KAZU News

Monterey Bay This Week: Iran war impacts fertilizer prices, Salinas COVID-19 memorial, and Santa Cruz cannabis murder

KAZU | By Katie Brown,

Elena Neale-Sacks, Ngozi Cole, Erin Malsbury, Amy Mayer

Published March 14, 2026 at 2:00 AM PDT

A book is propped up in a garden with plants around the edges. The book's cover design is mostly green with white letters on a black background and resembles a zip-top bag of marijuana. — Scott Eden's new book *A Killing in Cannabis: A True Story of Love, Murder, and California Weed* explores the murder of Tushar Atre in Santa Cruz County in 2019.

Highlights from this week's news roundup:

In addition to oil, the cost of nitrogen fertilizer has been going up due to the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran.
Monterey County honors those who died during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new book meticulously explores a 2019 Santa Cruz murder.

Plus other stories from the week.

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Katie Brown

Katie Brown comes to KAZU after earning spot news and investigative journalism awards for her reporting and photography in Maine. A Report for America alumna and former Metcalf Institute fellow, Katie’s reporting beats span business, environment, and public health.

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Elena Neale-Sacks

Elena is an Emmy award-winning researcher, reporter, and producer. At KAZU, they cover agriculture, housing and homelessness, and the aftermath of the January 2025 lithium battery fire in Moss Landing. Their reporting and research has been featured on NPR, KQED, Netflix, Reveal, CalMatters, and more. Elena is an alum of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and UC Santa Cruz. You can reach them at elena@kazu.org.

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Ngozi Cole

Before joining KAZU, Ngozi covered health, business and economy stories for WYSO in southwest Ohio and The Ohio Newsroom. She’s also worked as a freelance reporter for Reveal, The New Humanitarian and other outlets.

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Erin Malsbury

Erin is an award-winning journalist and photographer. She's written for local and national outlets, including the Smithsonian and Science Magazine. She has a master's degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Amy Mayer

Amy Mayer is an award-winning journalist with more than 25 years of experience in public radio. Before KAZU, she worked as an editor for the California Newsroom and at St. Louis Public Radio. For eight years, she covered agriculture as the Harvest Public Media reporter based at Iowa Public Radio. She's also worked at stations in Massachusetts and Alaska and has written for many newspapers, magazines and online news outlets.

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