Jessica Lussenhop

Staff Writer

UCSC Vets Wonder: Is New GI Bill Too Good To Be True?

Michael Hart served in the Coast Guard for eight years before enrolling at UCSC. Photo by Jessica Lussenhop

Michael Hart is a 30-year-old U.S. Coast Guard veteran with eight-and-a-half-years of active duty under his belt, during which he served on a 210-foot security cutter based in Miami Beach doing search-and-rescues and drug interception in the Caribbean. Once a month, he returns to the naval base in Alameda to run drills with the reserves. But come today, the first day of class at UCSC, he’s just another sophomore.

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Coastal Cleanup Swims Upstream

Emily Glanville of Save Our Shores has to convince people that river trash is as important as beach trash.

As Coastal Cleanup Day gears up for its 25th anniversary of beachcombing for cigarette butts and bottles, Save Our Shores marine debris program coordinator Emily Glanville says there’s good news and there’s bad news. “Our beaches are looking pretty good these days,” she says. “We’re seeing less trash being left on the beach. Our data from the summer of 2008 showed quite a bit more.”

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A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Freelancers

Einar Vollsett, Boris Glants and Tony Duarte toil away at NextSpace in Santa Cruz. Photo by Curtis Cartier

You’d think the easiest way to find out about the effectiveness of “coworking”—the phenomenon whereby work-at-homers, freelancers and other indie business strangers elect to set up shop in a building and find out what happens—is to ask the coworkers (not to be confused with the tradition-bound drones known as “co-workers”) themselves. Trouble is, they’re all too busy working.

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