California Dolphin

SANTA CRUZ — A search team organized by the family and friends of a 17-year-old on Sunday located the body of the local high school student, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. Cash Bradley Paul Ebright  Santa Cruz County resident Cash Bradley Paul Ebright went missing on the evening of Sept. 20, after he had been bodysurfing in the area of Laguna Creek Beach off Highway 1 several miles south of Davenport. Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Daniel Robbins said Monday that the search group located Cash’s body in the surf line around 4 p.m. near Laguna Creek Beach. Related Articles Accused California theater shooter pleads not guilty by reason of insanity to 2 murders Second graffiti vandalism hate crime reported at Palo Alto parking garage Teens arrested on suspicion of armed robbery at East Bay mall Two take plea deals in 2017 East Bay killing; victim was shot and abandoned under freeway Two killed in separate crashes in Hollister, Gilroy Ebright’s was the third ocean recovery effort along Santa Cruz County’s Highway 1 North Coast beaches this month. David Guzman, 26,…

SANTA CRUZ — The State Department of Water Resources will bolster funding the long-anticipated Pajaro River levee system rebuild after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 496 on Friday — a move critical in protecting residents from frequent floods, officials say. The levees — built in 1949 — haven’t stacked up to heavy rainfall events. For Pajaro Valley residents and farmers it’s been a decades-long saga of evacuations, property damage, and safety risks. In 1995 the river flooded, killing two people, and leaving more than $95 million in damages in its wake. “Right now the Army Corps of Engineers estimates that there’s just five-year flood protection on the Pajrao River, and this project would bring 100 year flood protection, so it is major,” said Senator John Laird, who authored the bill. The Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project aims to mitigate flood danger by rebuilding levees and in some cases, relocating them. Previously, the state would have paid for 70% of the project’s construction cost, with 30% being footed by local governments. “This bill removes that cap, so it’s a full 100% state share,” Laird…

Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney sat at a witness table in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room. All eyes were on her, but not for the reasons we were used to. As her teammates and the FBI director looked on, she recounted how, six years earlier, she had detailed her childhood abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to the nation’s top law enforcement agency. It was the summer of 2015. On the other end of the phone was Michael Langeman, a supervisory special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Langeman not only failed to act on what he heard from Maroney for a staggering 14 months, but also fabricated the details of her disclosure — and still kept his job for another six years. Maroney paused as she remembered that day, and how as soon as she finished recounting her trauma, her lingering tears were met with silence from Langeman, until finally the agent asked: “Is that all?” Now a 25-year-old retired Olympic champion, Maroney told the committee that moment was “one of the worst moments of this entire process for me. To have…

The 20-year-old man accused of shooting to death two teenagers on a date at a Corona movie theater in July pleaded not guilty, and not guilty by reason of insanity, to two counts of murder on Monday, Sept. 27. Joseph Jimenez did not speak during the hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice. His attorney, Charles Kenyon, made the pleas to Superior Court Judge Gail A. O’Rane. The two different not-guilty pleas were necessary, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, because there would be two phases if the case goes to trial: a guilt phase, and a phase to determine whether Jimenez was insane. In California, defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity still must be treated in a state mental hospital. Jimenez would have to remain there, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Beecham said, until he is judged to be sane and not a threat to the public. But unlike cases in which a defendant has been ruled incompetent to stand trial and later rehabilitated, Beecham said, Jimenez would not continue to face charges. Kenyon requested two weeks…

President Joe Biden hosted a summit meeting Friday that could turn out to be a watershed — but if you weren’t watching, you might have missed it. The meeting brought together the leaders of a deliberately low-key group called “the Quad”: the United States, Japan, India and Australia. U.S. officials downplayed the session, describing it as “an informal gathering of leading democracies in the Indo-Pacific.” China wasn’t fooled. Its diplomats have spent months denouncing the Quad as a Cold War-style alliance aimed at containing Beijing’s rise as the dominant power in Asia. And they’re right. Biden and his fellow Quad leaders never publicly uttered the word “China,” but the Quad is all about containment. It seeks to blunt China’s growing influence, deter it from launching military adventures and prevent it from muscling the United States and other countries out of Asia’s growing markets. The Quad isn’t a military alliance — formally, at least. A Biden aide who briefed reporters before the summit took pains to make that point three times in 20 minutes. But last month, four navies staged a massive military exercise in the…