Todd Guild

3 days ago | pajaronian.com | Todd Guild

Since the 1960s, the U.S. has become a more inclusive country. This necessarily meant that white men lost some part of their privileged positions in education, employment and entertainment. By the 2000s, in the wake of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, anti-racism books were on the best sellers list, major corporations were examining their hiring and promotion policies, and educational institutions were beginning to address structural racism. The backlash has been intense.

3 days ago | pajaronian.com | Todd Guild

Just over three decades ago, a group of people set out on a 545-mile bicycle journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a weeklong trek that took them along rugged coastlines, through verdant agricultural fields and along vast stretches of highway. Then called the California AIDS Ride, the annual event evolved in 2002 to the AIDS/LifeCycle. It is the world’s largest annual HIV/AIDS fundraiser, and benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center.

1 week ago | pajaronian.com | Todd Guild

On Tuesday, 7-year-old Vincent Robles was playing in Callaghan Park in downtown Watsonville, clambering over the play structures and going up and down the slide. But what he really wanted, his mother Jessica said, was to go back to Ramsay Park, with its big slide. “He loves it there,” she said. Vincent will have about another year to wait. The park is in the midst of the Ramsay Park Renaissance Project, a massive $34.6 million endeavor that will include several new features.

1 week ago | pajaronian.com | Todd Guild

A long-unused, aging outdoor courtyard makes up the eastern portion of Santa Cruz County’s Juvenile Hall, showing its age with a weedy yard and cracked blacktop. But a group of probation officials and youth advocates who gathered there Wednesday have big plans for the space. These include a new 6,850-square-foot gymnasium, a greenhouse and a farm-to-table garden that will supply the renovated kitchen, which itself will serve as a teaching culinary classroom.

1 week ago | pajaronian.com | Todd Guild

U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents on May 27 arrested a longtime Watsonville resident as he walked behind the Target store near the intersection of Harkins Slough Road and Ohlone Parkway. The man’s nephew Brandon Marquez confirmed the arrest, and said that ICE agents came to their residence after the arrest to inform them. They were wearing uniforms without insignias, driving an unmarked sedan and carrying large weapons, he said.