A new law legally mandating the addition of folic acid to corn tortillas, despite a 12,000 year tradition of making them with just corn, water, and lime, just went into effect in California on January 1, 2026.
About the law: AB 1830, sponsored by physician-turned-Fresno Assembly Member Joaquin Arambula, makes it mandatory to add 0.7 milligrams of folic acid per pound of masa, which must be declared on nutrition labels.
Why it matters: Folic acid has been found to prevent neural tube defects in babies like spina bifada. In 1998, the FDA issued a mandate to include the supplement in enriched grain products such as bread, cereal, and pasta. It resulted in neural tube defects plummeting by 30% to 40% nationwide, based on CDC records. But it didn't apply to corn masa. The bill says that there's a higher rate of birth defects among Latina women, and that this is a matter of addressing health inequity.
What it covers: There are loopholes and exceptions to the new law, especially for craft molino owners and tortilla companies who work with only 100% nixtamal, in addition to other exemptions. In short, it only applies to cheaper corn tortillas made with corn tortilla flour, colloquially named “masa harina” in Spanish and made famous by brands like Maseca. This law also exempts flour tortillas.
Read on... to learn more about the new law and how chefs and local tortilleros are reacting to it.
A new law legally mandating how corn tortillas can be made, despite a 12,000 year tradition of making them with just corn, water, and lime, just went into effect in California on January 1, 2026.
AB 1830, sponsored by physician-turned-Fresno Assembly Member Joaquin Arambula, makes it mandatory to add 0.7 milligrams of folic acid per pound of masa, which must be declared on nutrition labels.
The bill states that this addition of the synthetic version of vitamin B9 onto the lifeblood of Mexican cuisine is to prevent birth defects among Latina women.
The bill's "Findings and Declarations" section includes statements asserting a "disproportionately higher risk" and "higher rate of NTDs [neural tube defects] in Latino communities, saying it's "a symptom in the broader disease of health inequity.” Common types of neural tube defects include spina bifida.
La Princesita Tortillerías assembly line.
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Courtesy La Princesita
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La Princesita Tortillerías assembly line.
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Courtesy La Princesita
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Folic acid, in its synthetic form, is part of the top 80% of synthetic vitamins produced by China, according to a 2025 S&P Global report on the vitamins industry.
Advocates celebrate the bill as a win in fortified food equality since the initial push to put more folic acid in foods began in 1998, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a mandate to include the supplement in enriched grain products such as bread, cereal, and pasta. It resulted in neural tube defects plummeting by 30% to 40% nationwide based on CDC records. But that order did not include corn masa — until now.
However, there are loopholes and exceptions to the new law, especially for craft molino owners and tortilla companies who work with only 100% nixtamal, in addition to other exemptions. In short, it only applies to cheaper corn tortillas made with corn tortilla flour, colloquially named “masa harina” in Spanish and made famous by brands like Maseca. This law also exempts flour tortillas.
Maiz criollo doesn’t need any added vitamins
The new law took Fátima Juárez — owner of L.A.'s newest craft molino, Komal L.A., and a new mother — by surprise. The stand inside Mercado La Paloma was named one of the best new restaurants last year by Bon Appétit and home to the best taco in L.A., according to L.A. TACO’s own 69 best tacos of 2025 list.
“As someone who was recently pregnant and taking vitamins, I remember the flavor of artificial folic acid being very bitter,” Juárez tells L.A. TACO. “I also remember having a negative reaction — stomach aches and increased nausea — until I switched to an organic brand.”
“The second one [with folic acid] had a subtle taste of . . . something. It lingered longer on the palate than an old school tortilla, and turned too rubbery in my mouth. The difference was obvious — it contained folic acid,” he wrote in his weekly column in L.A. Times in May last year.
Fátima Júarez holds her molotes de platano.
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Javier Cabral
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L.A. TACO
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Komal's taco de costilla on Júarez's 100% nixtamal tortilla.
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Jakob Layman
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L.A.. TACO
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Juárez was initially confused and had to do her own research to find out that she was exempt from this new law as someone who works exclusively (and passionately) with 100% heirloom corn nixtamal.
Still, she understands the need for adding artificially-made vitamins and minerals to masa harina-based tortillas as a preventative measure. Tortillas made with Maseca and other highly processed instant corn flours use genetically modified corn that are known to be stripped of their natural nutrients for higher yield and pest resistance.
“This law is primarily for maíz transgenicos (GMO corn), which have higher sugar, pesticides, and are subject to more processing. The majority of masa and maíz that we see in L.A. and the U.S. are that,” Juarez says.
She says that she’s recently tried to eat less tacos made on the streets of L.A. in order to avoid eating GMO corn.
“As artisans using 100% maíz criollo, we are exempt from this law. We intentionally source pure limestone, sourced transparently from Puebla, as well. And let’s not forget that the pericarp in heirloom corn is full of calcium and more vitamins and minerals, naturally,” she says.
The tortilería CEO and senator that saved traditional corn tortillas from government overreach
Enrique Rodriguez, CEO of La Princesita Tortillería, first found out about Arambula’s bill when it was drafted during the 2023-2024 Regular Session last March.
He supported the goal of helping Latina women against health disparities, but he found the first draft to be “ambiguous and overbroad.”
He remembers the bill, as amended in May 2024, included all tortillas, even those made by small producers using 100% nixtamal. He immediately drafted an opposition letter to the senate health committee, which resulted in the committee’s hearing being postponed.
Maria Elena Durazo.
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Courtesy sd26.senate.ca.gov
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Monica Ramirez, President of La Princesita Tortillería, and Edward Ramirez.
Nixtamal tortillas are stone-ground with volcanic rock, such as this one.
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Courtesy La Princesita Tortillería
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La Princesita, founded in 1972 by Francisco Ramirez, an immigrant from Cuernavaca, Mexico, on the border of East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, is one of L.A.’s largest manufacturers of tortillas and supplies “several hundred restaurants” he tells L.A. TACO, including some of the biggest players in L.A.'s taco universe such as Holbox, Guelaguetza, Chulita, Ramona’s Mexican Food, and Anajak Thai.
“Sometimes we don’t even know where our tortillas end up because they are sold through distribution companies,” he says.
The major impact wouldn’t have been in terms of flavor, it would have had a severe impact on our cultural identity by altering the ancestral practices used that define our product.
— Enrique Rodriguez, CEO of La Princesita Tortillería.
Thanks to the power of Rodriguez’s letter, which tabled the bill, he had time to have a discussion about his concerns with 26th District Senator Maria Elena Durazo, who heard him out. They both worked together to create multiple exemptions to the law to accommodate small tortillerías that work with nixtamal as well as restaurants that nixtamalize their own masa.
“In the early versions of the bill, there was no distinction between tortillas made with nixtamal and corn flour,” Rodriguez says. “The major impact wouldn’t have been in terms of flavor, it would have had a severe impact on our cultural identity by altering the ancestral practices used that define our product."
He credits Durazo for “singlehandedly saving traditional tortilla making in California.”
Rodriguez now has become an unofficial hotline for his tortilla producer peers across California, getting texts and messages from his competitors seeking guidance. As Rodriguez sees it, the greater good is keeping traditional tortilla making alive in California, so he responds clearing up the new law to those who are confused.
La Princesita Tortillería as a manufacturer is largely exempt from the bill for several reasons.
First, they primarily manufacture wet masa products where folic acid fortification isn’t mandatory. Additionally, they are predominantly a supplier to food facilities, which are categorically exempt from the folic acid fortification requirements of the bill.
The maiz criollo resistance continues
The news of California’s tortilla politicization is making its way down south to the birthplace of corn: Mexico.
Oscar Segundo, chef and co-owner of Xokol in Guadalajara (considered to be the first craft molino in the world upon opening eight years ago), comes from a corn-growing family in Pueblo Mazahua in the state of Mexico. He says California’s local government trying to force tortilla producers to add vitamins is “colonizing all over again.”
Chef Oscar Segundo of Xokol carrying 70 kilograms of corn grown by his family.
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Gilberto Hernandez
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L.A. TACO
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Xrys Ruelas, co-owner and chef at Xokol, in the corn fields in Mazahua, Mexico State.
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Gilberto Hernandez
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L.A. TACO
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“So you strip away nutrients from corn via using GMO corn and then you are told you need to add back on synthetic versions of nutrients? This all reveals a colonial mindset,” he tells L.A. TACO. “It’s like when the Spanish came and took away Indigenous Mexico Gods and told us to worship saints instead.”
Mexico is no stranger to the politicization of corn tortillas. The country established a law in January 2025 stating that Mexican farmers weren’t allowed to grow GMO corn on Mexican soil. But it was also filled with loopholes, allowing the import of cheap and mass-produced, U.S.-grown GMO to make corn flour tortillas and to feed cattle in Mexico.
That flooding of cheap, U.S.-grown GMO corn resulted in Mexican farmers protesting and shutting down highways across Mexico, demanding fair prices for their non-GMO corn.
“At the end of the day, tortillas are technical and precise, yet they’re ritualistic and an everyday food as well,” says Segundo. “Nixtamalizing activates nutrients if you’re using heirloom corn, so there’s no need to have to add synthetic nutrients.”
Arturo Enciso grinding fresh nixtamal at Gusto Bread in Long Beach.
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Jacqueline Ochoa
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L.A. TACO
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One of Gusto's most sold pastries are their "nixtamal queens" made with laminated sourdough and nixtamal.
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Jacqueline Ochoa
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L.A. TACO
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Back in L.A, Gusto Bread owner Arturo Enciso was initially confused and worried about the new law, as he and his partner, Ana Salatino, are getting ready to open a new craft molino in Downtown Long Beach this year.
“Requiring folic acid as a mandatory additive for tortilla manufacturers is unfortunate and represents a step backward,” he tells L.A. TACO. “It is my hope that California recognizes this as a significant mistake.”
“As a state, we should serve as custodians of this ancestral staple food, rather than influencing it with synthetic, man-made folate,” he adds.
Rick Ortega, co-owner of Kernel of Truth Organics, overseeing nixtamal tanks at his facility in Boyle Heights.
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Javier Cabral
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L.A. TACO
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Rick Ortega, co-owner of Kernel of Truth Organics, overseeing nixtamal tanks at his facility in Boyle Heights.
Sunshine Skate Center is a tribute to bygone rinks
By By Jennifer Stavros | The LA Local
Published September 28, 2026 6:00 AM
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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Courtesy Sunshine Skate Center
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Topline:
Cory Joseph built Sunshine Skate Center in Inglewood to fill a void left by the closure of a number of skate hubs, such as Skate Land in Northridge and Skate Depot in Cerritos.
Why it matters: The closing of these parks struck a nerve for Joseph, who grew up in San Diego and is the son of two professional skaters — Maureen Joseph and Timothy Carter — from the disco skating heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
Why now: Sunshine Skate Center celebrated its one-year anniversary this month.
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
The beloved skating rink shuttered in 2021 as part of a downward trend in places where you can groove on four wheels under luminescent disco balls and hot tunes.
The closing of these skate hubs struck a nerve for Joseph, who grew up in San Diego and is the son of two professional skaters — Maureen Joseph and Timothy Carter — from the disco skating heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
It’s no wonder he felt a desire to open the Sunshine Skate Center in Inglewood to fill this void. His journey to open Sunshine, named after his parents’ old skating team, took three long years of hurdles and obstacles until finally opened on Sept. 4, 2025.
A year of serving Inglewood
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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Jennifer Stavros
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The LA Local
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The rink celebrated its one-year anniversary this month.
“Skating for a lot of people is their therapy. It’s their way that they cope with things. It’s the way that they navigate through things,” Joseph said, adding that he understood how these places once served as third spaces for Black L.A.
“I think it’s more than just skating,” he said. “I really understand skating as a place for community.”
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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Jennifer Stavros
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The LA Local
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On a Friday night this past summer, Joseph’s ethos was seen in action.
Looking around the rink, the range of skaters varied widely in ability — from folks dance-skating to rolling backward, along with beginners using tools to help them on their first journey on wheels. Some were there with their families. Others were there with their friends. Spectators were delighted as they watched from outside the rink and the surrounding seating.
The unapologetic free flow of joy was palpable. Joseph said that when he sees the impact on Inglewood’s youngest residents, the three years it took him to open the rink feels worth it.
“You have a lot of kids that are not physically active,” he explained. “We’re able to engage kids [to] have them off their phones for certain periods of time when they’re skating.”
The debate over the safety of AI and whether and how it should be regulated is not a simple clash between two opposing sides. There are multiple factions with a variety of goals and assessments about the technology's promise, dangers and how it should be governed. Here are the main arguments shaping that debate.
So: From Steve Bannon to cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton, here is a guide to who's who in that debate.
The debate over the potential benefits and safety risks of accelerating artificial intelligence development reached a crescendo this month, as supporters and critics of the technology clashed over warnings that increasingly powerful AI could pose existential risks to humanity.
On September 8, Jacob Coxon, a researcher-turned-whistleblower, publicly resigned from major AI firm Anthropic after a previous stint at OpenAI, accusing the companies of "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."
Coxon's claims supercharged an ongoing debate over the potential damage AI could wreak on society and prompted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other AI CEOs to call for a slowdown in AI development.
Over the past two months, companies including OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed multiple incidents in which their AI agents accessed the internet when they weren't supposed to and carried out unapproved activities. In OpenAI's case, swarms of agents worked together to hack the open-source software platform Hugging Face and OpenAI itself, without alerting humans.
The debate over the safety of AI and whether and how it should be regulated is not a simple clash between two opposing sides. There are multiple factions with a variety of goals and assessments about the technology's promise, dangers and how it should be governed. Here are the main arguments shaping that debate.
Effective accelerationists and the tech right
Those who have an aggressively optimistic worldview of AI are often referred to as effective accelerationists (sometimes shortened to e/acc) — a term reflecting their belief that AI should be rapidly advanced.
People belonging to the faction are emphatically optimistic about AI and its future benefits to society. They believe that the technology can propel medical advancements, boost economic productivity, increase living standards and automate dangerous or undesirable work. To achieve this, they argue that AI development should be accelerated, not restricted.
Effective accelerationists' ideology overlaps with that of the "tech right" in that both camps wholeheartedly believe in accelerating AI development and deployment and minimize critics' concerns over safety and security.
However, the tech right takes a more nationalistic stance, championing U.S. dominance in the global AI race. Like effective accelerationists, they believe that AI research and deployment should be unencumbered by regulation, arguing that could slow innovation or allow adversarial governments such as China to overtake the U.S. in the AI race.
Venture capitalist David Sacks is one of the leading accelerationist voices in the AI safety debate and was President Trump's AI and cryptocurrency advisor.
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Ian Maule
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AFP via Getty Images
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The tech right's philosophy is represented by figures such as former White House AI and cryptocurrency advisor David Sacks, whose views remain influential with the Trump administration. Other significant players include venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman. The three founded the Leading the Future super PAC to support pro-AI political candidates, and campaign against those who advocate for regulation.
Andreessen also penned a 2023 widely-read blog post titled "Why AI Will Save the World," in which he claimed that fears of AI triggering mass unemployment are overstated. He argued that previous waves of automation ultimately created more jobs and economic activity than they eliminated, and the fears of existential risk are overblown.
Recently, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose chips are used by most AI companies, has emerged as one of the industry's leading voices pushing back against calls for a slowdown and urging a light regulatory approach.
Populist right
AI has exposed an ideological split within President Trump's political coalition. While Trump and his advisers overwhelmingly favor accelerating AI, parts of his MAGA base believe the powerful corporations he has aligned himself with could undermine the U.S. economy.
Figures including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have been vocal about potential job losses, the tech industry's political power, child safety and threats to traditional social and religious values.
This month, Bannon formed an unlikely partnership with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, to call for significant restrictions on AI development, government oversight and corporate accountability at the Pro-Human Assembly conference in Washington, D.C.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has sharply broken with the Trump administration around AI policy.
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Saul Loeb
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AFP via Getty Images
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Still, the two have differing stances on what any of those measures should look like. Sanders called for an immediate pause on AI development until clear safety rules are established by scientists, a permanent ban on the development of artificial "superintelligence" (AI systems that are more intelligent than humans in all domains), and an international treaty with China in an effort to avoid an AI arms race. Bannon, meanwhile, argued for slowing the pace of AI development, the formation of a national regulatory organization and cutting off China from U.S. AI technology.
"So why are we letting the Chinese Communist Party drive us? Oh, we have to do this or China wins," said Bannon in his speech at the event in Washington. "We should quarantine now every aspect of the ecosystem of artificial intelligence away from the Chinese Communist Party today. We should cut them off."
Safetyists
Safetyists are primarily concerned with the potential risks of the rapid advancement of AI. Their worries center on the possibility of catastrophic or existential outcomes, such as the death of humanity at the hands of autonomous machines.
High-profile members of the safetyist community include Geoffrey Hinton, who is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of AI" because of his pioneering work in deep learning that helped launch the modern era of AI. In recent years, Hinton, who previously worked at Google, has issued a series of warnings about existential risks associated with AI, particularly if an AI model surpasses human intelligence and becomes autonomous.
Another vocal AI safetyist is Daniel Kokotajlo, a former researcher at OpenAI and co-author of AI 2027, a paper published last year that discusses how super-intelligent AI could lead to human extinction by the mid-2030s.
Effective altruists
Effective altruists (often shortened to "EA") generally believe in maximizing humanity's long-term welfare. The movement originally focused on material ways to reduce global poverty. But more recently, many EA thinkers have focused their concerns on the possibility of existential risks from advanced AI and other potential societal-scale disasters such as nuclear war, climate change and pandemics. They particularly worry about the consequences for future generations. People from the EA camp prioritize AI safety, alignment — which is the science of making sure AI systems behave in a way that is reflective of human values and in line with safety rules — and reducing the probability of catastrophic outcomes.
The key difference between EAs and safetyists is that EAs generally provide funding for AI safety research and risk mitigation, whereas safetyists are researchers and advocates undertaking AI safety work and publicly calling for regulation.
Other AI factions often derisively describe effective altruists as so-called "AI Doomers." EA has also become a focus of criticism from the Trump administration since Coxon's resignation from Anthropic.
"Americanism, not effective altruism. The United States will continue to be AI DOMINANT!" said one Defense Department post this month.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is associated with the effective altruists and argues for stronger regulations on AI.
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Benjamin Fanjoy
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Getty Images
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Well-known people in the EA movement include Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), which focuses on mathematical approaches to making advanced AI systems safe. He is also the author of Harry Potter fan fiction that helped popularize ideas associated with EA. Holden Karnofsky, an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), an organization that funds causes central to the EA mission, including AI and biosecurity. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is considered to be aligned with effective altruism. Karnofsky also works at Anthropic and is married to Daniela Amodei, who is a co-founder of Anthropic and the sister of Dario Amodei, the CEO.
Another high-profile supporter of the EA movement is Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded major cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In 2023, he was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the misuse of customer and investor funds and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.
AI ethics
The AI ethics camp argues that society should focus on the harms AI is already causing, rather than on hypothetical existential risks. Some proponents contend that emphasizing existential threats from a hypothetical future superintelligence can serve as a distraction from the more immediate harms and accountability issues surrounding AI today.
AI ethicists' concerns include how AI systems can be biased due to the content of their training data, for example, the ways in which AI facial recognition or job application systems might perpetuate existing societal biases. They are also concerned with how AI could be used to exploit workers and to enable mass surveillance, as well as about the environmental costs of data centers, autonomous weapons and the concentration of power among technology companies.
A notable voice of the AI ethics faction is Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist and former co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team. Gebru left the company in 2020 because of a dispute with the company over a research paper she wrote exposing problems with large language models (LLMs), including their tendency to generate harmful or misleading language.
AI as a normal technology
People belonging to the "AI as a Normal Technology" group reject both the utopian and dystopian narratives about AI. Instead, this faction sees AI as a powerful but ultimately normal technology, comparable to the internet or electricity. They believe the focus should be on understanding and regulating specific applications and harms instead of treating AI as an unprecedented threat or as a path to inevitable superintelligence.
Fei-Fei Li is a computer scientist and co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute. She and others in her faction argue that AI is more like a typical technology than others in the field believe.
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Big Event Media
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Notable people associated with this worldview include Fei-Fei Li, a computer scientist and co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute. Li is famous for creating ImageNet, a vastly large dataset of images which provided the training data for large neural networks, which led to several major developments in AI.
Katie McQue's reporting is supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, which is a grantee of Coefficient Giving. Neither Tarbell nor Coefficient have any editorial input into her work. Copyright 2026 NPR
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A vibrant sunset framed by clouds was visible across Los Angeles yesterday. Atmospheric conditions might have something to do with it.
The backstory: The high clouds yesterday were likely related to Hurricane Odalys, which was downgraded to a tropical storm Sunday. “We were getting some high-based tropical moisture coming in far away from the center of the storm,” Robbie Munroe, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said.
What's next: High clouds are expected to stick around through at least today, according to the National Weather Service, which could make for another picturesque sunset.
Angelenos looking up Saturday may have noticed a particularly striking sight — a vibrant sunset framed by clouds.
Tropical moisture coming in from far off the coast could explain it.
“One thing that might have played a role in making it look awfully nice yesterday was those high clouds that were moving in,” Robert Munroe, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said. “The way the sun was hitting the high clouds made some bright yellows and oranges in the sky. That moisture is actually related to probably mostly Odalys.”
An early sunset at yesterday's "Be The Light" 5K event in Valencia last night.
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Jenn Baughman
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Jenn Baughman
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Odalys is the hurricane (since downgraded to a tropical storm) churning off the coast of Mexico, along with Hurricane Polo.
Neither is expected to make landfall here, but they're forecast to bring high surf, dangerous rip tides and potential flooding to coastlines already battered this month by Hurricane Marie.
The bright side is Munroe said those high clouds from yesterday will be sticking around through at least today, which could make for another pretty sunset this evening.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published September 27, 2026 9:27 AM
The star marks the epicenter of a small quake Sunday morning off shore in the South Bay.
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Courtesy USGS
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Topline:
An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6 struck near Hermosa Beach, and it was reported as being felt as far off as Oxnard.
Keep reading ... for more on what we know for now.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.6 struck off the South Bay at about 8:40 a.m. and was reported as being felt as far as Oxnard.
The U.S. Geological Survey says it was centered about four miles west-southwest of Hermosa Beach. More than 1,500 people reported feeling it within the first hour after it struck. [You can report what you felt to the USGS.]
No significant damage has been reported, which is typical at this low of a magnitude.
The quake was below the threshold of 4.0 magnitude that triggers an alert on the ShakeAlert app.
We don't want to scare you, but the Big One is coming. We don't know when, but we know it'll be at least 44 times stronger than Northridge and 11 times stronger than the Ridgecrest quakes in 2019. To help you get prepared, we've compiled a handy reading list:
