2015 police video of Adrian Gonzalez, then 15, confessing to the murder.
Watsonville Community Hospital has been working with paper records in recent days, Tania Ortiz reports, amid a computer network outage that began Friday. Third-party IT specialists are investigating.
Lily Belli found plenty of holiday spirit(s) when she checked out the Christmas-themed pop-up at downtown Santa Cruz bar Front & Cooper. Between kitschy decor and cocktails like the Christmasaurus and Snowball Old Fashioned, she writes, “I swear I felt my heart grow three sizes that day (and no, it wasn’t all the sugar).”
In Lookout’s Community Voices opinion section, sociologist and activist Paul Johnston outlines steps local governments can take to gird for mass deportations promised by a second Donald Trump administration – “do more than stand by,” he urges, “while otherwise remaining passive when our neighbors are ripped away from their families.”
The Tuesday headlines also include news of a water rescue along West Cliff Drive – onward.
Court views video of Gonzalez’s confession as his trial for release resumes
Adrian Gonzalez’s trial for release continued Monday with a video from the Santa Cruz Police Department showing Gonzalez confessing to killing 8-year-old Madyson Middleton to police just two days after Middleton was reported missing in 2015. The trial will continue on Tuesday. Max Chun reports.
Christmas spirits: Miracle Front & Cooper spreads holiday cheer with kitschy decor and themed cocktails
This month, Front & Cooper in Abbott Square has gone all-in on holiday fun. The bar in downtown Santa Cruz partnered with Miracle, a Christmas-themed pop-up, to transform the hip industrial interior with kitschy holiday decor and a full menu of winter-themed cocktails served in cheeky custom glassware. Lily Belli drinks it all in.
DAILY DIGEST
Plenty cooking this first Tuesday of December, and there’s plenty more to come from the Lookout content kitchen. That includes another serving of Lily Belli, whose Lily Belli on Food newsletter will be winging its way to inboxes in a few short hours. Click here to subscribe to that and all of Lookout’s other newsletters, plus breaking news alerts via text and email. You can also keep up our award-winning Santa Cruz County coverage on social media – come find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads.
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Go forth and prosper!
Will McCahill