President Biden is creating two new national monuments in California on Tuesday, preserving the lands from development and setting a record for the most land and waters conserved by any president, the White House said.

The Sáttítla Highlands National Monument covers more than 224,000 acres in Northern California, and includes the ancestral homelands of the Pit River Tribe and Modoc Peoples. A dormant volcano is at its center, and it is home to the longest-known lava tube system in the world.

The Chuckwalla National Monument covers more than 624,000 acres south of Joshua Tree National Park in southern California, and includes sacred sites important to five groups of indigenous peoples and 50 rare species of plants and animals, including the Chuckwalla lizard.

The Chuckwalla monument is part of a corridor of protected lands stretching about 600 miles west through a total of close to 18 million acres in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah that the White House is calling the Moab to Mojave Conservation Corridor.

In total, the White House said Biden protected 674 million acres of land and waters through monuments and other designations during his four years in office.

(Bloomberg) — Exceptionally powerful, dry winds expected across Southern California this week are set to send wildfire risk skyrocketing in a region that’s endured more than eight months without significant rain.

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Forecasters predict the strongest Santa Ana wind event of the season will start Tuesday and extend late into the week. As offshore winds race down local mountain ranges, they’ll bring gusts of up to 80 miles (129 kilometers) per hour to densely-populated communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, putting more than 4.5 million residents at risk, according to the US Storm Prediction Center. Downtown Los Angeles hasn’t seen more than a half-inch of rain since April, according to National Weather Service data.

“This is one of those patterns that make the hair stand up a little bit,” said climatologist Daniel Swain at the University of California Los Angeles, who called the event an “atmospheric blow dryer.” The winds, he said Monday, would be strong enough to topple trees and power lines, block roads, trigger blackouts and cancel flights at airports. “This will probably affect more people more substantially than a major rainstorm.”

In a post on X Monday, forecasters for the National Weather Service in Los Angeles warned of “life-threatening, destructive” winds in areas not typically affected by Santa Ana events. Some of the region’s most affluent and exclusive communities — such as Beverly Hills and Malibu — are included.

In some mountain passes and foothill communities, gusts could reach 100 mph, drying the air and pushing humidity levels as low as 4%, said Nick Nauslar with the US Storm Prediction Center.

“That’s going to continue for two, three, perhaps four days,” said Nauslar, the center’s fire weather science and operations officer. With this combination of factors, he said, “you’re getting into the upper echelon of Santa Ana wind events in the last couple decades.”

Months without rain have parched the Southern California landscape, leaving dry grasses, shrubs and trees that can fuel wildfires. The amount of moisture stored inside local vegetation — which can prevent it from burning — is now “well below normal and approaching record low for this time of year,” Nauslar said.

Red flag fire warnings have been issued for much of the Los Angeles area and its suburbs. But high winds will extend far beyond the city, with strong gusts expected from Shasta County in far northern California all the way to the Mexican border. Wind advisories were also posted for the hills above the San Francisco Bay Area wine country, which has suffered a series of devastating fires in recent years.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order that mandates state agencies explore the food safety of ultra-processed foods, food dyes, and “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) ingredients, and recommend actions to mitigate the adverse health effects.

The executive order characterizes ultra-processed foods and ingredients as “industrial formulations of chemically modified substances extracted from foods, along with additives to enhance taste, texture, appearance, and durability, with minimal to no inclusion of whole foods.” Common examples include packaged snacks, chips, crackers, cookies, candy, sugary beverages, and highly processed meats like hot dogs and lunch meats. It also calls attention to the myriad chemicals, such as food colorants, authorized for food use in the U.S., claiming that more than 10,000 such substances are currently present in the U.S. food supply, in comparison to the 300 authorized for use in the EU.

Many food chemicals enter the nation’s food supply through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) GRAS process, which lawmakers and scientists have criticized as a “loophole” allowing potentially toxic additives in food. In a recent article by Harvard medical and law experts, the authors called GRAS a “laissez-faire approach to monitoring the safety of ingredients” that poses a threat to public health.

In this context, California has passed several precedent-setting pieces of state legislation on chemical food additives and colorants in recent years, such as the California Food Safety Act and the California School Food Safety Act.

Continuing state efforts to crack down on chemical food additives, Gov. Newsom’s latest executive order includes, but is not limited to, the following mandates:

1. No later than April 1, 2025, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) will provide recommendations to the Governor’s office regarding potential actions to limit the harms associated with ultra-processed foods and food ingredients that pose a public health risk (e.g., the inclusion of warning labels on certain ultra-processed foods)
2. The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), in consultation with CDPH, will investigate the adverse human health impacts of food dyes, and provide a briefing to the Governor’s office no later than April 1
3. No later than April 1, CDPH and OEHHA will report to the Governor’s office on the feasibility of state-level evaluation of food additives considered GRAS, as well as state actions that can be taken if companies fail to notify FDA of certain food additives through the GRAS process

The executive order also includes actions aimed at decreasing the purchase of ultra-processed foods; increasing access to healthy foods; and improving the nutrition of and increasing the amount of fresh, local-grown ingredients used in California school meals.

Some groups have previously criticized California’s approach to food additives regulation for leading the charge on an emerging patchwork of state regulations, however. For example, prior to the passage of the California School Food Safety Act, the Consumer Brands Association (CBA) stated, “[The bill] sets a dangerous precedent for state politicians to substitute their own views on food safety ahead of the scientists and risk-based review system that stringently protects America’s food supply. Americans deserve unified guidance that follows the science, not a patchwork of confusing laws.”