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Nearly two months after the Trump Administration announced its intent to revoke $679 million in federal grant funding for offshore wind projects across the nation, the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District is looking to the state to help fill critical funding gaps for the Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project slated for the Samoa Peninsula.

Since 2023, the U.S. Department of  Transportation (DOT) has awarded more than $435 million in federal grant funds to the Harbor District, including $426.7 million from the INFRA Program and $8.6 million from the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PDIP). U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy abruptly withdrew those funds at the end of July on the basis that “fantasy wind projects” use “resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry.”

At a special meeting tonight, the Harbor District Board of Directors will discuss the recent loss in federal funds and next steps for the heavy lift marine terminal project. The staff report attached to tonight’s agenda notes that “district staff are currently working with the State and other partners to plan our next steps and determine how to fill the funding gaps left by the Federal government’s actions.”

Reached for additional comment on tonight’s agenda, Harbor District Executive Director Chris Mikkelsen acknowledged that the district is “obviously in a transition,” but said he’s optimistic that the terminal project will move forward with financial support from the state. 

“We still have funds available in the original grant we received in [2022] from the California Energy Commission, so we will continue to utilize those funds,” Mikkelsen told the Outpost, referring to a $10.5 million CEC grant. “In addition to that, hopefully late this year or early next year, we will see a grant agreement for what’s called the ‘WFIT’ — the Waterfront Facilities Improvement Program that the CEC put out last year — in which we were awarded a little over $18 million to allow us to expand upon our studies and our technical work.”

“We’re full speed ahead,” Mikkelsen continued. “We’re absolutely focused, shoulder to the wheel, on building a modern heavy lift marine terminal here in Humboldt.  … [After] some of these next steps happen and we have more green lights in front of us, then there’ll be … more to share, but right now, that’s where we’re at.”

As seen in the table above, which does not include any matching funds from the state, the district has spent about half of the federal PIDP funds, with approximately $4.15 million remaining. Does that mean the district has to reimburse the federal government for the PIDP funds spent to date?

“No. These are reimbursement grants — we are only reimbursed for the activities that we complete,” Mikkelsen said, noting that the district is covered for the cost up to July 29, 2025, when it received notice that the funds would be withdrawn. “There won’t be any need for repayments there because those funds have not come.”

The staff report notes that the INFRA grant funds have not been spent for two reasons: 1) The majority of INFRA funds are reserved for construction, and 2) INFRA funds cannot be expended until permits are complete.

“While this is a significant blow to the project, this is a longer-term problem as the project is not expected to be ready for construction for a few years,” the report states. “This gives us time to secure alternate sources of funding for construction.”

The district will also seek funding through California’s Climate Bond, also known as Proposition 4, which includes $475 million in funding for offshore wind development. Mikkelsen said the district hopes to get about half of that funding, but it’s yet to be determined.

“We’re going to advocate for and lobby for a very large portion of that money to come to Humboldt,” he said. “We’re uniquely qualified to receive it … [as] only two ports uniquely qualify for about $400 million of it — that’s us and [the Port of] Long Beach. Keep in mind, we work hand in glove with Long Beach on developing these terminals here on the U.S. West Coast.”

The Harbor District Board of Directors isn’t expected to take any formal action on tonight’s status update, but members of the public are welcome to attend in person and via Zoom. The board’s agenda and virtual attendance instructions can be found here.

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PREVIOUSLY:

• Harbor District Announces Massive Offshore Wind Partnership; Project Would Lead to an 86-Acre Redevelopment of Old Pulp Mill Site
• Offshore Wind is Coming to the North Coast. What’s in it For Humboldt?
• ‘Together We Can Shape Offshore Wind for The West Coast’: Local Officials, Huffman and Others Join Harbor District Officials in Celebrating Partnership Agreement With Crowley Wind Services
• Humboldt Harbor District Officials Talk Port Development As Offshore Wind Efforts Ramp Up
• Harbor District Responds to Crowley Controversy, Commits to the ‘Highest Ethical Standards’
• LoCO Interview: The Outpost Talks to Crowley Executives About Recent Allegations of Misconduct, Port Development on the Samoa Peninsula and the Company’s Future in Humboldt
• (UPDATE) Huffman Announces $8.7 Million Federal Grant Toward Offshore Wind Port Development
• Harbor District Commissioners to Discuss Extended Partnership Agreement with Crowley Wind Services During Tonight’s Meeting
• WHOA: Rep. Huffman’s Office Teases $426 Million Federal Grant for Offshore Wind Terminal, to be Announced Tomorrow
• (PHOTOS) The Biggest Federal Grant in Humboldt History? Huffman, Assorted Worthies Gather on Woodley Island to Celebrate $426 Million in Infrastructure Funding for Offshore Wind
• At a Two-Day Conference in Eureka This Week, North Coast Tribes Advocate for ‘Meaningful Engagement’ With Offshore Wind Developers, Federal Regulators
• (VIDEO) See What Wind Turbine Assembly Would Look Like on Humboldt Bay, Courtesy of This Presentation From the Harbor District
• Did You See That Big Ship in Humboldt Bay Last Week? That’s the Vessel Mapping the Seabed and Collecting Data for Offshore Wind Development
• INTERVIEW: Harbor District Outlines Next Steps for Offshore Wind Development on the North Coast
• INTERVIEW: Rep. Huffman on Trump’s Offshore Wind Ban
• (UPDATE) Trump Administration Pulls Funding for ‘Fantasy Wind Projects,’ Including $426 Million Grant for Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Terminal

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Sept. 23, 2025, deputies with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Marijuana Enforcement Team served three search warrants in the Island Mountain area of northern Mendocino County as part of an illegal cannabis cultivation investigation. The Trinity County Sheriff’s Office and the Butte County Sheriff’s Office assisted in the service of the warrants.

Three parcels were investigated during the service of the warrants. The parcels did not have the required county permit or state license to cultivate cannabis commercially.

During the service of the warrants, deputies eradicated about 6,259 growing cannabis plants. They also seized and destroyed more than 612 pounds of cannabis bud and shake.

Assisting environmental agencies found chemicals restricted for use in California. These included pesticides such as imidacloprid, which is highly toxic to pollinators, and myclobutanil. Both are listed on California’s Groundwater Protection List. Investigators also found bromethalin, a neurotoxic rodenticide known to kill local wildlife. All of these pesticides are prohibited for use in cannabis cultivation by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

No subjects were contacted on scene. This is an ongoing investigation into those responsible.

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the

Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

Video: Andrew Goff.

UPDATE, 12:10 a.m.: Just after midnight, the Eureka Police Department announced on social media that the barricaded subject was in custody and that they’d release more details soon.

# # #

UPDATE, 5 p.m.:The situation is unchanged. Law enforcement remains on scene for the long haul, keeping the Hawthorne Street home surrounded while the subject stays inside despite repeated attempts to draw him out.

# # #

UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: Police are still on scene, with guns drawn. The Sheriff’s Office’s Bearcat has been brought to the location, and there’s a drone in the sky.

Archives from a Humboldt County scanner feed indicate that the incident began just before 10 a.m., when a man with a gun was found sleeping in a house not his own.

According to the Outpost‘s Andrew Goff, police are currently using a loudspeaker to instruct a person to come out of the house.

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Readers alert us to the fact that the Eureka Police Department has taped off a block of Hawthorne Street, in between Summer and Union, while some sort of investigation is underway.

Eureka Police spokesperson Laura Montagna said that the department did not have any information it was able to share at the moment, but she did say the public was not at any risk.

An Outpost reader who witnessed the scene said police were seen outside a home with their weapons drawn a little bit ago.

We’ll update when we know more.

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This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.

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After Jane Huang graduated from Eureka High School in 2018, she knew she wanted to go to college in a different town.  

She had struggled with severe depression, and when she could not keep up with her classes, teachers called her “lazy.” She dreaded going to school, where she felt isolated from friends and family and outcast as one of the few Chinese American students in Eureka, a rural and low-income seaport town in Northern California. 

After graduating from Cal State East Bay with a B.A. in psychology, Huang returned to Eureka High School as a student mental health worker in a role funded by the federal government’s school-based mental health grants in 2022.  

“There was no wellness center when I went to school here, and knowing what the students go through, I just felt like I could really help them out,” said Huang, who is now a third-year wellness coach in the Eureka City Schools district.

Providers like Huang tackled what experts say is a student mental crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, and most prevalent in poor, rural parts of the country. Now, as the Trump administration doubles down on a storm of “anti-DEI” cuts to education, these services could be terminated next, forcing Huang to leave students who still need help in Eureka.

On April 29, the U.S. Department of Education notified 49 grant recipients that it would cancel roughly $168 million that had been appropriated for mental health services to students in California, stating that recipients had violated their standard of “merit, fairness and excellence in education” and failed to comply with the “priorities and policy preferences” of the Trump administration. 

Effective Dec. 31, school districts, county offices of education and universities will lose funds midway through five-year grants, a loss that will particularly devastate those in Eureka, Northern Humboldt and Del Norte in Northern California, which together will lose more than $12 million. 

Eureka City Schools will lose about $3 million, which funds several mental health workers, including all of the district’s five school social workers, along with training and supervision for nine graduate student interns from Cal Poly Humboldt, said Sarahdee Duncan, the wellness center coordinator with Eureka City Schools. They staff the district’s core mental health services, like crisis and substance abuse intervention, one-on-one therapy, group therapy, family outreach and suicide prevention. 

“The grant allowed us to hire staff and outfit our wellness center — which will stay, but I’m sad to say, the services provided there may not,” said Duncan. Ending the grant could mean an end to in-house services and a return to six-month waitlists and “barriers like paperwork, insurance or transportation for families and children seeking help.”

In June, California joined a coalition of 16 other states to sue the U.S. Department of Education over an “unlawful” cancellation of grants that provide “the nation’s high-need, low-income and rural schools” with services that are “critical to students’ well-being, safety and academic success.”

Duncan said she is not hopeful that the lawsuit would release funds in time, if at all. Instead, most districts are waiting to see if new Medi-Cal reimbursement could salvage a small portion of clinicians, as Duncan said the district will likely not generate “enough billable income to sustain all positions.”

As schools in California prepare to lose hundreds of social workers, school counselors, school psychologists, wellness coaches and graduate student interns, as well as years spent building resilience and trust with students, many are left wondering whether students and families will have anywhere else to go.

Severe mental health needs persist 

Despite recent state investments in youth mental health, most small districts in the state still rely on federal grants for mental health clinicians. In Humboldt County, roughly 12.5 per 100,000 young people age 10 to 24 die by suicide, more than twice the rate for urban counties. Northern California has some of the worst youth mental health provider shortages, as well as the longest wait times and delays to care, in the state. 

Jack Bareilles, the grants and evaluation administrator with the Northern Humboldt Union High School District, said the district will lose more than $6.5 million after it lost both its appeals to the cancellation. 

Through the grants, Northern Humboldt has provided more than 3,600 additional students with mental health services this year and, since 2023, has helped credential and employ over 25 mental health clinicians in the county. Canceled funds would have trained over 30 more mental health clinicians by 2028, Bareilles said. 

Thomas Kissinger, assistant superintendent of educational services with the Del Norte Unified School District, said his district will also lose about $2 million from a canceled grant that has employed 14 mental health service providers since 2023.

“Our communities are more than 350 miles away from metropolitan areas, so we don’t have the easiest time getting the mental health support we need for students and families,” he said. The district can use other funds to keep clinicians for another semester, but not beyond the school year.

Before the grant, Del Norte Unified had severe shortages, averaging about 577 students per school counselor and 690 students per social worker, Kissinger said. The grant lowered the ratios closer to the recommended 250 students per school counselor and per social worker. 

“We had to notify employees that we weren’t going to be able to fund them the next year, and that was devastating,” Kissinger said. “A lot of them would just ask me, ‘How is this even possible?’”

Students ‘relying more’ on schools

Lora Schultz, a mental health grant coordinator at Del Norte Unified, said that sudden cuts to school-based support — where students are most likely to access mental health services — could also mean students will have little to turn to for comparable and integrated support.

For example, counselors at Del Norte Unified paired mental health and academic, attendance or social-emotional support in student group therapies. They designed a daily check-in program that helped lower disciplinary referrals, along with a mobile counseling van and a parent engagement project. 

“Schools may now have to go back to counselors and social workers splitting schools,” Schultz said, recounting a practice she had more than 20 years ago as one of only two school counselors at Del Norte Unified. 

 As families are “relying more” on services at school, districts could also run low on private clinicians to hand off student cases, Schultz said. And, some students may feel abandoned in the process. 

“It’s about that relationship where (students) know there is an adult that checks in and cares about them,” Schultz said. “I’ve had kids come up to me later, when they’re adults and have their own kids, and they still remember me — and how they had felt seen.”

Huang, who has weekly non-clinical sessions with her students, said she has helped students work through issues such as suicidal ideation, homelessness and substance abuse, among others. She remembered a student who struggled to attend school, and after connecting with Huang, started to come back to campus only for their appointments together. 

“I’m afraid that when we go, our students won’t feel as connected to the school anymore,” said Huang. “Some of them have been seeing the same clinician all throughout high school, and we don’t know if those clinicians are going to return.”  

Research shows that youth who lose long-term clinicians are more likely to report negative or incomplete outcomes to treatments for depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. Students are also much less likely to trust a new clinician if they are abruptly handed off to them. 

For Cassandra Garcia-Gonzalez, a senior at Eureka High School, it took a while to learn how to trust an adult. She started therapy in the fifth grade, and although she struggled to open up at first, she said her therapist helped her through her parents’ divorce that year, as well as with depression and panic disorder later on in middle school. 

“I do have a better sense of hope, because if I was stuck in that way (again), I can now understand how I can reach out,” she said. 

Garcia-Gonzalez is now a second-year peer counselor at Eureka High School, and under guidance from Huang and Duncan, helps other students talk through their challenges if they don’t feel comfortable reaching out to an adult. 

“There was one instance where this girl was dating this guy who had done something bad to her, and as she was crying about it, it made me realize she’s comfortable enough to open up to me like that,” she said. “When we were done, she felt a little better, and that made me realize why I continue to be a peer counselor.

“But, that’s probably not going to be a reality for me,” she added, “or for students who are trying to become peer counselors.”

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Vani Sanganeria covers student health and wellbeing as EdSource’s Local News Fellow, a partnership with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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California lawmakers started the year signaling they were ready to get tough on data centers, aiming to protect the environment and electricity ratepayers. Nine months later, they have little to show for it.

Of four data center bills in play, two never made it out of the Legislature, including one that would have required data centers to publicize their power use and another that would have provided incentives for them to use more clean energy.

Two others are on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, but in substantially reduced form. One mandates disclosure of water use by data center operators, although now in a way that may elude public access. Another originally aimed to protect energy customers from shouldering infrastructure costs driven by data centers but now merely lets regulators figure out if that is happening.

Data centers have the seemingly mundane job of storing and transmitting the contents of the internet. But the drab, largely windowless facilities are becoming a growing public policy concern. At least one is involved every time you watch a TikTok video or shop on Amazon.

In recent years, demand for artificial intelligence, and especially new general purpose systems like ChatGPT, caused such server farms to multiply. That means more water to cool semiconductors used to train and deploy AI models and more power plants and transmission lines, leaving state regulators increasingly concerned about stress on reservoirs and potentially higher power bills for residential customers.

Those concerns are not confined to California; communities and regulators in several states have made moves toward transparency requirements or efficiency standards. Michigan in 2024 enacted a law to require water use disclosure and the mayor of St. Louis enacted new rules earlier this month.

California is home to one of the largest concentrations of existing data centers in the world, and more projects are on the way. Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest power supplier in the state, reported this spring that it saw a 40 percent jump in data center hookup requests. In July the California Public Utilities Commission voted to streamline data center project applications.

Protecting your electric bill

One of the bills now with the governor, Senate Bill 57, authorizes the state public utility commission to assess whether data center loads shift costs to other customers like renters and homeowners.

Initially that bill from Democratic Sen. Steve Padilla of Chula Vista sought protections like those recently approved in Oregon and Ohio to ensure data center costs aren’t passed on to households.

But amendments by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in late August changed the bill to eliminate a special pay structure for data centers. A requirement that the commission assess how data centers shift costs to ratepayers was also reduced to an authorization, effectively granting the utility commission authority that it already had. Commission officials told CalMatters they’re using that power.

“Lobbyists for data centers successfully gutted the bill.”
— Adria Tinnin, The Utility Reform Network

The changes soured at least one early backer on the bill. The Utility Reform Network supported the proposal initially for its protections of small businesses and residential ratepayers. The group still thinks the governor should sign it into law to track the impact of data centers, but “unfortunately lobbyists for data centers successfully gutted the bill,” said TURN director of race, equity, and legislative policy Adria Tinnin. “It doesn’t allow us to do anything to actually protect ratepayers from the impacts of data centers.”

PG&E initially opposed the bill, but retracted opposition after changes last month. In August, with support from the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E adopted a rule that requires new customers for large projects – two-thirds of which are data centers – to cover initial costs of transmission lines instead of passing those costs on to ratepayers.

Big Tech-backed organizations such as the Data Center Coalition and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group continue to oppose the bill. They say the state public utility commission already assesses prospective projects.

Tapping in to water metrics

If signed into law, Assembly Bill 93 will require data center operators to share with their water supplier how much water they estimate they will consume when they apply for or renew a business license or permit. It also directs state agencies to develop water use efficiency guidelines and best practices for data centers, and for businesses to self-certify that they comply with them. It was written by Diane Papan, a Democrat from San Mateo and chair of the assembly committee on water, parks, and wildlife. An environmental group last year sued the Bay Area city of Pittsburg over a data center development, citing water concerns. A community group also raised the issue in relation to a data center near the Salton Sea.

The same Big Tech groups that are fighting the consumer cost bill are also opposed to the water legislation, saying sharing water use data could divulge trade secrets and harm the competitive edge of businesses.

Data center water use is a concern in part because many of the facilities are located in drier areas and can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day. From Southern California to San Jose in the Bay Area, roughly 17 data center projects planned in California as of May are in areas where water stress is high or extremely high, according to reporting by Bloomberg.

A Stanford University study released in April found that Los Angeles and Northern California rank among some of the most popular locations in the U.S. for future data center projects, alongside drought-stricken areas fighting over the fast-draining Colorado River like Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Water concerns have been a key reason behind recent opposition to data centers in Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia, said University of Virginia assistant professor Lauren Bridges, who tracks local and state data center regulation across the U.S. “Because we don’t have any information from the industry about specific site usage, it makes it almost impossible to know what’s going on and how it might impact them,” she said.

It’s unclear how much water is consumed by data centers and the AI systems within them, said University of California, Riverside professor Shaolei Ren, a prominent researcher of AI’s impact on the environment and public health. Google and OpenAI have claimed their models use only a few drops of water per query. A study coauthored by Ren, meanwhile, concluded that AI can consume roughly 16 ounces of water in a series of queries by one user in one sitting.

Ren thinks the proposed water regulation will help shed new light on the question while enabling California’s tech industry to continue to thrive.

But it’s not that simple, said Masheika Allgood, a Silicon Valley water activist who has spoken out against a data center project in San Jose and created an online tool to calculate data center water consumption.

An amendment to the bill tells data center operators to share their water use data with water suppliers rather than government officials. Allgood has found that data center operators and most tech companies don’t share details about how much water they take from local aquifers and is not sure water suppliers will either. Without such data, it will be harder for people who oppose a data center to spark public discussion or organize their community.

“I can look up the applications, that’s public record, but giving it to the water supplier, I have to go to them directly and ask for this information,” she said. “That’s not transparency for people.”

Linda Gordon, an attorney and climate researcher for the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, said she supports the proposal and legislation that increases transparency of any kind.

In ongoing work Gordon is conducting with Allgood on the environmental impacts of data centers, she’s found gaining access to water use data difficult, and that some water agencies refuse to share that data, citing a court decision decided roughly a decade ago. Since nothing in Papan’s bill specifically addresses whether the data will be available to the public, it’s unclear whether the disclosure in the bill will help inform researchers, journalists and communities concerned about the water consumption of data centers.

She hopes that language in the law that requires the California Department of Water Resources develop efficiency standards will in turn empower local agencies to develop ways to evaluate the water use footprint of a data center and whether they ought to approve or deny a project.

“More disclosure is great but how that information gets used is also important to understand if it will actually make a difference,” she said.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

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California colleges and universities are still missing over $5 million worth of humanities grants, despite one federal district court order to return funds to University of California campuses. For at least 19 other campuses, the money remains out of reach as lawsuits continue to challenge the Trump administration’s abrupt halt of promised funding in April, when the National Endowment for the Humanities canceled over $10.2 million to already-awarded projects in California.

Now campuses must scramble for limited, alternative funding if they want to keep their projects alive.

For students like Kathleen Boswell, a teaching credential student at Cal State San Bernardino, the loss affects their professional advancement. Boswell and fellow teaching credential students were ready to participate in the first cohort of the “Inland Empire Project,” originally to launch this fall. This project would have provided training and curriculum for current and prospective K-12 teachers to use local history to talk about national topics, such as world wars. Boswell especially looked forward to testing new approaches to connect students with American history.

“Kids get really excited when history is in their grasp,” she said. “If they can connect to local history, they can connect to the broader scope of history. It’s a domino effect.”

President Trump announced plans to gut the National Endowment for the Humanities in his most-recent budget, starting with cutting two-thirds of the agency’s staff. The agency is the largest public funder of the humanities nationwide, created alongside the National Endowment for the Arts after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act into law in 1965. The law asserts that the arts are vital to democracy. Ever since, NEH awards represent a coveted prize in the humanities field.

Earlier this year, the agency announced major ideological shifts for the types of projects it would support to comply with the president’s executive orders. Those orders aim to eliminate federal funding for programs that promote such ideals as diversity, gender equity, and environmental justice.

During the first three days of April, letters went out to most NEH grant recipients stating that their funding was terminated. A letter sent on April 2 to Cal State San Bernardino states that, “NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.” The termination was effective immediately.

CalMatters reached out to all 29 California campuses that had ongoing NEH-funded projects at that time, as listed on the federal grant tracker USA Spending. CalMatters found that every California campus but one had their funding cut by confirming with public information officers at each college and checking the American Historical Association’s database of terminated NEH grants.

The only campus spared, the California Institute of Technology, confirmed its funding for the Einstein Papers Project remained intact. The collection houses more than 90,000 of Albert Einstein’s written records.

Terminated projects covered a wide variety of topics, from digitizing the history of Catherine the Great at the University of Southern California to the creation of a minor in human rights and border studies at San Diego State University. Some colleges were in the midst of their project spending when they received the news, while others were slated to start in the upcoming months. Canceled grants ranged from about $23,000 to over $500,000. USC’s canceled projects totaled over $1.2 million.

UC researchers then sued federal agencies. In that case, Thakur v. Trump, a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction in June ordering the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Endowment for the Humanities to reinstate grants to the UCs that were not given a grant-specific explanation as to why they were chosen for termination. That case is still ongoing.

Two other lawsuits over the grant cancellations have been filed by humanities groups on behalf of thousands of individual and institutional members. One lawsuit is led by The Author’s Guild and the other by the American Council of Learned Societies. Although the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York consolidated the two cases, the federal judge in both cases granted a preliminary injunction against the NEH in July only for The Author’s Guild case. However, the judge did not order the grants be returned, but instead be held until the case is tried.

As for the other lawsuit led by the American Council of Learned Societies, along with the American Historical Association and Modern Language Association of America, the same judge denied a preliminary injunction, stating they lack standing to sue the NEH for making such institutional cuts as firing employees and discontinuing programs. A hearing in the case is scheduled for today.

Over 40 universities and research institutions in California are members of the American Historical Association, including Cal State Bakersfield, which had to cancel its “California Dreamin’” project.

Jennifer Self, the university spokesperson, told CalMatters in an email that “at this point, the money is on pause and has not been reinstated and everyone is waiting for how this will play out.” Cal State Bakersfield had been awarded $183,000 for a partnership with Bakersfield College to bring high school teachers from around the country to visit historic sites and learn about the history of immigration and agriculture in the Central Valley. Teachers had already been sent their acceptance letters for the workshop when the funding was cut and the project had to be canceled.

Humanities projects take a huge hit

When Michelle Lorimer, the historian and professor at Cal State San Bernardino leading the Inland Empire Project, received the termination notice, she was devastated. For Lorimer, this award represented several months of research, gathering educators and establishing specific programming and curriculum goals. She says the experience has changed the way she looks at federally funded grants.

“I’m not going to apply for federal funding right now for the work that we’re doing. That would be a waste of time,” Lorimer stated. “ It’s really time-consuming writing these applications, so honestly it would need to be something that I’d feel confident that we’d have a shot at — not something I’m trying to pigeonhole our work into.”

The NEH initially approved the Inland Empire Project for nearly $150,000 to roll out over a period of three years. The project was to create a framework of teaching that uses local history as a method to demonstrate broader U.S. historical topics, such as segregation, redlining and environmental injustice. Teachers in local schools, as well as aspiring history teachers from Cal State San Bernardino, would have received this curriculum and tools to use in classrooms.

Lorimer has looked for alternative funding, but grants of this size are rare and she anticipates that private grants will only get more competitive. Certain private grants are by invite only. Lorimer said that although her college is a member of the American Historical Association, she is not getting her hopes up that the funds might be returned.

Michael Kerp, an assistant professor at Cal State San Bernardino, had planned to create curriculum about the Salton Sea, focusing on environmental and civil rights. He said that the cuts don’t just hurt the university, but the surrounding community.

“There are thousands of high school students who would have benefited from learning about their communities, understanding how to make change in their communities and working closely with their teachers and local leaders in the region,” Kerp said. “Underserved school districts had this opportunity, and now it’s gone.”

Kerp plans on helping Lorimer downsize the project, and has been able to secure some smaller philanthropic funding through the university. He agrees that applying for future federal funding under the current administration is likely a waste of time.

Other projects halted include $171,000 for an institute at San Jose State open to K-12 teachers, librarians, and administrators highlighting the immigrant experience through history and literature. Another project was awarded to Saint Mary’s for over $50,000 for an architectural and engineering assessment of the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art building with the goal of someday making it the first carbon-neutral building on campus while preserving their collections. Cal State Dominguez Hills was to receive $141,000 to conduct an ethnographic study of Chat GPT’s influence in California and Hawaiian classrooms.

Three California private universities receive new NEH grants

Despite Trump’s calls to dismantle the NEH, the organization announced on Sept. 15 it is awarding $10.4 million, the largest single grant it has ever awarded, to the New York-based Jewish organization Tikvah to “examine Jewish history, culture and identity in the broader context of Western history,” according to a NEH press release. In August, the NEH also announced that it merged seven grantmaking offices into four divisions and appointed new heads to those divisions.

Since May, the agency has also allocated over $44 million in grants to universities and organizations for research and preservation projects, including for an initiative called “A More Perfect Union,” which celebrates the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Three California private universities have received these new grants.

Two awards were given to the University of Southern California — $60,000 for the development of a book on the history of Jerusalem from 1099–1187 and over $249,000 to process and digitize historical archives relating to Southern California’s first African American Baptist church. The university had four NEH projects spanning over $1 million cut in the spring for programs including a history project that would have created an augmented reality of a long-lost Chinatown area of Los Angeles. Another project would have funded 18 academic conversations between humanities experts and the public regarding the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and reframing the conversation in a way that is inclusive of underrepresented groups like Native Americans.

A single award was given to National University, a private nonprofit university located in San Diego, in the amount of $100,000 for a project titled, “Legacies of War: Memorials and Memories of the American Civil War & the Vietnam War.” Pepperdine University, a private Christian university located in Malibu, also received $30,000 for a project focused on the role of Christianity and the bible in the “American founding.”

Given the new executive orders limiting the scope of what is now acceptable for a federally funded grant, the NEH website gives the following advice to prospective applicants: “We encourage you to read the relevant Executive Orders and consider whether your project’s topic — jointly with its goals, methodology, activities, and intended audience — seems allowable.”

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Lylah Schmedel-Permanna is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

Justin Seth Talkington — our beloved son, brother, uncle and cherished friend — passed away unexpectedly in his home in San Francisco. His family and loved ones are deeply saddened and shocked by his passing. His existence and lifetime contributions in his vast and diverse social circles are irreplaceable. 

On May 23, 1998, Seth blessed his parents Bebot and LT at Mad River Hospital in Arcata. He was taken home to siblings Christian and Meaghan, where they were later joined by younger sister Hazel. Seth’s early childhood years were lived in the intimate community and beautiful beachside town of Trinidad — living just a couple hundred yards from the beaches that Seth enjoyed walking. 

He attended Trinidad Union School from preschool through 8th grade, and then North Coast Preparatory Academy, graduating with International Baccalaureate honors in 2015. He achieved his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at UC Davis, class of 2020. While going to UC Davis he worked on a project with Engineers without Borders in which they improved access to freshwater in areas of Africa. He also worked as a research assistant in the Granular Material lab, and as a student assistant in the student disability center. He completed an internship overseas in Sydney, Australia working with an architecture company producing energy efficient houses.

Seth utilized his degree working in several different engineering firms. He helped design a ride at Great America amusement park, “The Liberty Twirler,” and recently went for a whirl with friends during a get-together that he had planned. From 2021 to 2024 he was a design engineer at a civil planning and surveying company serving multiple Bay Area communities - fire hydrants you pass by in these streets have been installed with his directions. As a staff engineer for a geotechnical consulting firm in Silicon Valley, he worked in construction sites erecting solidly built infrastructure based on his calculations and tests. 

Seth took his role as an uncle very seriously and never missed a birthday or holiday. He spoiled his two nieces Arabella and Dahlia with anything they wanted. No request was too much when it came to them, and no limitations to their greatness were seen by him. His nieces recently sent a video of the toy he sent for a birthday and seeing that they had built a model of our childhood home, he encouraged them to look into architecture and engineering careers. During family gatherings and trips, one of the girls was always being carried by Seth while the other was hot on his heels following him to the next amusement.

Seth and his family enjoyed soulful trips to the Philippines, enjoying time with his loving Filipino family and immersing into his cultural roots. He wowed everyone with his karaoke performances, often driving people to fits and tears of laughter. People appreciated his comedic personality, and willingness to try anything, including Balut. During his most recent trips he had gotten traditional-style Filipino sun and moon tattoos. Seth shared that he wanted to move to Bohol, Philippines and retire there later in his life to rest in paradise.

In Seth’s spare time he enjoyed many hobbies. He had become very involved in the Midnight Runners run club, running 5-mile routes every week through SF’s Embarcadero. He played on a community soccer team, enjoying heated competition at Crocker Amazon soccer fields on Saturdays. He also collected Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon cards, took up 3D printing, woodwork and rock climbing as ventures. Seth participated in and managed the Instagram page of FilipinUp, a Filipino rock climber collective. He’s fondly remembered for intense games of Super Smash Brothers, garnering the gold trophy for an annual family Smash Bros tournament. When gifted a guitar from his brother, he took to it and would play guitar riffs and serenade friends during bonfires at the beach. He enjoyed walkabouts and would bring furry friends such as his roommate’s dog and his sister’s dogs. He was looking into getting a furry friend of his own, hoping to have a small sidekick for his walks. Many early memories of him include glimpses of him walking around Trinidad and McKinleyville with no destination, just the steady rhythm of walking. 

Seth was the steadiest person I knew, making us all proud of his professional achievements while also making time to be authentically present for everyone. He will be remembered dearly by those that got the chance to know him and by the irreplaceable memories he left us on earth. We are deep in sorrow at the loss of this earth angel.

Justin Seth Talkington’s memory is survived by Mother Bebot and Father LT,  Brother Christian and Sisters Meaghan and Hazel, Nieces Arabella and Dahlia, Aunties Alma, Rosel and Shinna, Uncles Ceasar and Larry, and Cousins Lance, Lorence, Ian, Shaina, Sophia and Jheah. Seth is preceded in death by Grandparents Hazel and Leonard, Lola Geronima and Lolo Loreto, Uncles Victor and Kenneth.

Special thanks to Seth’s dear friends, peers and community groups for being his chosen family members and loved ones. Thank you for the wonderful relationships and adventures that you forged with him. We appreciate your kindness and existence that contributed to wonderful chapters in Seth’s life and wish you well.

Seth Talkington’s funeral services will be held Sunday, September 28 at 560 12th St., Fortuna. The family will receive guests at 1:30 p.m., with the official service commencing at 2 p.m. Family, friends, and all who cared for Seth are warmly invited to attend his funeral and the celebration of his life that will follow. The celebration of life will begin at 5 p.m., location TBA. Seth will be interred in Humboldt County.

Seth has an online memorial board for friends and loved ones to share thoughts, prayers and memories. For further details, contact his family at (707) 296-8208 or follow the Facebook event page “Seth Talkington’s Funeral and Celebration of Life.”

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