Gov. Gavin Newsom signs both AB 3035 and AB 2240 at the Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative headquarters office in Fresno on Sept. 24, 2024.
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Gavin Newsom’s year: L.A. fires, budget cuts, Trump battles and a Prop. 50 win. What’s next for California’s governor in his final year?
Newsom also won big with the Legislature along the way, using his considerable influence over the state budget to strong-arm lawmakers into passing significant carveouts to environmental law in an effort to boost construction of housing and infrastructure. He negotiated several major climate and energy policies that mostly ended up the way he wanted. Those efforts will allow Newsom to say to a national audience that he took voters’ concerns over affordability seriously and worked to lower housing and energy costs. But he will likely receive some blowback for backing away from a more aggressive and environmentally-minded stance toward the oil industry to achieve it — especially as he increasingly uses California’s strict emissions regulations and climate advocacy as a proxy for national leadership.
But the mostly victorious year for the governor’s political profile has also been touched by scandal in recent weeks amid campaign corruption charges filed against his former top aide. He has not been accused of wrongdoing, but it’s possible the association could taint his reputation regardless as he looks for his next political move.
2026 outlook
The next year will continue to be challenging for the state budget as officials predict more deficits. That would limit the governor’s ability to propose any ambitious new programs in his final year in office, a time he’ll need to try to make more inroads on some of California’s most entrenched problems. A persistent housing shortage, homelessness and the high cost of living are all likely to become baggage for Newsom if he does pursue an expected presidential run after he leaves office.
There have been at least 7.5 million illnesses and 3,100 deaths from flu this season, according to CDC data. And flu cases are expected to rise significantly in the coming weeks.
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Flu season is off to a rough start this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the virus arrived as expected, cases are rising faster, compared with previous years.
Why now? Last week, more than 19,000 patients with influenza were admitted to hospitals, up about 10,000 from the previous week, according to new CDC data. To date, the CDC estimates at least 7.5 million people have been sickened, and over 3,100 people have died from the flu. The surge seems to be driven primarily by a new strain of the virus — subclade K of influenza A(H3N2) — that emerged in Australia over the summer.
Any good news? So far, there's no indication that this new strain is more severe, or even more contagious than previous years, says Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Read on ... for the latest guidance on flu shots and other steps you can take to avoid getting sick.
Flu season is off to a rough start this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the virus arrived as expected, cases are rising faster, compared with previous years.
Last week, more than 19,000 patients with influenza were admitted to hospitals, up about 10,000 from the previous week, according to new CDC data. To date, the CDC estimates at least 7.5 million people have been sickened, and over 3,100 people have died from the flu.
The surge seems to be driven primarily by a new strain of the virus — subclade K of influenza A(H3N2) — that emerged in Australia over the summer.
"Anywhere we detect this virus, you can see a large surge of influenza cases coming afterwards," says Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In the U.S., "the timing is not that much different from other flu seasons, but the number of cases, and how quickly those cases are increasing is something that is not usually seen this time of year."
New York has been hit especially hard, with state health officials announcing over 71,000 cases last week — the most cases ever recorded in a single week in the state. But other states are seeing high levels of flu activity, particularly in the northeast, midwest and south.
"The map is mostly red," says Pekosz, indicating high levels of disease that will likely increase over the coming weeks.
"When you're in the middle of seeing the curve start to go up, we just don't have any sense of where it's going to stop," he says. "That's the big concern in most of the medical communities right now."
What's driving the upswing?
So far, there's no indication that this new strain is more severe, or even more contagious than previous years, says Florian Krammer, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
But there have been changes to the virus that may allow it to get around our immune defenses, he says. "There's less immunity to it, and that's allowing the virus to spread very quickly and extensively."
There are some concerns that this season's flu vaccine may not be a perfect match to the new strain, given it emerged after the formulation was decided last February. "I think we're going to have a mismatch between the strain circulating and the vaccine," says Demetre Daskalakis, who led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at CDC until he resigned in August. "But the vaccine is still the best protection we have, even if it's imperfect protection."
Preliminary data from the United Kingdom, which saw an early surge of flu this year, suggests the vaccine is about 30 to 40% effective at preventing hospitalization in adults. "Those numbers are in line with what you would typically see," says Krammer, though he stresses those are preliminary estimates.
What about the flu shot?
Flu vaccines only offer protection if people get them and in the U.S., only 42% of adults have gotten a flu shot this year. That leaves many people unprotected in face of a likely bad flu season, says Daskalakis. He'd like to see the CDC do more to encourage vaccination.
"You're not seeing the robust communication that you would expect," he says. "Usually you'd expect to see more alerts coming out of CDC, more recommendations to be vaccinated."
In response to that criticism, a CDC spokesperson said, "the CDC is strongly committed to keeping Americans healthy during flu season. CDC launched a new national outreach campaign designed to raise awareness and empower Americans with the tools they need to stay healthy during the respiratory illness season," adding "the decision to vaccinate is a personal one. People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential risks and benefits associated with vaccines."
In an interview with NPR, Lisa Grohskopf, a medical officer in the CDC's influenza division emphasized the importance of vaccination. "It's definitely not too late to get a flu vaccine if you haven't done it already," she says.
What else can I do to avoid the flu?
"If you're using public transportation, if you're in the room with a lot of other people, if you're in a healthcare setting, it's really smart to wear a mask," says Krammer, especially higher-quality masks. "I was taking the subway yesterday in New York City. I was wearing an N95 mask."
Social distancing, especially when you or someone in your household is infected, can help minimize the spread too.
If you get infected, there are effective treatment options, especially when started with 48 hours of infection. "If you get an infection with influenza, that's really a reason to see a physician, get diagnosed, and then take next steps," says Krammer. "It's not an infection that you should take lightly."
A federal district court judge ruled yesterday that the Trump administration must continue to seek funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, a watchdog agency the administration has been trying to dismantle through staffing and funding cuts.
Why now: The administration recently made a legal argument that because the agency gets its funding from the Federal Reserve, and since the Fed is technically operating at a loss, there are no valid funds for the CFPB.
Where things stand: Separately, last week a coalition of 21 states, including California, and the District of Columbia joined together for a lawsuit to prevent the defunding of the agency. They argue that the administration is too narrowly interpreting which Fed funds can be used to support the agency — that they don't have to be profits.
A federal district court judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration must continue to seek funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, a watchdog agency the administration has been trying to dismantle through staffing and funding cuts.
The administration recently made a legal argument that because the agency gets its funding from the Federal Reserve, and since the Fed is technically operating at a loss, there are no valid funds for the CFPB.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected the argument, writing that this "would be tantamount to closing what is left of the Bureau." This upholds an earlier injunction from Jackson to ensure the agency would continue to exist as congressionally mandated, and to stop efforts to shutter the CFPB, including through layoffs.
Separately, last week a coalition of 21 states and the District of Columbia joined together for a lawsuit to prevent the defunding of the agency. They argue that the administration is too narrowly interpreting which Fed funds can be used to support the agency — that they don't have to be profits.
Representatives from the White House and the CFPB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The CFPB was created after the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers against fraud and predatory practices; among its many duties, it collects people's complaints against businesses. It has long been a target of conservatives who say it's too aggressive in enforcing consumer protection laws.
President Donald Trump installed Russell Vought as the acting director of the agency, who has mirrored the president's desire to close the bureau. Vought ordered a stop to all work at the agency within the first few weeks of Trump's second inauguration.
In April, layoff notices were sent to about 1,400 of the bureau's workers. The National Treasury Employees Union sued to stop the staff reductions. Judge Jackson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the layoffs, but in August an appeals court panel vacated that ruling, saying that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia lacked jurisdiction in the case. In December, that panel decision was itself vacated, meaning that the layoffs currently remain blocked.
In today's order, Jackson wrote that the administration was "actively and unabashedly trying to shut the agency down again, through different means."
"Notably, though, not one penny of the funding needed to run the agency that has returned over $21 billion to American consumers comes from taxpayer dollars," she wrote. "Today, the agency is hanging by a thread."
Copyright 2025 NPR
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New Year's resolutions are a key part of how many people observe the holiday, as much of an annual tradition as the Times Square ball drop or a midnight champagne toast.
The context: The concept of taking stock and vowing to do better in the new year actually dates back centuries, though there wasn't always a pithy name for it.
The background: One of the first appearances of the phrase "new year resolutions" was in a Boston newspaper in 1813, according to Merriam-Webster. But diary entries show that people had been practicing the concept well before then — like English writer Anne Halkett, who wrote a list of Bible-inspired pledges on Jan. 2, 1671, titled "Resolutions."
The long history: Historians trace the phenomenon even farther back: to 2000 B.C., when Babylonians celebrated the new year with a 12-day springtime festival called Akitu. They marked the arrival of the farming season by crowning a new king, thanking deities for a bountiful harvest and, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, resolving to return neighbors' borrowed agricultural equipment.
Read on... for more on how resolutions came to be associated with Jan. 1.
Are you aiming to sleep better, eat healthier, scroll less and/or generally upgrade your life starting on Jan. 1?
Join the club — it's several thousand years old.
New Year's resolutions are a key part of how many people observe the holiday, as much of an annual tradition as the Times Square ball drop or a midnight champagne toast.
The concept of taking stock and vowing to do better in the new year actually dates back centuries, though there wasn't always a pithy name for it.
The word "resolution" entered English from Latin in the late 14th century, originally defined as the STEM-coded "process of reducing things into simpler forms." Over time, it broadened to more figurative meanings, like solving conflicts and remaining steadfast. By the 19th century, it had also come to signify an expression of intent — including for the year ahead.
One of the first appearances of the phrase "new year resolutions" was in a Boston newspaper in 1813, according to Merriam-Webster.
But diary entries show that people had been practicing the concept well before then — like English writer Anne Halkett, who wrote a list of Bible-inspired pledges on Jan. 2, 1671, titled "Resolutions."
Historians trace the phenomenon even farther back: to 2000 B.C., when Babylonians celebrated the new year with a 12-day springtime festival called Akitu. They marked the arrival of the farming season by crowning a new king, thanking deities for a bountiful harvest and, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, resolving to return neighbors' borrowed agricultural equipment.
Alexis McCrossen, a history professor at Southern Methodist University whose research focuses on New Year's observances, says it was ancient Romans who first associated Jan. 1 with New Year's resolutions.
They celebrated the start of January by giving offerings to the month's namesake, Janus — the two-faced god of beginnings and endings — and auspicious gifts (like twigs from sacred trees) to their loved ones.
"It was a day to make promises and offerings," McCrossen says. "I think that's the origin of our New Year's resolution, because a resolution is a kind of promise."
Fireworks welcome the arrival of 2015 outside of Rome's ancient Colosseum. Ancient Romans celebrated Jan. 1 with religious offerings and gifts to loved ones.
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AFP via Getty Images
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Other cultures and countries came to view the new year as a time for self-reflection and goal-setting, especially from a religious perspective.
There was the medieval "Vow of the Peacock," an end-of-Christmas-season feast where knights renewed their vows of chivalry by placing their hands on (you guessed it) a peacock. In well-documented diary entries from the early 1800s, John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president, detailed spiritual reflections from the past year and wishes for the next one.
But it wasn't until the 20th century that Americans en masse began celebrating New Year's as a holiday, and making secular resolutions a part of it.
This installment of NPR's Word of the Week explores the evolution of New Year's resolutions — and what we can learn from that history as we set our intentions for the future.
New Year's was a "non-event" for much of U.S. history, but a reflective season
As McCrossen explains, Jan. 1 didn't hold special significance to most Americans until relatively recently.
That's partially because England and its colonies didn't start treating that day as the new year until they adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Before that, under the Julian calendar, the year began on March 25.
Even in ensuing decades, McCrossen says Jan. 1 was essentially "like any other day of the week," notable mostly because it was the beginning of the fiscal year. In hindsight, she says that was arguably its own kind of New Year's resolution: paying off debts and resolving to avoid them in the future.
Indeed, Robert Thomas, who founded The Old Farmer's Almanac in 1792, called the new year a time of "leisure to farmers … to settle accounts with your neighbors" after the frenzy of the fall harvest and winter holidays.
Jan. 1 was an increasingly popular day to do so. In the antebellum South, it came to be known as "Hiring Day" or "Heartbreak Day," a busy day for renewing contracts — including those of enslaved people — and tallying debts. Printers began to heavily advertise products like ledgers and account books specifically ahead of the new year.
"It's like buying the running shoes before you make the commitment that you're going to train for a marathon," McCrossen says. "There's an emphasis on preparing for the new year and doing it better than you had been."
By the early 19th century, more Americans were embracing the new year as a moment to take stock and set spiritual goals, which McCrossen attributes in large part to the growth of capitalism and Evangelicalism.
While the new year was largely still a "non-event," McCrossen says, people increasingly treated Jan. 1 as a day of visiting and socializing. New Yorkers held open houses; People in D.C. went to the White House to shake the president's hand.
It was around this time that Americans started becoming "more oriented toward festivities" like Christmas (first recognized as a federal holiday in 1870) and New Year's in general, McCrossen says.
"But I think if it had just remained a holiday for the first of the year … I don't know if we would have gotten resolutions," she adds. "I think the resolutions come with the emphasis on midnight … on the moment of the new year's arrival."
A couple toasts to New Year's as the clock strikes midnight on this German postcard from 1904. German immigrants are credited with helping popularize New Year's Eve celebrations in the U.S.
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She traces that shift to two main contributors.
One is the "Watch Night" services that Baptist, Methodist and other evangelical churches began to hold late on New Year's Eve, which tended to focus on shortcomings from the past year and promises for the next one. The preacher would announce the arrival of midnight, McCrossen says, "and there would be shouts of joy and gladness … and a sense of transformation."
The other is the influx of German immigrants, who brought with them "Silvesterabend" (or "Sylvester's Abend"), the tradition — named for an early pope and the German word for "evening" — of celebrating Dec. 31 with song, dance and midnight toasts. The practice was so unusual at the time that it warranted coverage in mainstream U.S. newspapers, she says — and inspired many non-evangelicals to follow suit.
"By the 20th century, we've got electricity, we've got the ball dropping in Times Square, we've got bells ringing, we've got midnight galore, and we have a lot of commercial forces that are trying to make money out of New Year's Eve," McCrossen says.
How our resolutions have changed
People run on treadmills at a New York Sports Club on Jan. 2, 2003 in Brooklyn, New York — perhaps as part of a New Year's resolution.
In 1900, Georgia's Columbus Daily Enquirer spotlighted the "novel New Year's resolution" of an unnamed Columbus woman who "had resolved to stay at home more, and to go out more." A 1914 piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram surveyed several Texans about attempting New Year's resolutions.
"I don't remember keeping any one of a dozen I recall making," said one, Howard Higby.
"Never before until today. This is my last cigarette for a year," said another, Billie Moore. "See me Jan. 1, 1916 and ask me."
A 1918 piece in Michigan's Jackson City Patriot says World War I "has brought New Year resolutions back into fashion," and "not the old-style kinds that were readily made and readily broken." It urged Americans to resolve to help win the war by doing things like buying Liberty bonds and rationing food.
New Year's resolutions have largely lost their religious overtones, a development McCrossen says is in line with broader cultural trends. In recent decades, goals have turned more towards self-improvement.
A 1947 Gallup poll shared with NPR asked if people planned to make New Year's resolutions. For those who did, some of the most common answers will be recognizable to readers today: "improve my character, live [a] better life, be more independent," "be more efficient and prompt," "stop smoking" and "save more money."
But "get thin," "stop eating candy," and "get more sleep, take care of my health, not work so hard" ranked at the bottom of the list, in a sign of how times have changed.
These days, McCrossen believes everyone should try to make at least some New Year's reflections and resolutions, ideally informed by generations past. She especially likes the idea of bringing back Jan. 1 as a day to reconnect with others, whether that's through an in-person get together, a phone call or a handwritten note.
And she notes that — as has been the case throughout history — resolutions don't only have to be made on the eve of a new year.
"Each day, one could do that," she says. "It's just that the 1st provides us with a lot of energy and community, all of us together trying to start out on a new foot."
Copyright 2025 NPR
Gov. Gavin Newsom releases his revised 2025-26 budget proposal in Sacramento on May 14, 2025.
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How did we get here? Where do we go from here? Spend one minute to catch up on everything you need to know about California’s budget health this year.
The backstory: Gov. Gavin Newsom opened this year with a rosy forecast: Buoyed by $17 billion more in revenue than previously planned, the state would have a modest surplus of $363 million for fiscal year 2025-26, he told reporters in January. But life turns on a dime.
What's next: The deficit is projected to reach nearly $18 billion next year, mostly because the state is expected to spend so much money that it would offset, if not eclipse, the strong tax revenues driven by an AI boom, said the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in its fiscal outlook last month.
Read on... for more about the budget.
Gov. Gavin Newsom opened this year with a rosy forecast: Buoyed by $17 billion more in revenue than previously planned, the state would have a modest surplus of $363 million for fiscal year 2025-26, he told reporters in January.
But life turns on a dime.
The January wildfires that ripped through Los Angeles forced the state to spend billions in disaster aid and delay tax filings for L.A. residents. The cost of Medi-Cal, the state-run health insurance program for low-income residents, ballooned to $6 billion more than anticipated. President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policies rocked the stock market, which California heavily relies on for tax revenue. And the state lodged a flurry of lawsuits against the Trump administration over its threat to withhold federal funding for food assistance, disaster recovery and other grants.
By May, Newsom no longer predicted a modest surplus, but a $12 billion deficit.
To plug the hole, Newsom initially proposed drastic cuts to Medi-Cal. But the final budget he negotiated with state lawmakers depended largely on internal borrowing, dipping into the state’s reserves and freezing Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented immigrants to avoid deep cuts to other social services.
While Democratic leaders largely blamed the Trump administration for California’s budget problem, the volatility of state revenues is not new. California highly depends on taxing the income and capital gains of high earners, whose fortune is often at the mercy of the stock market. In 2022, the state saw a nearly $100 billion surplus, followed by a projected $56 billion deficit over the next two years.
2026 outlook
The deficit is projected to reach nearly $18 billion next year, mostly because the state is expected to spend so much money that it would offset, if not eclipse, the strong tax revenues driven by an AI boom, said the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office in its fiscal outlook last month.
If the estimate holds, it’ll be the fourth year in a row in Newsom’s tenure that California faces a deficit despite revenue growth.
Worse yet, the structural deficit could reach $35 billion annually by fiscal year 2027-28, the LAO said.
California is facing $6 billion in extra spending next year, including at least $1.3 billion because the state must now pay more to cover Medi-Cal benefits under Trump’s budget bill. The state also stands to lose more housing and homelessness funding from the federal government.
How can legislators fix it? The options are stretching thin, as the state already took one-time measures to balance the books. The LAO notes that solving an ongoing structural budget problem requires either finding more sustainable revenue streams, or making serious cuts, or both.
