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Emily Hoeven

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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.

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Latest Stories

A helicopter prepares to drop water on the KNP Complex Fire in Sequoia National Park, on Sept. 15, 2021. Photo by Noah Berger, AP Photo
WhatMatters
$15 billion to fight climate change
Good morning, California. It’s Friday, September 24. Sequoias still under siege A dispatch from CalMatters environment reporter Julie Cart: In California, it’s possible to be hundreds of miles away from Hollywood and still find yourself in a place that looks for all the world like a movie set. Where better to illustrate the perils of […]
By • September 24, 2021
Attendees listen to Oakley Mayor Kevin Romick, during a ribbon-cutting at the new Amazon Fulfillment Center in Oakley on Oct. 7, 2020. The new 150,000 square foot center is expected to create about 800 jobs. Photo by Doug Duran, Bay Area News Group
WhatMatters
Newsom hands labor a win — and a defeat
When it comes to organized labor, Gov. Gavin Newsom giveth and Gov. Gavin Newsom taketh away. The governor on Wednesday signed into law one of the most controversial union-backed bills of the year, which takes aim at warehouse speed quotas that became infamous when reports surfaced of Amazon workers urinating in water bottles due to […]
By • September 23, 2021
A USDA field manager walA USDA field manager walks along the parched ground in a pomegranate orchard at Wolfskill Experimental Orchards outside of Davis on Aug. 25, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMattersks along the parched ground in a pomegranate orchard at Wolfskill Experimental Farm outside of Davis on Aug. 25, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
WhatMatters
California is running out of water
“The challenge is there is no water.” That bleak assessment from Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources, puts the devastating scope of California’s drought into perspective even more sharply than the sea of statistics released Tuesday and reported by CalMatters’ Rachel Becker: 90% of the state is gripped by extreme or […]
By • September 22, 2021
WhatMatters
Fighting fire with fire
Good morning, California. It’s Tuesday, September 21. Big 2022 campaign issue Fires move fast, but politicians move faster. Early Monday, Assemblymember Marc Levine of San Rafael announced plans to challenge fellow Democrat and State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara in 2022, charging that Lara hasn’t done enough to prevent Californians living in fire-prone areas from losing […]
By • September 21, 2021
A pedestrian walks past a vacant store front on Powell Street in the Union Square shopping district in San Francisco on June 14, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
WhatMatters
Unemployment rate stagnant: Why many Californians aren’t back at work
The numbers are irrefutable: Many Californians aren’t going back to work. Although the Golden State created a whopping 44% of the nation’s new jobs last month, its unemployment rate remained the second-highest in the country at 7.5%, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. That’s essentially unchanged from the 7.6% unemployment […]
By • September 20, 2021
A BART train runs through a neighborhood of single-family homes in Albany. California lawmakers again rejected a bill that would have led to denser development along public transit routes. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
WhatMatters
California ends most single-family zoning
Good morning, California. It’s Friday, September 17. Newsom takes new tack Actions speak louder than words. It’s a message that Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to be trying to send to voters after defeating an attempt to oust him from office — and with yet another election next year. Newsom on Thursday signed into law a […]
By • September 17, 2021
Gov. Gavin Newsom supporters hold up signs urging voters to vote “no” on the recall ballot during a campaign event for the Governor at the IBEW-NECA training center in San Leandro on Sept. 8, 2021. Photo by Anne Wernikoff, CalMatters
WhatMatters
The next big Democrat-GOP battle
Democratic lawmakers unveiled plans to overhaul the recall rules enshrined in California's constitution — a move that did not go over well with Republicans.
By • September 16, 2021

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