Emily Hoeven wrote the daily WhatMatters newsletter for three years at CalMatters . Her reporting, essays, and opinion columns have been published in San Francisco Weekly, the Deseret News, the San Francisco Business Times, the Flathead Beacon, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Mercury News. Emily graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English and French and studied English at the University of Cambridge, England as a Thouron Summer Prize fellow. She speaks French fluently and spent a year teaching English in Châteauroux, France.
Good morning, California. It’s Tuesday, May 11. Good timing for Newsom The message was clear Monday when Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has attended recent public events in jeans and a bear-emblazoned jacket, stood behind a podium bearing the slogan “California Roars Back” while wearing a suit and tie. The message: I mean business — and the […]
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall election, wants to use the state’s sizable budget surplus to put money in the majority of Californians’ pockets. The governor today will unveil an $11.9 billion proposal that would send $600 stimulus checks to two-thirds of Californians and an additional $500 to families with kids. Details, including […]
“Everything that should be up is up and everything that should be down is down,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in January when lifting California’s regional stay-at-home order. Today, that statement holds true for many aspects of California’s pandemic response — vaccinations are up, infections are down, hospitalizations are down — but rings hollow when it […]
Facing the triple threat of wildfire season, severe drought and a likely recall election, Gov. Gavin Newsom is undoubtedly hoping that California will be able to avoid rolling blackouts this year after last summer’s heat wave triggered the first outages in nearly two decades. But while the president of California’s electric grid operator expressed “guarded […]
Good morning, California. It’s Wednesday, May 5. Elections and bears, oh my If, like me, you didn’t have “California political candidate campaigns with 1,000-pound Kodiak bear” on your 2021 bingo card, you were not prepared for the excesses of a gubernatorial recall election. The effort to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom from office entered a new […]
Good morning, California. It’s Tuesday, May 4. An incomplete story Even as California appears to be nearing the end of the pandemic, many gaps remain in our knowledge about the past year’s events — raising questions as to the state’s preparedness for potential future disasters. Today — with record-low hospitalizations, a 1.1% positivity rate and […]
Good morning, California. It’s Monday, May 3. Repaying public aid $18.4 billion. That’s how much California parents owe in overdue child support payments, but a staggering $6.8 billion of that debt is due to the government, not families — the result of the Golden State keeping an unusually large portion of payments for itself. No […]
Good morning, California. It’s Friday, April 30. Meet Asm. Alex Lee It isn’t even halfway through the legislative year, and three lofty progressive proposals have already been squashed — showcasing the sharp divide within California’s Democrat-dominated Legislature. A bill to create single-payer health care? Tabled last week. A bill to ban corporations and “business entities” from […]
Good morning, California. It’s Thursday, April 29. High marks on schools Things are looking up for Gov. Gavin Newsom. Majorities of Californians — 58% of likely voters and 64% of public school parents — approve of how the governor is handling the state’s public K-12 education system, and a solid 59% of likely voters give […]
How the tables have turned for California. The state’s seven-day coronavirus positivity rate fell to 1.2% on Tuesday, the lowest rate in the country. Just four months ago, California’s positivity rate was a staggering 17.1% and hospitalizations were surging to record levels, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a regional stay-at-home order. Contrast that with […]
Emily Hoeven wrote the daily WhatMatters newsletter for three years at CalMatters . Her reporting, essays, and opinion columns have been published in San Francisco Weekly, the Deseret News, the San Francisco Business Times, the Flathead Beacon, the Daily Pennsylvanian, and the Mercury News. Emily graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English and French and studied English at the University of Cambridge, England as a Thouron Summer Prize fellow. She speaks French fluently and spent a year teaching English in Châteauroux, France.