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SAN FRANCISCO — As California struggles with homelessness and healthcare cuts, some activists are taking on an unexpected cause: fighting for billionaires.

About a dozen people took part in the “March for Billionaires” on Saturday morning in San Francisco to raise awareness about the plight of the ultrarich. Although some assumed the event was satire, organizer Derik Kauffman said it was a sincere protest against a potential new tax on the state’s wealthiest residents.

“We must not judge billionaires as a class but by their individual merits,” he said, speaking outside the San Francisco Civic Center. “There are good billionaires and bad billionaires, just like there are good people and bad people. California is extraordinarily lucky that this is where people come to start companies and build fortunes and we should do our best to keep it that way.”

The Billionaire Tax Act is a proposed state ballot initiative that would levy a one-time, 5% tax on the state’s billionaires to help offset recent federal cuts that have affected healthcare and food-assistance programs. The tax would apply to their overall net worth but would exclude pensions, real estate and retirement accounts.

Supporters say it would benefit the majority of the state’s residents and help ensure billionaires pay their fair share. Opponents — including Gov. Gavin Newsom — argue it will cause billionaires and the businesses they own to flee the state, taking jobs and tax dollars with them.

Kauffman echoed those concerns Saturday and said everyone should want billionaires to remain in California.

“This tax will drive billionaires out; it already has,” he said. “The founders of Google — they left the state and they are taking their money with them.”

Google is still headquartered in California, but other companies tied to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin recently lef the state, including T-Rex Holdings, which moved from Palo Alto to Reno last year.

San Francisco Jan. 7, 2026 Two counter-protesters mockingly impersonated billionaires by playing characters they dubbed “Oli Garch” and “Trilly O’Naire.”

(Katie King / Los Angeles Times)

The event attracted a few dozen humorous counterprotesters.

Razelle Swimmer carried around a puppet of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, brandishing knives and wearing an apron that said “Eat the Rich.” Swimmer told The Times she doesn’t believe billionaires need more protections.

“If they aren’t willing to pay more taxes, then I don’t really care if they leave,” she said.

Other counterprotesters mockingly impersonated billionaires by donning crowns or top hats. A man and woman, playing characters called Oli Garch and Trilly O’Naire, said they worried what would happen if the tax passed.

“There is a small chance that my helicopter won’t be able to have a sauna in it just because apparently some kids want dental work or something,” said the woman, as she adjusted her tiara.

At one point, a man wearing a gold crown and carrying a sign that said “Let them eat cake” ran through the crowd shouting, “Keep the poors away from me.”

The Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the main backer of the tax proposal, needs to collect about 875,000 signatures by June 24 in order to get the measure on the November ballot.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office, which offers guidance to the Legislature about budgetary issues, has cautioned that the tax might lead to only short-term benefits.

“It is likely that some billionaires decide to leave California,” the agency stated in a recent analysis. “The income taxes they currently pay to the state would go away with their departure. The reduction in state revenues from these kinds of responses could be hundreds of millions of dollars or more per year.”

California has roughly 200 billionaires, the most of any state. Their collective wealth was $2.2 trillion in October, up from $300 billion in 2011, according to a December report from law and economics professors at UC Berkeley, UC Davis and the University of Missouri.

The researchers concluded that billionaires in the United States pay less in taxes, relative to income, than the average American.

“It is estimated that, including all taxes at all levels of government, billionaires paid only 24% of their true economic income in taxes in years 2018-20 while the U.S.-wide average was 30%,” the report states.

Frank Clem, a pickleball pal of mine, recently put out the word that he was collecting whistles to deliver to the front lines of anti-ICE demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles, Highland Park, Pasadena and other locations.

I was out of the country at the time, but shortly after I returned, I thought about Clem when Minneapolis nurse Alex Pretti was shot dead by ICE agents at a protest in Minnesota. It wasn’t long before the Trump administration’s top officials took turns blaming the victim, lying about the circumstances and calling Pretti an assassin.

Pretti’s distraught parents responded with this:

“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.”

And yet entirely unsurprising, given the state of disinformation and the blatant corruption of legal and moral codes of conduct under Trump, who just the other day was blowing gas yet again about the 2020 election being stolen.

How do you stand up to a president who hypocritically pardons drug kingpins and other rabble, including the barbarians who beat up cops and ransacked the Capitol, even as he invades cities to terrorize and abduct working people?

Maybe you blow a whistle, for starters.

I know, it’s a small gesture. But Clem and others are choosing sides, standing up for their communities, and refusing to remain silent as it becomes clear that the ICE agenda is less about law and order and more about the politics of scapegoating.

I came upon a story on Fox11 about a broader whistle brigade in Los Angeles. Musician Hector Flores, of Las Cafeteras, said he had been distributing free whistles to coffee shops because “we’ve got to protect one another,” and a whistle can sound the alarm that ICE agents are on the prowl.

If Trump were honest about rounding up violent criminals, we wouldn’t need this kind of resistance. But arrests of immigrants with no criminal records are increasing, and the majority of them are here to work and support their families. And U.S. employers have embraced and relied on them as essential contributors to the economy.

When I couldn’t immediately get hold of Flores, I called the owner of Cafe de Leche, the Highland Park coffee shop he had delivered whistles to. Matt Schodorf told me he was fresh out of whistles, and I thought of Clem, who agreed to meet me at Cafe de Leche with a special delivery.

Clem, an actor, is someone you want on your pickleball team because he comes to play and he covers a lot of ground. You might have seen him in theater productions, on TV shows or in movies, and you couldn’t possibly not have seen him as the emu farmer in a Liberty Mutual commercial.

Clem walked past a window sign that says “I Like My Coffee Without ICE” and took a seat at Cafe de Leche. He was wearing an L.A. ballcap and carrying a shopping bag containing hundreds of whistles.

A sign reading “I like my coffee without ICE” is posted in the window of Cafe de Leche in Highland Park. Cafe owners Matt and Anya Schodorf have been giving away whistles to customers to be used for ICE sightings and at demonstrations.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Black whistles. Red whistles. Whistles with strings and whistles with hooks to clip onto key chains.

Enough for a symphony.

“It’s 18, 20 bucks for, like, a hundred whistles,” Clem said, displaying a sandwich-size baggie of 100 multicolored whistles in the shape of small pencils.

Clem has been buying them in bulk on the internet, accepting donated whistles from friends, and making his with a 3D printer. He said he had already given away more than 1,500 the last few weeks at rallies and demonstrations.

People smile, Clem said, “when they see the possibilities,” when they join the chorus and the cause, and rather than retreat in silence, make themselves heard. Stiff opposition to ICE atrocities in Minneapolis has led to the withdrawal of hundreds of agents, so maybe a corner is being turned.

“We’re blowing $20 on coffee, right?” Clem said. “But here’s $20 you can spend on something and really feel like you’re getting some kind of return on it. … Throw me 100 whistles, and we’ll get them into the hands of people that might make a difference.”

Schodorf joined us with a cleaned-out whistle rack that said “Free Ice Alarms” on it, and said he’d be glad to fill the rack with Clem’s contributions. Before long, it was loaded up with 100 whistles and placed on the front counter.

When I asked Schodorf about joining ranks with the whistle brigade, he mentioned his wife, Cafe de Leche co-owner Anya Schodorf.

“She grew up here, but she was born in Nicaragua,” he said, and it’s hard to not to get involved when “they’re just profiling people right off the streets. I mean, nobody feels safe … and they’re charging the brown people, right? My wife would identify as that, and she’s afraid to go out of the house.”

Schodorf said they’ve been scrambling to keep the business running after they lost their Cafe de Leche restaurant in the fire that tore through Altadena a year ago. A photo of them in the ruins of their other shop hung on the wall, along with other photos of the destruction in Altadena.

“I don’t know what to do,” Schodorf said about the ICE tactics in Highland Park and beyond, “but I feel like we want to raise the voices of people.”

His wife entered the shop and greeted friends and customers before joining us. She has been a U.S. citizen for decades, and yet she feels as though the color of her skin makes her a suspect.

Anya and Matt Schodorf, owners of Cafe de Leche in Highland Park, talk about their fears about ICE in the community.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“You can scream from the top of your lungs that you’re a citizen, and they don’t care,” Anya said. “I honestly can’t think straight … and it’s really hard for me to concentrate.”

Anya said she walks and sometimes runs on Arroyo trails but has begun taking extra precautions, like calling her husband and leaving the line open. She went to a park in Pasadena recently and got worried after entering a restroom.

“I heard … a commotion outside and I got nervous,” Anya said. “And then I came out and saw ICE people kind of harassing the workers, like city workers. They’re city landscapers, and I panicked. I went back into the bathroom, like, what do I do? And why should I be panicky? I’m a citizen.”

Her kids are just as concerned about her as she is.

“It’s my son I really worry about,” Anya said. “He says, ‘Make sure you have your passport.’ Yeah, my kids. They’re really worried. And my son is like, please be careful. … It’s that additional stress that they don’t need — that they have to worry about me.”

The Schodorfs said ICE agents recently grabbed a neighborhood fixture — a guy who sells tamales.

“They’re just picking people off, right and left,” Matt said.

“He’s like 72,” Anya said.

The first whistles delivered by Hector Flores were gone before long.

“It was just a matter of hours,” Matt said. “I think it’s twofold. It’s people who think they might need it just for themselves, but it’s people who feel like they might need it for other people. … It’s been wildly popular.”

“We’re a good country,” Anya said. “But we’re falling into the hands of people that are cruel and they don’t really care about anyone but themselves, and they are enriching themselves.”

Clem said that at rallies, he’s making sure to offer whistles to vendors.

“People selling hot dogs and churros,” he said. “They’re asking how many they can take for their families and friends, right? I want them to take as many as they can. I’ve got 1,500 of these things sitting on my dining room table.”

Clem said he was never really a protester, but “anyone who has eyes can see” the alarming level of corruption coming out of the White House.

“My dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge, right?” Clem said. “My dad fought Nazis and fascists in World War II, and he was always warning me growing up that it could happen here. So now, the least I can do is pass out whistles.”

When Clem’s whistles were on display at the counter, one of the first customers was Hana McElroy. She ordered a coffee and took a whistle.

“I’m a nanny, and I pick up a couple of kids from their preschool and I know and love so many kids with parents in pretty tenuous situations,” said McElroy, who is Irish American. “It’s just been a scary time to be an Angeleno.”

Hana McElroy, right, picks up a free whistle while ordering a cup of coffee from Soleil Hernando at Cafe de Leche.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

McElroy said she knows some of the Latina nannies who take their charges to the little park across the street from Cafe de Leche, and she worries about them too.

McElroy showed me a whistle on her key chain but said it was broken. Soleil Hernando, a barista, told her after she’d taken one of Clem’s whistles that they were free, and she should take as many as she wanted.

McElroy grabbed another.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Mayor Karen Bass, delivering the first of two State of the City addresses planned this year, urged Angelenos on Monday to come together ahead of the 2028 Olympics while announcing a push to clean up Los Angeles’ busiest streets in the run-up to the Games.

The mayor spoke at the Expo Center in Exposition Park in front of hundreds of city workers and politicos. A second address is planned for April.

After both the UCLA and USC marching bands played to welcome the mayor, she fittingly homed in on a theme of unity as the region prepares to host the World Cup, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the Super Bowl, among other events. But she also said that Angelenos needed to unite in the face of immigration raids, the homelessness crisis and the fires that burned in the city last year.

“Even in this difficult chapter, in our history, great events — moments of unity — are possible. And they are coming,” Bass said.

“As we prepare for … the greatest Olympic and Paralympic Games in history — we will continue to focus on the fundamentals, the things that shape how a city feels to the people who live here and the millions who will visit,” Bass said.

The preparation will include a continued focus on cleaning up encampments through Bass’ signature program, Inside Safe, she said.

Bass also announced a new clean streets initiative dubbed Clean Corridors, which she said would “accelerate beautification” of major thoroughfares throughout the city in advance of the Olympics.

“We will crack down on any illegal dumping, those who cut corners, avoid disposal fees, and leave a mess for workers and neighbors to deal with,” she said.

The announcement comes just months after the head of the city’s Bureau of Sanitation left her post.

The mayor also focused on the Trump administration’s continued immigration raids that have led to protests in downtown Los Angeles and across the country. She spoke about the shooting in Los Angeles of Keith Porter by federal agents.

“Staying silent or minimizing what is happening is not an option. This administration does not care about safety. They don’t care about order. And they most certainly do not care about the law,” she said.

The mayor also spoke about the Palisades fire, saying she and Councilmember Traci Park would head to Sacramento next week to call for more investment in the rebuild of the Palisades. Already, 400 homes are under construction in the Palisades and hundreds more are approved and ready to be built, she said.

“We are not just rebuilding — we are rebuilding smarter, faster, and safer,” she said. “Families are returning home.”

The announcement came after a week in which President Trump criticized the city’s rebuild for going too slowly, and said he would preempt the city’s ability to issue permits for people rebuilding after the Palisades fire.

The president announced in an executive order that victims of the fire using federal aid money could self-certify to federal authorities that they have complied with local health and safety standards.

The mayor decided to deliver two States of the City this year. Traditionally, she and other mayors have made a single speech in April before releasing the proposed annual budget for the new fiscal year.

The mayor said the first of the two speeches would serve as a countdown to the 2026 World Cup, which will feature eight matches at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium.

Her second State of the City is likely to focus more on the city’s budget issues.

Last year, the mayor and City Council had to close a $1-billion budget shortfall. During her State of the City in 2025, the mayor announced likely layoffs to city workers in order to produce a balanced budget.

The city ultimately avoided making any layoffs through other cuts and agreements with city unions. But the city is likely to face another tough budget year in the upcoming fiscal year.

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — In a church crowded to overcapacity, two-dozen faith leaders and their audience of hundreds sang and prayed together in unity Monday as a sign of support for Haitian migrants, some of whom fear their protected status in the United States may be ended this week.

Religious leaders representing congregations from across the United States attended the event at Springfield’s St. John Missionary Baptist Church, demanding an extension of the Temporary Protection Status that allowed thousands of Haitian migrants to legally arrive in Springfield in recent years fleeing unrest and gang violence in their homeland. The TPS designation for Haiti is set to expire Tuesday, and those gathered were hoping that a federal judge might intervene and issue a pause.

“We believe in the legal system of this country of ours, we still believe. We believe that through the legal ways, the judge hopefully will rule in favor of current TPS holders today that will allow them to stay while we continue to fight,” Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, told the packed church.

“We have been called for such a time as this to protect those who have nowhere else to go. They cannot go back to Haiti,” she said.

So many people turned up for the church event that a fire marshal had to ask 150 to leave because the building had exceeded its 700-person capacity.

Hundreds joined a choir clapping and singing: “You got to put one foot in front of the other and lead with love.”

They also observed a moment of silence for people who died in federal immigration detention and for Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis. Some of the speakers evoked biblical passages while appealing for empathic treatment of migrants.

Federal immigration crackdown and TPS

The Department of Homeland Security announced last June that it would terminate TPS for about 500,000 Haitians in the U.S., including some who had lived in the country for more than a decade. DHS said conditions in the island nation improved enough to allow their safe return.

“It was never intended to be a de facto asylum program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades. The Trump administration is restoring integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement, noting there were no new enforcement operations to announce.

A federal judge in Washington is expected to rule any day on a request to pause the TPS termination for Haitians while a lawsuit challenging it proceeds.

TPS allows people in the U.S. to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. Immigrants from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and Lebanon, had the protective status before President Trump’s second term started.

The uncertainty over TPS has deepened worries for an already embattled Haitian community in Springfield.

Trump denigrated the community while campaigning in 2024 for a second term, falsely accusing its members of eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs as he  pitched voters  on his plans for an immigration crackdown. The false claims exacerbated fears about division and anti-immigrant sentiment in the mostly white, working class city of about 59,000 people.

In the weeks after his comments, schools, government buildings and the homes of elected officials received  bomb threats.

Since then Springfield’s Haitians have lived in constant fear that has only been exacerbated by the federal immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis and other cities, said Viles Dorsainvil, leader of Springfield’s Haitian Community Help and Support Center.

“As we are getting close to the end of the TPS, it has intensified the fear, the anxiety, the panic,” Dorsainvil said.

Sunday church service

Some of Springfield’s estimated 15,000 Haitians also sought comfort and divine intervention in their churches Sunday.

At the First Haitian Evangelical Church of Springfield, its pastor estimated that half of the congregants who regularly attend Sunday service stayed home.

“They don’t know the future; they are very scared,” Rev. Reginald Silencieux said.

Flanked by the flags of Haiti and the United States, he advised his congregation to stay home as much as possible in case of immigration raids. He also offered a prayer for Trump and the Haitian community and reminded congregants to keep their faith in God.

“The president is our president. He can make decisions. But he is limited,” he said. “God is unlimited.”

After the service Jerome Bazard, a member of the church, said ending TPS for Haitians would wreak havoc on his community.

“They can’t go to Haiti because it’s not safe. Without the TPS, they can’t work. And if they can’t work, they can‘t eat, they can’t pay bills. You’re killing the people,” he said.

Many children in the Springfield Haitian community are U.S. citizens who have parents in the country illegally. If they are detained, Dorsainvil said, some parents signed caregiver affidavits that designate a legal guardian in hopes of keeping their kids out of foster care.

“They’re not sending their kids to school,” he said.

Volunteers from nearby towns and from out of state have been calling the Haitian community center offering to deliver food for those afraid to leave home, Dorsainvil said. Others have been stockpiling groceries in case immigration officers flood the community.

Some, he said, have been receiving desperate calls from family members abroad asking them to leave. “They keep telling them that Springfield is not a safe place now for them to stay.”

Henao writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center filed a lawsuit against Southern California Edison Tuesday, claiming the electric company was to blame for igniting last year’s Eaton fire, which destroyed the congregation’s historic sanctuary, preschool and other buildings.

“Our congregation has been without a physical home for more than a year, at a time when our members had the deepest need for refuge and healing,” Senior Rabbi Joshua Ratner said in a statement. “While we’ve continued to gather and support one another, the loss is deeply felt.”

David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesman, said the company would respond to the complaint through the court process.

“Our hearts remain with the people affected by the Eaton fire,” Eisenhauer said. “We remain committed to wildfire mitigation through grid hardening, situational awareness and enhanced operational practices.”

The temple had served hundreds of Jewish families since 1941. Congregation members were able to save little more than its sacred Torah scrolls.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claims Edison failed to follow its own safety protocols despite advance warnings of extremely dangerous red flag conditions in an area known to be at high threat of wildfires.

The complaint points to the utility’s failure to de-energize its transmission lines that night, as well as its decision to leave up a decommissioned line that hadn’t carried electricity for decades.

It also cites a Times investigation that found that Edison fell behind in doing maintenance that it told state regulators was needed and began billing customers for.

“SCE’s maintenance backlog and unutilized maintenance funds show that it was highly likely that the subject electrical infrastructure that ignited the Eaton Fire was improperly inspected, maintained, repaired, and otherwise operated, which foreseeably led to the Eaton Fire’s ignition,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit seeks financial compensation for destruction of the campus, as well as injunctive relief aimed at preventing Edison from causing more wildfires in the future.

The government investigation into the cause of the fire has not yet been released.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company, has said that a leading theory is that a century-old, dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon briefly became energized that night, causing sparks that ignited the fire.

Edison is already facing hundreds of lawsuits from fire victims, as well as one by the U.S. Department of Justice. The utility is offering compensation to victims who agree to give up their right to sue the company for the blaze.

Under California law, most of those payments, as well as the lawsuit settlements, are expected to be covered by a state wildfire fund that lawmakers created to shield the three biggest for-profit utilities from bankruptcy if their equipment ignites a catastrophic fire. Some wildfire victims say the law has gone too far and doesn’t keep the utilities accountable for their mistakes.

The temple’s lawsuit details how investigators have found Edison’s equipment to have caused multiple wildfires in the last 10 years, including the the Round Fire in 2015, the Rey Fire in 2016, the Thomas, Creek, and Rye fires in 2017,and the Woolsey Fire in 2018.

Investigators also found that Edison’s power lines sparked the Fairview fire in 2022, which killed two people.