California
Key California laws taking effect in 2026
A raft of new legislation is set to take effect for Californians in 2026 after Governor Gavin Newsom signed hundreds of bills over the past year.
The new legislation affects a wide range of issues, such as reducing drug costs, increasing the minimum wage and possibly barring police officers and federal agents from wearing face masks.
Why It Matters
Many of the measures reflect the state’s ongoing push to address affordability, equity and transparency—often amid tension with President Donald Trump’s White House.
The changes directly affect millions of residents, employers, landlords, students and consumers in the nation’s most populous state, serving as a bellwether for legislative trends nationwide.
What To Know
Here is a breakdown of some of the key laws set to go into effect in California in 2026:
- Minimum wage increase
The minimum wage is set to increase across the state from $16.50 to $16.90 per hour for all employees.
Several local municipalities are also increasing their minimum wages further, as they are allowed to set wages higher than the state minimum.
- Reduction to drug costs
From January 1, Senate Bill 40 would require large state-regulated health insurers to cap insulin co-pays at $35 for a 30-day supply. The same requirement takes effect for smaller plans in 2027.
Californians would also have access to low-cost, state-branded CalRx insulin, priced at $55 for five pens.
- Gender-neutral restrooms in schools
Starting July 1, every California public school must provide at least one gender-neutral restroom, as mandated by SB 760.
- Police identification and mask ban
From January 1, local and federal law enforcement officers would generally be barred from wearing masks to conceal their identities and must display visible identification when performing enforcement duties.
These measures, codified in SB 627 and SB 805, are facing legal challenges from federal entities.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said the department would not comply with the law.
- Ban on cat declawing
Declawing cats for nonmedical reasons is set to be prohibited statewide. The practice is widely condemned as inhumane by animal welfare advocates.
- Combating auto scams
Consumers who buy or lease a new or used car from a dealer would have the right to return it for a full refund within three days of purchase. California is set to become the first state in the nation to offer the protection.
- Single-use plastic bag ban
From January 1, major changes to the state’s plastics policy go into effect, banning all plastic carryout bags—even thicker varieties previously permitted. Stores would only be allowed to distribute recycled paper bags, subject to a minimum charge.
- AI transparency and protections
AI operators must clearly disclose when chatbots are not real people, and companies must implement safeguards to prevent chatbots from encouraging self-harm in minors.
Additional AI regulations are set to increase transparency, ban chatbots from impersonating health care professionals and require new police reporting on AI use.
- Required appliances in rentals
Landlords would be legally required to provide working refrigerators and stoves in rental apartments from January 1.
- Extended window for sexual assault lawsuits
A new law, AB 250, creates a two-year window—from January 1, 2026, to December 31, 2027—for adult survivors of sexual assaults to file lawsuits alleging a cover-up. It would allow these individuals to file cases even if the usual statute of limitations lapsed.
What People Are Saying
California Governor Gavin Newsom said in October regarding the legislation on drug costs: “I am pleased to sign SB 41, a bill that will lower health care costs for all Californians. This bill, together with related efforts in the 2025 budget and CalRx, represents the most aggressive effort in the country to lower prescription drug costs. California continues to lead the way in lowering costs, increasing transparency, and ensuring that the savings are passed on to payers and consumers.”
He wrote in a letter in September regarding the ban on officers wearing masks: “Acting on behalf of an authoritarian President, federal immigration authorities are spreading fear and terror throughout California with indiscriminate raids that have rounded up American citizens, people legally in the United States, working parents, and even children.
“America should never be a country where masked ‘secret police’ grab people off the streets and throw them into unmarked vans and speed away. It is unacceptable that government agents, guns in hand, have seized our neighbors while wearing masks under the pretense of protecting themselves when they are, in fact, hiding from public accountability and sowing fear to intimidate the American people.
“For the safety of both the public and law enforcement, Californians must know they are interacting with legitimate law enforcement officers, rather than masked vigilantes.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in November in response to the measure: “Law enforcement officers risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe, and they do not deserve to be doxed or harassed simply for carrying out their duties. California’s anti-law enforcement policies discriminate against the federal government and are designed to create risk for our agents. These laws cannot stand.”
California
Man charged with murder, kidnapping their 5-year-old child before fleeing to Mexico
A 40-year-old Los Angeles man was charged with murder after allegedly killing his girlfriend and kidnapping their young child before fleeing to Mexico, according to authorities.
Ruben Fregosojuarez has been charged one count of murder and one misdemeanor count of child abuse under circumstance or conditions other than great bodily injury or death, according to a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release. Authorities first identified him as Ruben Fregoso but Los Angeles County prosecutors listed him as Ruben Fregosojuarez.
On Monday around 12:39 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department conducted a welfare check in the 2600 block of South Alsace Avenue in West Adams, police said in a news release.
Officers found a woman dead inside the home “as a result of violence” and the woman’s daughter missing, police said. On Monday night, the California Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert for the child, Daleza.
Photos obtained by NBC4 appear to show Fregosojuarez in a parking garage in San Ysidro with the girl on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol has listed her age as 4 years old but Los Angeles police say the girl is 5. She is also described as the suspect’s daughter.
The alert said that the girl was last seen with Fregosojuarez, who allegedly abducted her in a 2019 Land Rover Discovery, on Sunday at about 4 a.m.
The CHP posted in an update that the vehicle was found but that the child and man were still missing. The girl is described as 3 feet tall, 45 pounds, and having black hair and brown eyes.
California
23andMe Sued by California Over Massive 2023 Data Breach
California’s attorney general is suing the consumer genetics testing company formerly known as 23andMe, alleging the company failed to protect customers’ sensitive personal information in a massive 2023 data breach that exposed the ancestry and genetic data of nearly 7 million people.
Attorney General Rob Bonta filed the lawsuit on Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court against Chrome Holding Co., formerly known as 23andMe, accusing the company of failing to properly investigate or respond to numerous warnings that its systems had been compromised. The company’s mail-in self-testing kits became synonymous with DNA testing before it filed for bankruptcy in 2025.
In 2023, cybercriminals breached 23andMe’s systems by using a “credential-stuffing attack,” which involves bombarding online accounts with huge sets of user names and passwords stolen in previous unrelated attacks. Over a period of months, the intruders were able to make off with the personal data of more than 6.9 million people.
“23andMe’s security measures were so lax that the threat actor was able to operate undetected within 23andMe’s systems for over five months, and remarkably, 23andMe only began investigating after the threat actor offered the stolen user data for sale on the dark web and reached out to 23andMe to demand a ransom,” Bonta’s office said in the complaint.
The San Francisco-based company, which allowed people to submit genetic materials and get a snapshot of their ancestry, revealed in October 2023 that hackers had accessed customer information in the prolonged data breach that targeted customers with Chinese or Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. The stolen data of more than 1 million Asian-Pacific Islander and Ashkenazi Jewish users was later posted for sale on the dark web.
“The sale of this data on the dark web took place amidst a period of mounting anti-Asian American and Pacific Islander and antisemitic hate and violence,” Bonta said in a press release. “This is disturbing and incredibly dangerous.”
A January 2024 lawsuit accused the company of not doing enough to protect its customers and not notifying certain customers that their data had been targeted specifically. It later settled the lawsuit for $30 million.
23andMe representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
At its peak, 23andMe became the best-known name in the emerging area of DNA self-testing, with users paying upwards of $99 for kits that gave them insights into their genetic makeup, potential relatives and ancestry. But the company’s momentum slowed down in recent years after its $3.5 billion public offering in 2021.
Last July, TTAM Research Institute, a nonprofit led by Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s cofounder and former CEO, acquired 23andMe’s assets for $305 million.
California
Newsom signs law to shield California elections from federal interference
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed legislation Wednesday that aims to shield California elections from federal interference, saying he expected Donald Trump’s administration to try to meddle in the midterms this year.
The law, which took effect immediately and came days before next Tuesday’s primary, prohibits any person – including federal agents – from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order. Law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies.
Trump administration officials so far have said they have no plans to send immigration agents to polling locations across the US, a concern raised this year by several Democratic secretaries of state. But Newsom warned “we have to be prepared for everything” because “there’s no rules any more with the Trump administration”.
Voting is already under way in California’s closely watched primary for governor, where a crowded field of Democrats and two viable Republicans are vying for just two spots on the November ballot. Under the state’s open primary system, only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.
Newsom, who cannot seek a third term, said the election law is a response to “legitimate anxiety” about Trump’s tactics, primarily in Democratic-led states, where the president has deployed federal agents over the objections of local leaders. The Democratic governor warned against underestimating someone who “doesn’t believe in free and fair elections”.
“I expect the worst with Trump because he’s done the worst,” he said at a news conference.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the Associated Press later Wednesday that Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections.
“Instead of levying false attacks at the President, Newscum should look in the mirror,” she said in a statement, using Trump’s derogatory nickname for Newsom.
In an interview last year with Vanity Fair, Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, knocked down the idea that Trump would deploy the military to suppress voting, saying it was “categorically false”.
The California law also makes it a crime to knowingly take voted ballots out of the custody of election officials.
Earlier this year, the FBI under Trump seized the 2020 general election ballots from Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and has long been at the center of the president’s false claims that fraud cost him the race. The FBI and justice department also have sought records from previous elections in the largest counties in Arizona and Michigan.
Trump triggered a national redistricting frenzy ahead of the midterms when he urged Republicans in Texas and elsewhere to redraw their US House districts to help the party retain control of the closely divided chamber. Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida and Tennessee also have enacted new maps that could benefit Republicans, and Louisiana is expected to be next.
Republicans so far think they could gain as many as 14 seats from redistricting in November, while Democrats think they could gain six in California and Utah.
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