Politics
How hard should L.A. go after copper wire thieves? Council members hold a lively debate
A member of a historic church in South Los Angeles pointed out to Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson on Sunday that a landmark item was missing from the building: a bronze plaque.
The plaque at Bethel A.M.E Church had withstood the Great Depression, segregation and other economic downturns, only to disappear a couple of weeks ago, Harris-Dawson said. The plaque may have been stolen amid a surge of copper wire and bronze thefts across the city.
“I do think we have a mutation of petty theft that we need to look at in a serious and deep way,” said Harris-Dawson, whose district has also seen “stretches” of streets targeted by thieves.
The anecdote was shared at the end of a nearly one-hour debate Wednesday — in which more than half of the City Council spoke — over whether to approve motions by Councilmembers Kevin de León and Traci Park to curb copper wire theft. Beyond wire theft, the invigorating conversation illuminated the council members’ differing approaches to crime, with some wishing for more preventive efforts and others pushing for accountability.
The motions, which passed on a 13-2 vote, will create a task force with the Los Angeles Police Department and the Bureau of Street Lighting and establish a rewards program to encourage the public to submit information regarding the thefts.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said the rewards program “misses critical steps in understanding the root of this problem.”
“Rather than expand city efforts and resources on a reward program that does not intervene until after the damage is done and focuses on punitive measures, why aren’t we looking into how we can prevent this cycle together?” said Hernandez, who voted no on the motions.
Hernandez praised a Jan. 9 motion by Councilmember Heather Hutt that requested an examination of replacing copper wires with solar-powered lighting. Efforts like those, Hernandez said, address the root causes of the problem instead of spending money on “solutions that are Band-Aids.” (Hutt did not speak during Wednesday’s discussion but voted to approve both motions.)
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez stood by the rewards program, noting that accountability was necessary to prevent further expense to taxpayers.
“We can’t make it easier for them to continue to break into these systems, steal the copper wire, cash it in and create a bigger public safety threat,” Rodriguez said of the thieves.
Council President Paul Krekorian redirected the council’s attention to the “unscrupulous purchasers of stolen metal,” who he said were the “real source” of the problem.
Since November, Krekorian and City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto have been targeting those who receive the stolen metal. He said the way to prevent the crime was to make it no longer profitable.
From within his district, Harbor-area Councilmember Tim McOsker lamented the loss of plaques at the American Merchant Marine Veterans Memorial as well as at other memorials dedicated to fishing industry families and longshore workers.
McOsker noted that the Los Angeles Port Police had arrested three people — Dionzay Tisby, 42, Brittany Draper, 37, and Deona Jackson, 28 — on suspicion of grand theft related to the plaque thefts.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez joined Hernandez in opposing the motions, even though he had initially supported the idea. He asked his colleagues to understand that the thefts might be committed by people living in poverty who are pushed into acts of desperation.
Soto-Martínez urged the council to be “smart legislators” and pursue prevention efforts.
“It’s not just about getting rewards and criminalizing, and I get that’s probably part of the solution. But at the end of the day, it’s not going to solve the issue,” Soto-Martínez said.
In response, Councilmember Imelda Padilla acknowledged Soto-Martínez’s point about poverty but disagreed that the responsible individuals were “impoverished criminals.”
“This is really high, sophisticated, smart, clever, organized crime,” she said.
Councilmember John Lee also pushed back against Soto-Martínez, noting that the funds he wishes he could spend on youth centers or community programs are instead going to costly measures to deter thieves.
“We focus on the person committing the crime and not the victim anymore,” he said. “I don’t understand why we should not be looking at every single thing at our disposal.”
De León said he appreciated the range of perspectives on the issue but clarified that the motions were meant to give priority to public safety and speak to the concerns of residents.
In late December, thieves stole a third of the 6th Street Viduct’s copper wires. De León, whose district includes the structure, said the individuals could receive a “street value” of $11,000 for the stolen material. But repairs will cost taxpayers $2.5 million.
“This is not criminalizing this act,” De León said, “because it’s already a crime.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.
Disclosed just days before his second inauguration, the venture is the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Trump that blur the line between his government role and the continued effort by his family to profit from his power and global fame. It is yet another sign that the Trump family will be much less hesitant in this second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries.
Mr. Trump himself announced the launch of his new business on Friday night on his social media platform, in between announcements about filling key federal government posts. He is calling the token $Trump, selling it with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”
The venture was organized by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, which already has been selling an array of other kinds of merchandise like Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and even digital trading cards.
But this newest venture brings Mr. Trump and his family directly into the world of selling cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Trump recently disclosed he intended to name a cryptocurrency advocate as S.E.C. chairman.
A disclosure on the website selling the tokens says that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80 percent of the supply of the new Trump tokens that will be released gradually over the coming three years and that they will be paid “trading revenue” as the tokens are sold.
The move by Mr. Trump and his family was immediately condemned by ethics lawyers who said they could not recall a more explicit profiteering effort by an incoming president.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” said Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group. “It is beyond unprecedented.”
Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization business operations, said on Saturday that this offering was part of a new and growing business sector that the Trump family has entered.
“I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto,” Eric Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.” He added: “This is just the beginning.”
But even some in the cryptocurrency industry were quick to criticize the new token.
“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” wrote Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist and former executive at Coinbase, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, in a social media posting on Saturday.
The president-elect and his three sons had, as of late last year, already lent their name to another cryptocurrency startup called World Liberty Financial, an arrangement that included a cut of token sales for the Trump family in exchange for helping promote the new brand.
But the members of the Trump family, with World Liberty Financial, were not actually owners of the platform or officers in the company.
There are other crypto currency coins in the marketplace based on Mr. Trump that are not directly affiliated with his family like the new Trump Meme. Typically, these so-called meme coins — which were born when coins were created as a joke inspired by an internet meme or cartoonish animal faces — are largely worthless and traded more like a hobby.
With this new venture, companies associated with Mr. Trump’s family have a direct financial stake in the value of the new tokens and in the volume of their sales, which quickly surged after going on the market.
“GetTrumpMemes.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency,” the venture’s website says, adding, “Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP.’”
The legal disclosures say the tokens are not intended to be seen as “an investment opportunity, investment contract or security of any type.” But trading of them on cryptocurrency markets began immediately, driving up the value of each token from $7 to nearly $30 as of noon on Saturday.
This suggested that the so-called fully diluted value of all the tokens as of Saturday at noon was $30 billion, a number achieved less than a day after the token went on the market, according to CoinMarketCap, a site that tracks cryptocurrency trading.
Mr. Trump and his family are clear in the marketing of the new token that the image picked for the coin had been inspired by the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.
“President Trump faced death and came up fighting!” the website promoting the tokens says.
Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”
Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises.
This stands in contrast to efforts by Biden-era regulators to tightly regulate the industry, out of a concern that a sudden crash in the value of cryptocurrency could potentially lead to a future financial crash.
Thousands of mainly female protesters descended on Washington, D.C. to protest President–elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday. However, the crowd is only a tenth of the half a million who turned out for the “Women’s March” in 2017.
Saturday’s march, rebranded as the “People’s March,” is taking place at three different locations with demonstrators advocating for a wide range of left-wing causes and showcasing a united front to the new administration.
This morning, a kickoff event took place in Franklin Park for “gender justice” and bodily autonomy, and then demonstrators walked downtown before making their way towards the Lincoln Memorial for the day’s main event.
Demonstrators participate in the “People’s March” on Washington January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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“It’s really healing to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what’s going to be some really horrible extremism,” Mini Timmaraju, the head of advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as events kicked off.
Other protesters gathered at two other parks also near the White House, with one group focused on democracy and immigration and another on local Washington issues,
Vendors hawked buttons that said #MeToo and “Love trumps hate,” and sold People’s March flags for $10. Demonstrators carried posters that read “Feminists v. Fascists” and “People over politics.”
Lillian Fenske, 31, drove six hours from Greensboro, North Carolina, to participate. Her signs expressed concern over oligarchs and the disunity. “America is not for sale,” said one, while another said simply, “Divided We Fall.”
Protesters representing a variety of rights groups attend the “People’s March on Washington” on January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)
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There is a heavy police presence, although law enforcement is not expecting a repeat of the violent scenes seen across the city ahead of Inauguration Day in 2017, where protesters shattered glass storefronts and torched cars, with police arresting more than 200 people in demonstrations that spanned several days.
The enthusiasm behind the so-called resistance movement to Trump has waned somewhat, with many progressive voters expressing feelings of exhaustion and disappointment following Trump’s landslide win in November. He dominated both the Electoral College and the popular vote to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a historic campaign cycle.
Animated pro-choice and cliamte protesters holding signs at the march. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The 2017 Women’s March took place on the day after Trump’s inauguration. Celebrities like America Ferrera, Madonna, Ashley Judd, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, Debra Messing, Patricia Arquette and others attended the march.
President-elect Trump is expected to leave Mar-a-Lago later today and head to Washington.
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Trump’s advisers have not detailed how he will spend the first part of the day, and the only public event on Trump’s schedule is an evening reception and fireworks show at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
President-elect Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017,, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Sunday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and a “Make America Great Again” rally, at which Trump will deliver remarks, followed by a candlelit dinner.
Monday is Inauguration Day when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will participate in the swearing-in ceremony, which has been moved indoors due to the forecasted frigid temperatures.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, in one of her last public appearances in the role, signed her ceremonial desk drawer at the White House on Thursday, a tradition that dates back nearly a century.
As a crush of current and prior staffers gathered in Harris’ formal office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, she thanked them for their “extraordinary commitment” to public service and prioritizing the hopes and dreams of the American people.
“We have each taken on a life and a calling that is about doing work in the service of others, and doing it in a way that is fueled yes with ambition, yes with a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing we can make a difference,” Harris said.
Kamala Harris’ and other vice presidents’ signatures on a desk drawer in Harris’ office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
Then, as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff snapped pictures, Harris used a Sharpie to sign her desk drawer, a tradition that dates back to the 1940s and has been carried on continuously since the Ford administration. The vice president noted that she has met every one of her predecessors who signed the desk with the exception of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman.
As onlookers chanted, “MVP! MVP!” Harris, who unsuccessfully challenged President-elect Donald Trump for the White House in 2024, was asked what she planned to do next. Speculation about whether she would run for governor of California has been swirling.
“I’ll keep you posted,” she said, smiling.
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