California
Some artificial dyes could be banned from California schools
Psychologist provides simple tips to manage ADHD and symptoms
Dr. Ali Mattu explains how efforts like making checklists or being physically active can help manage ADHD.
California public schools could soon be banned from serving certain artificial dyes in food over concerns about developmental harm in children.
Dubbed a “first-in-the-nation” measure, state lawmakers this week passed Assembly Bill 2316 to prohibit six additives that are permitted by federal regulators to make food more colorful. California’s AB 2316, known as the California School Food Safety Act, is now on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.
The bill says state research suggests such synthetic dyes can result in hyperactivity and other behavioral problems. Similar previous research prompted the European Union to restrict food coloring. Nearly all of the products that the California bill would ban in schools require warning labels in E.U. products.
The bill would ban commercial dyes of Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6, in public schools in the nation’s largest state.
“California has a responsibility to protect our students from chemicals that harm children and interfere with their ability to learn,” state Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, a Democrat who authored the bill, said in a statement. He said that he struggled with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, and he is now a parent.
On Saturday, a spokesperson said Newsom’s office didn’t comment on pending legislation. The deadline for Newsom to sign or veto legislation is Sept. 30, the spokesperson said.
The nonprofit Environmental Working Group and the California Medical Association, which represents doctors, supported the bill.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals for the dyes banned under AB 2316 date back decades, the environmental nonprofit said. Those approvals were based on old studies not designed to detect behavioral effects in children, the medical association had said in its support of AB 2316.
The Consumer Brands Association, a dye industry representative, opposed the bill because it overrode existing food safety rules, and the group disputed findings about adverse health effects. John Hewlitt, the association’s senior vice president of packaging, sustainability and state affairs, said the bill was “advancing a political agenda.”
“The passage of this bill could cost schools and families money, limit choice and access, and create consumer confusion,” he said in a statement provided to USA TODAY. “The approach taken by California politicians flies in the face of our science and risk-based process and is not the precedent we should be setting when it comes to feeding our families.”
A 2021 state Environmental Protection Agency assessment found American youth diagnosed with ADHD increased in the last 20 years, which prompted the state to look at food dyes. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has similarly tracked increases in ADHD diagnoses in children in recent years.
Focusing on seven food dyes, including those that would be banned under AB 2316, state researchers reviewed prior studies on the effects of these dyes in humans and laboratory animals. Findings indicated they were linked to adverse neurobehavioral outcomes in children, and children varied in sensitivity.
On Friday, an FDA spokesperson told NBC News they had reviewed literature cited in California’s legislation. While saying most children have no “adverse effects” when they eat foods with color additives, the spokesperson reportedly said some evidence suggests certain children may be sensitive.
If signed into law, California’s ban would take effect in schools beginning in 2027.
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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