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When Megan Meo, 36, and her husband decided to start a family, they knew they wanted two kids. They didn’t know they would have to endure multiple rounds of fertility treatment, causing much heartache and draining away thousands of dollars.

“It’s strange when my body isn’t working to do a thing it was made for,” Meo said. ”It hurts me at my core.”

Meo is among roughly 9 million Californians who will benefit from a new law requiring some insurers to pay for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. On Jan. 1, large group health insurers in California — from employers with at least 100 workers — will be required to begin covering fertility preservation and in vitro fertilization services.

The law also redefines infertility in state statute, eliminating an exemption that prevented same-sex couples or single people from receiving fertility benefits.

The law does not apply to people who get their insurance through religious employers, federally regulated plans or Medi-Cal. Last month, a settlement in a class action lawsuit led by a Santa Clara couple required Aetna to extend fertility benefits to LGBTQ couples nationwide.

Advocates expect small group insurers will soon be required to offer the same coverage through a separate regulatory process that awaits federal approval. Once federal officials approve that process, most Californians with employer-sponsored health insurance should receive the benefit, said Sen. Caroline Menjivar, the law’s author and a Democrat from Van Nuys.

“I am so proud of this bill. I want this bill on my tombstone,” Menjivar said. “This impacts so many people from single people to heterosexual couples.”

Menjivar, who is lesbian, said the new law strikes a personal chord. For her to have children, she would have to rely on fertility treatments – and insurance companies have often excluded LGBTQ individuals from coverage for these services. One of her friends spent more than $20,000 on fertility treatments to have three children, she said.

“This brings into the fold a lot of people,” Menjivar said, tearing up. “I get emotional because I know these people. I know what this looked like for my friends.”

High cost prevents people from using IVF

In vitro fertilization, or IVF, commonly helps people struggling to conceive. About 9% of men and 11% of women of reproductive age struggle with infertility in the U.S. During a cycle of IVF, doctors retrieve eggs from the ovaries and fertilize them with sperm in a lab. The resultant embryos can then be transferred to the uterus.

The process, while simple sounding, can take months or even years before a successful pregnancy. It is also expensive. A 2010 survey on the cost for infertility treatment among 400 Northern California women found the average payment for one cycle of IVF was $24,000. The average cost for a successful pregnancy, which can take multiple cycles, was $61,000. Health care costs have grown since then.

Before insurance coverage kicked in, Meo’s fertility clinic told her one round of IVF would cost between $30,000 and $39,000.

“The idea of spending $40,000 on something that might not work was really scary,” she said. She and her husband have been trying to start a family for two years. Her infertility is partially related to uterine scarring left by a previous miscarriage. Insurance coverage lessens the emotional and financial burden for them, Meo said.

Alise Powell, director of government affairs with RESOLVE: The National Fertility Association, said cost is the No.1 barrier preventing people from accessing care. Congress has on multiple occasions shot down legislative efforts to require health insurers to cover fertility services, most recently in 2024. California is the 15th state to mandate coverage for state-regulated plans.

“Infertility is a disease and it should be covered by insurance like any other disease or ailment people have,” Powell said.

Jamie Falls, 44, has been trying to get pregnant for 11 years. She and her husband, who had an unsuccessful vasectomy reversal, took out a loan to afford the $13,000 it cost for one round of IVF in 2020. The procedure didn’t work. They’ve been saving since then to try another round.

Insurance coverage offers some relief, Falls said, but after trying for so long it almost seems too good to be true.

“I wouldn’t wish this journey on anybody. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through (but) I can’t picture myself not being a mom,” Falls said.

Health insurers who opposed the law before it was enacted have said it will raise overall insurance costs, pinching small businesses and people who buy individual policies.

Infertility often unexplained

Many people who struggle to conceive don’t know why they are unable to do so. Studies indicate around 30% are diagnosed with unexplained infertility.

It’s a frustrating diagnosis, said Sarah Jolly, 39, who has been trying to conceive with her husband for five years. Tests to check her ovarian reserve, hormone levels and ensure there were no blockages came back normal. The couple even sought out a urologist who specializes in male infertility to run tests on Jolly’s husband only for everything to return clean.

The couple has tried intrauterine insemination — a process where sperm is inserted directly into the uterus while a woman is ovulating — three times without a pregnancy.

Jolly said she and her husband are keeping IVF on the table as a last resort, but she doesn’t want to go through with a procedure without knowing what it’s treating.

Recently, after seeking out another specialist, Jolly learned that she had endometriosis, a chronic condition that can cause adhesions, scarring and inflammation around the reproductive organs. Multiple doctors had previously told Jolly endometriosis had nothing to do with her infertility, she said, but the specialist told her it was a common – and treatable – reason.

Studies suggest between 30% to 50% of women with endometriosis are infertile, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Jolly said throughout this process she has felt unheard and undervalued, constantly having to advocate for more testing and more answers. Insurance also refused to pay for any of her fertility tests or appointments, but covered her husband’s visit to the urologist.

“I’ve gotten a lot of comments societally, even from a lot of men, like ‘You should have kids. It’s the biggest privilege.’ But our society also doesn’t support women and getting the health care they need to be able to achieve that,” Jolly said. “It feels like a punch in the face that I wasn’t expecting. I really thought it would be a much more supportive process medically.”

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Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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What’s good for Riverside County is good for the whole state: After a pilot to automatically admit high school students into the California State University system in the Inland Empire county took off last fall, lawmakers this year passed a law to greenlight a similar program statewide next fall.

Leaders at the California State University last year launched the pilot to attract more students to the university system and to steer some to campuses that have been struggling with enrollment declines.

The pilot worked like this: University officials and high schools in Riverside County pored over student course completion and grade data to identify every county high school senior who was eligible for admission to the 10 of 22 Cal State campuses chosen for the pilot. Then the students received a brochure in the mail last fall before the Nov. 30 submission deadline, plus digital correspondence, telling them they were provisionally admitted as long as they submitted an application to one or more Cal State campuses, even those not in the pilot, and maintained their high school grades.

Starting next fall, all students in California will be eligible for the automatic admissions program, which will expand the roster of participating Cal State campuses to 16. Cal State will release more information on the program’s implementation in February, its website says.

In justifying the expanded program during a legislative hearing, bill author Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, said college should be as seamless a transition from high school as it is for students finishing one grade and advancing to the next. “It’s entirely an invention of us, the gap between 12th grade and college. … The same gap does not exist between elementary school and junior high or junior high and high school.”

The legislation, Senate Bill 640, passed without any opposition and was signed into law by the governor. The program doesn’t mean students can enter any major at the campuses they pick. Some majors may require students to show higher high school grades or tougher courses if those programs have fewer openings than student demand. For Californians, the standard minimum GPA for entry is 2.5 in a series of college-preperatory courses.

Students will also be free to apply to the six other over-enrolled Cal State campuses, though admission isn’t guaranteed. Those are Fullerton, Long Beach, Pomona, San Diego, San Jose and San Luis Obispo.

What the Riverside pilot did

High school counselors told CalMatters that the Riverside County pilot encouraged students who never considered attending a university to follow through with the automatic admissions process. Counselors also reached out to some students who were a class or two short of meeting the requirements for Cal State admission to take those, encouraging more students to apply to college who otherwise wouldn’t have. Younger students who were off the college-course taking track might be emboldened to enroll in those tougher high school courses knowing automatic admission is in the cards, the counselors said.

Silvia Morales, a senior at Heritage High School, a public Riverside County high school, got an automatic admissions letter last fall. “I was pretty set on going to community college and then transferring, because I felt like I wasn’t ready for the four-year commitment to a college,” she said. She eventually submitted her forms, encouraged by her high school counselor.

Following the Riverside pilot, Cal State campuses saw roughly 1,500 more applicants and 1,400 more admitted students in 2025 compared to 2024, though just 136 more students enrolled.

The data for Riverside County reviewed by CalMatters suggests that more applicants and admitted students through an automatic admissions policy doesn’t translate into more enrolled students. Colleges closely follow their “yield rates” — the percentage of admitted students who ultimately enroll. In 2024, the Cal State yield rate for Riverside County was about a third. But in 2025, it declined by a few percentage points, meaning a lower share of admitted students selected any Cal State campus.

This suggests that the system will have to work harder to convert admitted students into ones who actually enroll, said Iwunze Ugo, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, particularly with students who would not have applied were it not for the automatic admissions program.

Automatic admissions doesn’t mean automatic enrollment

While admission to a college overcomes a major hurdle to eventually enrolling, there are numerous steps necessary before students sit down for their first college course. Accepted students must submit additional grades, put down a deposit, complete registration forms and actually show up for the fall term. Students who were less engaged in the college-going culture are more likely to “melt” during the process between acceptance and enrollment, some studies show, though researchers say this can be reversed with additional outreach to students at risk of not enrolling.

And even with an automatic admissions program, students must still register online and complete the application, which many students under the Riverside pilot didn’t do. Cal State sent out more than 17,000 automatic admissions notices to students, and just under 12,000 formally applied to at least one Cal State campus. Those who didn’t apply may have chosen another option, such as the often more selective University of California, private campuses, community colleges, or no college at all.

“I think that’ll be incumbent on the CSU to pick up some of that slack and encourage students admitted through this path to go through the rest of the process and ultimately end up at a CSU campus,” Ugo said.

Cal State officials also recognize this. “Students who apply independently tend to have stronger self-directed interest, and therefore stronger intent to enroll,” said April Grommo, a senior Cal State official who oversees enrollment management. More direct engagement with students admitted through this program will be necessary, she said.

Some campuses with a recent history of declining enrollment got a tiny pick-up from the pilot. San Francisco State saw 311 more applications from Riverside County in 2025 than in 2024. That translated to 11 more enrolled students, a review of Cal State data shows.

A statewide program may steer more students to attend campuses with enrollment woes, even if the “yield rate” declines. That’s because if the rate of new students enrolling doesn’t rise as quickly as the number of students admitted, the yield rate drops.

Under the expanded statewide program, Grommo said the system anticipates “enrollment growth as well, but not necessarily at the same rate as applicStudents walk through campus at Cal State San Marcos on May 6, 2025. Photo by Adriana Heldiz, CalMatters ations and admits,” she added.

And as the economy shows signs of decay, the prospect of a college degree may compel more high schoolers on the fence to attend Cal State; system data show students from there earn a typical salary of $71,000 five years after graduating with a bachelor’s degree. Postsecondary enrollment tends to rise as the number of available jobs decreases, a social science phenomenon in which employers are more selective about who they hire, compelling many job-seekers to hit the books to show they’re more trained.

Of course, souring economies often result in less public funding for colleges as state budgets are beleaguered, which may lead to fewer professors and staff for a growing cadre of students. “But I think generally, having more students is not a problem,” Ugo said.

Eureka lost one of its treasured residents on Nov. 22nd with the passing of 105-year-old Olga Dahl. She was a highly regarded educator and artist.

Born on Third Street in Eureka, Olga often shared stories of growing up in Old Town, when it was a bustling hub of immigrants, saloons, bordellos and street carts. Neighbors shared the bounty from their backyard gardens. Grapes, which came to town on the train, became homemade wine. The young men who worked in the local card rooms and lived at her mother Antonia’s boarding house taught Olga card games (she played Solitaire every day and even kept score), how to play the latest tunes on the piano, and showed her the current dance steps. They became a lifelong love.

Childhood was a difficult time for Olga She lost her father, Joseph, when she was four, and suffered a chronic illness that kept her out of school for months. But with the support of her mother and her Catholic faith, her determination didn’t falter. Art and being a teacher were her beacons. After graduating from Eureka High (and singing in a trio with a local band), she attended Humboldt State until she was accepted at California College Of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Her teaching credential from Berkeley paved the way for her to get a great position at a lumber town, Westwood, east of Redding. But her taste of big city life (museums, seeing Diego Rivera working at the 1939 World Fair on Treasure Island) brought her back to Eureka, where she ended up marrying James Simpson. They would often go down to San Francisco to visit his sister, Virginia, and see the sights. Mariana, their daughter, was born in 1951, just a month after they moved into their new home, which Olga designed. Unfortunately, Jim passed away within a few years, leaving her adrift.

When Mariana was four, Olga began teaching home economics and a few art classes. She eventually became head of the art department. Her distinctive Volvo sports car, stylish fashion sense and unique hairstyle (The Bun) made her stand out. Teaching was in her soul, and after retiring she mentored and supervised young student teachers. As a docent, she brought art to schools throughout the county, sharing her love and enthusiasm, inspiring all she met. Former students would often stop her in stores, sharing their memories and expressing their thanks. That uplifted her spirits. Because for her, it was always about the kids.

In 1957 Olga married Clarence Dahl, a gentle man who always had a good story to tell or an odd joke to share. On Sunday afternoons they would pile into the station wagon and drive out in the country with a picnic. Then came camping (Forest Glen was a favorite) and fishing and hiking. When Mari left for college, Olga and Clarence started taking trips abroad, eventually hitting almost every continent. Olga got to finally see, in person, many of the works of art she had loved for years. They were together until Clarence passed in 2006.

Olga always knew how to have a good time. She loved dancing, singing and having small dinner parties. She was also well known for her 5 o’clock martinis. Neighbors and friends enjoyed showing up for some conversation and a cocktail. Her innate sense of fashion and design could turn anything into an art project, whether it was her clothing, cooking, flower arranging or just making a sandwich12:06:08. She had a knack for making things better.

After her 100th birthday (with a memorable drive-by parade), she met Jan Rowen, who got together a team of caregivers for her. They soon ended up with Olga living at Jan’s home, making a lap for all the animals, puttering in the garden and folding all the laundry or “straightening things up” around the house. She even voted in the 2024 Presidential Election (just had to vote for a woman) and made a few headlines of her own (because of her age).

This last year was spent with Elibe Noriega and family at their home in Cutten. She loved sitting and looking out the big windows at the beautiful forest, listening to the girls talking and waiting for the wonderful food. To be with a family again was a big blessing for her. We are forever grateful for their loving care of Olga.

(Donations can be made in Olga’s name to any of the local animal rescue/shelter or SNAP programs.)

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The Klamath-Siskiyou Mountains are home to one of the nation’s largest deposits of serpentine, a rare, chromium-rich soil produced by weathered ultramafic rock. While relatively harmless in its benign rock and soil form, new research shows that chromium can turn into a carcinogen during wildfires. 

The study, authored by Cal Poly Humboldt soils scientist Chelsea Obeidy, breaks down how chromium can convert into a carcinogen — hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, a toxic heavy metal dubbed the Erin Brokovich chemical for its role in the landmark water contamination lawsuit — when exposed to extreme heat. That chemical can then leach into groundwater.

Obeidy digging up soil samples at Eight Dollar Mountain. | Photo: Matthew Polizzotto

The research, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, calls for a deeper understanding of how wildfire can affect soil contaminants. “In a rapidly changing climate where soil and water resources are increasingly important and where wildfire intensity, extent, and recurrence are increasing, it is essential to understand the landscape controls on soil and water quality,” the study states. 

Obeidy was inspired to look deeper into the subject while working on her Ph.D with Matthew Polizzotto, an earth scientist and environmental chemist at the University of Oregon. During her research, she came across a study out of Stanford that found elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in fire-affected soils near Santa Rosa, prompting the question: How do wildfires affect chromium-rich serpentine soils in northern California and southern Oregon?

“There isn’t a lot of research on this topic,” Obeidy told the Outpost. “There’s been some studies that have measured it in river systems after a fire, but overall, there just needs to be more research. … Serpentine soils — even without wildfire — sometimes have elevated concentrations of this carcinogen associated with their groundwater … but we still don’t understand how it’s getting in the groundwater.”

Obeidy and her colleagues made the trek to Eight Dollar Mountain, an expansive botanical range located in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon, to collect soil samples at different elevations to capture a range of soil weathering.

“We were really curious about how variations like temperature, burn intensity or landscape position — at the summit, in the middle of a big hillslope and down by the river — impact how chromium-6 varies,” she explained. “We sampled the soils and conducted these little experiments on them to figure out how chromium-6 would be generated at different temperatures.”

By “little experiments,” Obeidy means they torched the soil samples to simulate wildfire intensity. Samples that were taken from the summit and burned at 750ºF produced the highest concentrations of the carcinogen, whereas low-intensity fires generated less.

To recreate the effect of rainwater passing through the soil, they packed burned and unburned samples into plastic columns and pumped them with a synthetic rainwater solution to simulate one year of precipitation. 

“We wanted to quantify how long this contamination would last [in the environment],” Obeidy said. “And we found that, yeah, it could last from anywhere from a half a year to two years, and that really was dependent on the temperature and position in the landscape.”

There’s no indication that the carcinogen has had any significant impacts on the environment or regional water supplies as of yet, but “it definitely could,” Obeidy said. “We want to get the word out and for people to be aware, but I don’t want to scare people. … There just needs to be more research on it.”

Ultimately, she hopes agencies like CalFire and the U.S. Forest Service will take this research into account during the post-fire response and clean up to ensure groundwater isn’t being contaminated. 

“We should be monitoring for chromium-6 in these post-fire landscapes, just to make sure that people’s drinking water is safe,” she said, adding that well water should be subject to additional testing. “It should definitely be investigated further.” 

You can check out the study here.

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Winter is off to a wild and woolly start here in Humboldt. The region’s record-breaking rainfall will be followed tonight by a high-wind warning, according to the National Weather Service. 

“A very strong system will approach Northwest California Tuesday, bringing strong to damaging winds to the region Tuesday Night through Wednesday morning,” warn the good folks at the NWS office on Woodley Island.

As you can see in the graphic above, a “High Wind Warning” covering Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity and Lake counties will be in effect from 7 p.m. tonight through 10 a.m. Wednesday, with the strongest winds over the coastal headlands, exposed ridges and “channeled gaps” in the terrain.

The agency’s warning continues:

Downed trees, blowing debris, and power outages are likely. AVOID TRAVEL DURING THE STRONGEST WINDS! High wind warnings and wind advisories have been issued for the entire region. Wind gusts of 50-70 mph are likely in Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, and Lake counties with locally higher gusts. Elsewhere gusts to 50 mph are possible with ridge-tops possibly seeing higher winds. Saturated ground will make trees more susceptible to toppling over. Prepare now for the possibility of losing power.

The Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services is also encouraging caution and preparedness. (See below.)

Stay safe out there, folks! 

Press release from Troop 15/Pack 95:

Boy Scout Troop 15 and Cub Scout Pack 95 will again be picking up Christmas trees in the Arcata, Eureka, and McKinleyville areas and hauling them to green waste for the community.  We will be doing this on Saturday December 28 and again on Saturday January 3 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Anyone who would like to schedule a pickup should text or call 707-273-1997 or email arcatacubscouts@gmail. with their name, address, phone number and preferred pickup date (12/28 or 1/3). This is a community service project for the Scouts and there is no fixed cost to pick up a tree - donations are accepted and appreciated but not required.  All donations will help fund camping and other outings and summer camp for the Scouts.

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Facing a mountain of lawsuits, California K-12 schools will have a system in place beginning this year to prevent teachers and other staff from sexually abusing students.

A new California law creates an array of measures to educate school staff, beef up reporting requirements and stop teachers credibly accused of abuse from getting jobs at other districts.

The law, Senate Bill 848, goes into effect Jan. 1 and schools must have protocols in place by July. The law applies to all schools, including private schools.

“I’m proud to see this bill move forward. It’s been really personal for me,” state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, the bill’s author, told CalMatters after it passed. “For survivors, this is an important step toward justice.”

Avalanche of lawsuits

The law stems from a previous California law that made it easier for victims to sue school districts and counties. Under AB 218, which went into effect in 2020, victims can file suit until age 40 or even older if they didn’t remember being abused until later in life. That’s led to an avalanche of lawsuits and much greater public awareness of the scope of the problem.

So far, victims have filed more than 1,000 lawsuits against school districts and counties, with some resulting in enormous payouts. A jury in Riverside County in 2023 handed Moreno Valley Unified a $135 million verdict over abuse allegations, and Los Angeles Unified faces more than $500 million in claims.

Overall, California schools face nearly $3 billion in sex abuse claims from former students, according to the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, a state agency that helps school districts with financial matters. Some of the incidents occurred decades ago, as early as the 1940s, and some of the payouts have been so large that they’ve led districts to financial insolvency.

School accountability

While the new law doesn’t address the lawsuits, it does institute measures intended to stop future abuse and hold schools more accountable. It requires schools to write comprehensive policies on appropriate behavior, and train students, teachers, coaches and other school staff on recognizing and reporting misconduct. It also broadens the number of staff who are required to report abuse allegations.

Perhaps the most noteworthy requirement is creating a database of teachers credibly accused of abuse. The database, to be administered by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, will be available to schools during their hiring processes. The aim is to stop teachers who’ve abused students from quitting and getting rehired elsewhere, only to abuse more students. Teachers who’ve been cleared of wrongdoing will be removed from the database.

Pérez, a Democrat from Alhambra, said she was inspired to author the new law after reading about generations of abuse at Rosemead High School, which is in her district. She also told CaMatters that she was the victim of a teacher’s unwanted attention when she was in high school.

“There are now dollars and cents being assigned to these cases,” she said in September. “It’s really opened up this conversation about what can we do to better prevent this abuse from happening.”