Santa Cruz County food and drink businesses are facing significant price increases due to tariffs imposed on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, affecting essential ingredients such as produce, seafood, grains and aluminum. Local establishments such as Gayle’s Bakery, Charlie Hong Kong and Fruition Brewing are already seeing rising costs, forcing them to consider price adjustments and menu changes while grappling with inflation and supply chain challenges.
The Trump presidency and Santa Cruz County
News and opinion coverage of reaction in Santa Cruz County to the election of Donald Trump to a second term as president, plus news from around California via Lookout’s content partners.
Posted inEducation
UCSC looks to cut grad student admissions, alter funding guarantee
UC Santa Cruz is reducing how many graduate students it admits for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year, mostly due to President Donald Trump’s attempts to slash federal funding to schools across the country. Faculty and students say reductions to graduate student classes will damage research and undergraduate education.
Posted inHousing & Development
Economic uncertainty begins to seep into Santa Cruz County housing market
Data from January and February showed familiar numbers for Santa Cruz County’s housing market, but economic uncertainty introduced by the Trump administration is finding its way into conversations among real estate agents, mortgage advisors and clients.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
California Republicans say they’re making a comeback. Can they keep Trump at arm’s length?
At their spring convention over the weekend, California Republicans moved to capitalize on their November victories and break the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento while balancing the influence of President Donald Trump.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Locals’ hard-learned, oft-repeated lessons from 1940s Japanese American experience relevant again as Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act
Santa Cruz County activists Mas Hashimoto and Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston spent their lives telling the story of Japanese American internment during World War II. Now that both are deceased, and in the face of Trump administration immigration policies, their stories need to be remembered.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Are you better off than you were seven weeks ago?
UCLA distinguished professor Robert M. Kaplan has a simple question for Santa Cruz County. Echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980 exchange with then-President Jimmy Carter, he wants to know if you are better off today than when Trump took office. For him, the answer is no. He points to the economy, U.S. global standing, airline safety and consumer confidence as proof.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Trump administration launches all-out assault on environmental protection
After Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced 31 separate actions Wednesday to roll back restrictions on air and water pollution, hand over more authority to states and relinquish EPA’s mandate to act on climate change under the Clean Air Act, environmentalists vow to fight “the greatest increase in pollution in decades.”
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Fear and fallout: California officials scramble to counter Trump’s anti-Coastal Commission agenda
California lawmakers and Coastal Commission officials are taking the Trump administration’s threats seriously, as federal pressure to overhaul the agency could affect Los Angeles wildfire aid. With tensions rising, officials are mobilizing to protect the state’s coastal policies from political interference.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
If Trump’s promised mass deportations come, let’s stand up for our neighbors across the Monterey Bay region
The Trump administration has not yet managed to carry out its promise of mass deportations. But it might soon try, writes Paul Johnston, a sociologist and community activist who has studied immigration issues on the Central Coast for decades. Johnston reminds us of the way local leaders and community members stood up to protect immigrants during raids in the Salinas Valley over two decades ago and challenges us to show similar courage today. “Soon,” he writes, “we may be tested: Will we respond as one community to help those unfairly persecuted among us?
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Coastal Rail Trail vision delayed by local hurdles amid uncertainty over state, federal funding
A report detailing Santa Cruz County’s rail trail vision is delayed until at least the fall while officials tackle multiple challenges: mobile home disputes, possible bridge repairs and trail routing questions. The project faces additional uncertainty after the Trump administration paused federal infrastructure funding. Transit leaders are also considering a future ballot measure to help fund operational costs.