The Brief

The “No Kings” protest movement is planning a third national day of action this Saturday in response to the war in Iran and continued immigration enforcement.

More than 50 events are taking place in the L.A. metro area alone, with the largest planned in downtown Los Angeles, where over 100,000 people are expected to attend, according to organizers.

“Many of the organizations that have coordinated with us are sending feeder marches or caravans to attend the rally in downtown L.A.,” said Nick Miller, a press coordinator for 50501 SoCal, which is part of the No Kings coalition.

During the first No Kings protest in June, thousands in downtown Los Angeles marched in the largely peaceful protest before the LAPD issued a dispersal order and employed less than lethal weapons on the crowd, saying people were “throwing rocks, bricks, bottles and other objects."

For this Saturday, an LAPD spokesperson told LAist the department is prepared for the event and "have sufficient resources to respond.”

Law enforcement in Long Beach, where a march is planned, said they're ready as well.

“If you are participating in a demonstration, please abide by all traffic laws. Criminal activity and violence will not be tolerated,” said Jordan McGinleywith the Long Beach Police Department.

There are more than 3,000 demonstrations planned for Saturday nationwide.
Here’s a map of all No Kings events taking place nationally.

L.A. and O.C. demonstrations

Dozens of protests are planned in Los Angeles and Orange counties, including at these locations:

• Anaheim: 2 to 5 p.m. at La Palma Park
• Pasadena: 11 to 1:30 p.m. at Pasadena City College
• Downtown Los Angeles: 2 to 5:30 p.m. at Los Angeles City Hall/Gloria Molina Grand Park
• Long Beach: 12 to 2 p.m. at East Ocean Boulevard & Temple Avenue
• Santa Monica: 11 to 1 p.m. at Palisades Park
• Santa Ana: 10:30 to 12:30 p.m. at South Bristol Street & West MacArthur Boulevard
• Malibu: 12 to 1 p.m. at 23519 West Civic Center Way
• Burbank: 1 to 3 p.m. at Abraham Lincoln Park
• Santa Clarita: 10 to 12 p.m. at 24292 Valencia Blvd at the corner of McBean Pkwy
• Monrovia: 10 to 12 p.m. at Library Park
• Torrance: 10:30 to 12:30 p.m. at Torrance City Hall
• West Hollywood: 11 to 2 p.m. at West Hollywood Park

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Eastsiders will have several ways to honor Earth Day, from joining community cleanups in Boyle Heights and El Sereno to celebrating 20 years of Ascot Hills Park during the 18th Annual Ascot Hills Park Kite Festival. 

Earth Day is on April 22, but Eastside events marking the day begin this Saturday.

Ascot Hills Park Kite Festival 

Free kites, crafts for kids, live entertainment and a tree giveaway for L.A. residents are all part of the fun. There will also be rain barrels, compost pails and other sustainability resources. 

This year’s celebration will mark 20 years of Ascot Hills Park being open to the community. The free event is hosted by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado in partnership with the Ascot Hills Park Advisory Board and North East Trees.

Orgullo Boyle Heights cleanup stops

The nonprofit Visión y Compromiso will host a series of cleanup stops in Boyle Heights.

Volunteers will be at each location for a little over an hour and are encouraged to bring their own brooms and cleaning tools. Limited supplies will be provided. All ages are welcome. 

We Love Boyle Heights Earth Day celebration

Vision y Compromiso’s Earth Day events will culminate with a celebration, featuring music and entertainment at Mariachi Plaza.

The events are held in partnership with White Memorial Community Health Center, Rising Communities, the County of Los Angeles Public Health, and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office. 

Giveaways at LA General Medical Center

Get free bicycle helmets, tote bags, water bottles and other merchandise at the Earth Day event spearheaded by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity, Centennial Partners, The Wellness Center and Primestor.

Refurbished bicycles will also be given away, but all bikes have already been reserved. 

Beautify Boyle Heights

In partnership with Ülëw Coffee, a community clean-up will be held at KIPP LA Prep. Gloves, masks, trash bags and tools will be provided. 

East LA Trash Walkers

The East LA Trash Walkers are hosting a community clean-up in El Sereno. Gloves and trash bags will be provided. Volunteers will meet at El Sereno Recreation Center and will end their cleanup at Lil’ East Cafe. 

More than a decade after California began setting aside patches of ocean for conservation, change could be coming to its marine protected areas.

The state is considering a variety of changes to the network — a few proposals shrink those areas or remove certain protections, while most propose expanding existing protected areas or adding new ones. The levels of protection can range from a total ban on commercial fishing and certain recreational activities, to highly limited allowances. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is in the process of reviewing dozens of proposals from tribes, environmental groups, the fishing industry and other stakeholders.

The discussion comes amid escalating pressures on our ocean — from plastic pollution and offshore energy efforts to rapidly warming temperatures that have, in recent years, led to some of the worst mass dieoffs of marine life ever seen.

So far, the department has recommended denying all 10 of the non-tribal proposals. They have yet to release their recommendations for the five remaining petitions from tribes, including a new protected area proposed by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians that would encompass about 9 square miles off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Ultimately, the decision on whether to approve or deny the petitions lies with the five governor-appointed members of the state’s Fish and Game Commission. A decision is expected this summer.

Some say the state isn’t being bold enough in its approach to boosting protections for marine life, while others argue the existing network is strong enough. There is agreement, however: Marine protected areas can be a powerful tool in boosting certain fisheries and building resilience to climate change.

Creating underwater refuges

California started the process of protecting areas off its coast in 1999, when the Marine Life Protection Act was signed into law. That kickstarted the process of establishing an interconnected network of marine protected areas off the state’s coast.

But the process to get that done was a long and arduous one, slowed by competing interests and political infighting. It wasn’t until 2012 that the state completed the existing coastal network of more than 120 underwater refuges.

That network provides protections from fishing and other activities for a little over 16% of California’s coast. By 2030, the state’s goal, codified by an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, is to protect 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

The science of marine protected areas

Marine protected areas have improved the health of underwater ecosystems.

A state review of its network, released in 2023, found that marine protected areas were largely working — supporting larger, healthier and more abundant populations of many species, as well as creating a “spillover effect” that boosts certain lucrative fisheries, such as lobster, outside the bounds of the protected area. For example, a 2021 study found that a 35% reduction in fishing area due to protected area designation off the Channel Islands resulted in a 225% increase in total lobster catch after just six years.

Marine protected areas have also been found to improve resilience for some species in the face of climate change, as the ocean absorbs nearly one-third of the carbon pollution in our atmosphere and about 90% of the excess heat that that pollution would otherwise generate.

Researcher Kyle Cavanaugh and his team at UCLA analyzed satellite data of kelp forests off the California coast in the decades before and after the establishment of the state’s protected areas, focusing on the changes after a severe marine heat wave between 2014 and 2016.

“Marine protected areas recovered more quickly, more strongly compared to the non-protected areas in Southern California,” Cavanaugh said.

He said that’s likely because these areas protect predators of sea urchins, which graze on kelp and can destroy entire forests if left unchecked. Their predators, such as sheephead fish and lobster, are found in Southern California’s waters.

But the story was a little different in Northern California. Cavanaugh’s team found that marine protected areas didn’t have the same rebound effect for kelp forests there, likely because sea urchin predators up north are sea otters and sea stars.

“Sea otters are protected [by the state] anyway, and sea stars basically have been wiped out across California due to sea star wasting disease,” Cavanaugh said. That disease led to a proliferation of urchins up north, and a dieoff of around 85% of the kelp forest in just the last 10 years.

Though more conservation is likely necessary (and increasingly complicated as climate change shifts ecosystems), a blanket approach to protected areas is not a silver bullet, Cavanaugh said.

“ There's different things going on in different locations, and there's not going to be a one size fits all approach at all,” he said. “We might lose kelp in certain areas in a warming world, and so figuring out which patches might be more resilient to temperatures and protecting those is important.”

Understanding the specific challenges to kelp forest growth or decline in varying regions is key, Cavanaugh emphasized. At the same time, California’s marine protected area network is still young (compare a little over a decade of protections to the more than 150 for many of our national parks), and there’s much to learn about the role they play in boosting the health of our ocean overall.

“These are baby protected areas, and that means we're still learning how they function,” said Douglas McCauley, an ecologist at UC Santa Barbara. “That also means that we're still beginning to see how they mature and the benefits that they can create over time.”

Competing interests, shared connection to the ocean

For Chris Voss, that specificity around the gains of certain marine protected areas is key.

Voss is a lifelong commercial fisherman and president of the nonprofit Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara. He said marine protected areas have been a boon for some industries, such as lobster, but not all, such as urchin fishers.

He argues that the existing network is strong, and that more regulations will harm the fishing industry, which has been declining over the past two decades. He’s particularly concerned about the proposals to expand or add entirely new marine protected areas.

 ”We are all small, independent businessmen with families and kids and a desire to scratch out a living from the ocean, but also produce a high quality food product in a sustainable way from the marine environment,” Voss said.

His group, along with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and a handful of recreational fishing groups, want state commissioners to deny the proposals.

“They didn't put the initial network on low-value real estate in the ocean. They put it on a very high-value real estate in the ocean,” Voss said. “The fishing community has adapted.”

He pointed to multiplying pressures on the industry, such as expanded offshore wind and oil drilling (the group opposes both) and aquaculture efforts, as well as the science that not every marine protected area benefits marine life in the same way.

Voss said urchin fishers, for example, could help reduce kelp-eating urchin overpopulation in some areas. Such efforts have yet to scale, and urchins in kelp-barren areas are not very lucrative, though some researchers say urchin fishing as a management tool before kelp forest collapse could be a potential avenue.

“There’s nuance that we should embrace,” Voss said. “We need to think with and understand the complexity of the different fisheries and their impacts, and then make decisions with a more complete understanding so that we can get win-win situations.”

A blue belt off Laguna Beach

Ocean advocates and recreational fishers and divers in Laguna Beach have proposed to extend the marine protected area to fully encompass the city’s coast. The area is a key link for genetic dispersal of sea life between Palos Verdes and La Jolla, as well as a major draw for ocean tourism.

“Marine life within the marine protected areas of Laguna Beach are really thriving, but as soon as you move past the boundary, there's less sea life,” said Mike Beanan with the nonprofit Laguna Bluebelt Coalition. “The kelp forests that were in South Laguna are gone.”

A recent survey commissioned by the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition and Orange County Coastkeeper brought United Nations-approved underwater survey group Reef Check to Laguna Beach, where they found only female sheephead outside of the bounds of the protected areas and a proliferation of kelp-eating urchins. Female sheephead don’t eat urchins like their male counterparts (all sheephead are born female, then turn into males as they age and grow, which can take decades). Sheephead are targeted by spearfishers and commercial fishing in the area.

“Without sheephead, the sea urchins take over and eat the base of the kelp forest, and then the kelp forest goes away,” said Beanan.  

“For centuries,” he added, “we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible source of food, and now we're finding out that that really isn't the case.”

A lifelong diver who grew up in a working class household and often fished for food off the Orange County coast, Beanan said he’d hoped the petition process would finally lead to full protections, but the Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended denial of the proposal to protect all of the Laguna Beach coastline.

Local fishing businesses have opposed the expansion. Beanan and his Orange County Coastkeeper counterpart, Ray Hiemstra (who is also a recreational fisher) both said they understand the concerns about expanding protections from local fishing businesses.

“There's going to have to be a sacrifice, and I don't want to belittle the impact on the commercial fishers,” Hiemstra said. “But I think this is a small, incremental, necessary step, and this is the time and the process where we're able to take action on that.”

In the wake of the Palisades and Eaton fires last year, much has been reported about the thousands of Angelenos who lost their homes and the dozens who lost their lives.

A new study by UCLA and USC researchers looks at how the fires affected Los Angeles County's unhoused population — and finds that a majority of those surveyed said the disaster put their lives in danger.

The study, published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health, found that of the 374 people who participated, 56% reported their lives had been in danger and 21% said they had been injured.

About 76% of all the respondents said their routines had been disrupted by the fires, and 46% said their living areas were damaged.

"People are living in these extraordinarily awful conditions where high winds can cause damage to where they live, can displace them and can cause injury,” said Ben Henwood, a professor at USC’s School of Social Work and an author of the new study. “And that's by definition because they are vulnerable living out on the streets.”

The study analyzed data from a monthly survey of unhoused Angelenos that has been going on since 2021, known as PATHS. The participants completed surveys in both December 2024 and January 2025, and responded to specific questions about natural disasters and their housing situations.

Unsheltered respondents described tents and vehicles damaged by falling debris and belongings swept away by high winds, according to the study. They also described disruptions to services, because of clinics and other service sites closing or burning down during the fires.

The 15% of participants who said they lived within wildfire evacuation zones reported that they experienced more frequent evacuations, more prolonged exposure to smoke and more difficulty finding shelter.

The study’s authors say L.A. County and other local governments should recognize the risks and incorporate unhoused Angelenos into climate disaster planning.

Unsheltered risks

Last year’s wildfires in L.A. County killed 29 people, destroyed more than 10,000 homes and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. The challenges the urban wildfires posed for L.A. County’s estimated 74,000 unhoused residents have not yet been well-documented or studied.

“Most of what we know about homelessness comes from systems-gathered data,” Henwood said. “With people who aren't connected to systems, it’s really hard to know how services or policies are affecting them. And in this case, how natural disasters might be affecting them.”

People who were “unsheltered” — living outside in tents or vehicles — were more likely to be injured, displaced or lose belongings in the wildfire than people living indoors in shelters or publicly-funded hotel rooms, the study found.

L.A. County is home to the nation’s largest unsheltered population, with more than 52,000 people living outside on any given night, according to official estimates.

Of those living in tents or similar makeshift shelters, more than 75% said they experienced damage to their living spaces during the wildfires and preceding windstorm.

"This was as much a wind event as a fire event,” Randall Kuhn, a UCLA public health professor and a study author, told LAist. “A lot of people had lost everything before the fires even sparked. You're living in a wind tunnel and suddenly 90-mile-an-hour winds come through.”

Related studies

Last month, Kuhn, Henwood and colleagues published another study focused on the medical concerns of unsheltered Angelenos, which found that about 40% of that population in L.A. County had mental health conditions and about 33% had substance use disorders.

They published another on the health impacts of police-led encampment sweeps on unhoused people, which found that a third of people living outside face sweeps at least monthly, and that routine sweeps are associated with negative physical and mental health outcomes.

This month, other UCLA researchers published a national study finding that each home lost to climate disaster per 10,000 people was associated with a 1% increase in homelessness.

Researchers say homelessness in L.A. County is in an emergency of disastrous proportions that's in need of its own solutions. And as long as the county has a large population living outside, they’ll be vulnerable.

"If we're gonna have people out on the streets, how do they access bathrooms, how do they access water, how are they gonna be protected when natural disasters happen?” Henwood said. “Those are the sorts of conversations that seem to me to be needed and more realistic.”

The authors recommend better access to emergency shelters near evacuation zones, more provision of protective equipment like goggles and masks and using mutual aid networks to fill in gaps in public services.

The studies were funded by the universities, the National Institutes of Health, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Homeless Policy Research Institute and LA Care.

The union that represents more than 42,000 service and hospital workers across the University of California has announced plans to stage an open-ended strike at all campuses next month, starting May 14.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees local 3299 (AFSCME) has been negotiating with the university system for over two years.

The union’s membership includes custodians, food service workers, patient care assistants and hospital technicians. Members say their wages have failed to keep pace with inflation, and that they’ve been priced out of local housing markets.

Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for the union, underscored that strikes “ involve great sacrifice for workers.” He also noted that its members “are overwhelmingly women and people of color.”

AFSCME members “love the university,” he added. But to continue working for the UC, some workers have to drive “ three hours each way.” Other members “are sleeping in their cars or living in homeless shelters,” he said.

“To say that these workers feel undervalued and insulted would be an understatement,” Stenhouse said. “At a certain point in time, you have to just say: ‘Enough.’”

What is the basis for the strike?

The union has filed unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board, formally accusing the UC system of violating California labor law.

AFSCME charges the university system with:

• A “refusal to bargain over housing aid for its workers.” 
• An “imposition of contract terms,” including higher health-care rates, “despite being legally required to bargain over such changes.” 

Here’s what AFSCME is bargaining for.

What is UC’s position?

In a press statement, the UC system said it has exchanged proposals on wages, health care and working conditions with the union, “reaching agreement on 26 contract articles to date.”

“ We're disappointed that AFSCME is moving toward this open-ended strike, despite the real progress that we've made at the bargaining table,” said Heather Hansen, a spokesperson for the university system.

“We recognize that many employees are facing real pressures related to housing, commuting, and the high cost of living,” she added. “That's why we've made the generous offers that we have.”

Hansen said the UC’s proposals include wage increases of 32% or more through 2029, “which means more money in the employee's pockets right away, with continued increases over time.”

The road ahead

Stenhouse said the UC system is touting “fuzzy math.” More than a third of the proposed wage increases, he said, “ are not even applicable to all workers.”

When asked about the unfair labor practice charges filed by the union, Hansen said that “just because AFSCME has filed these charges doesn't mean that [they have] merit. And we disagree with some of the characterizations that they've made.” In the end, she added, it is PERB who will decide whether the charges stand muster.

Last fall, the union staged a two-day strike. If AFSCME decides to carry out the open-ended work stoppage this spring, Hansen said, “ We have robust contingency plans in place to ensure patients, students, and staff members and faculty are minimally impacted.”

Julia Barajas is a part-time graduate student at UCLA Law.