Stefany Escamilla-Botello holds Bella, one of three cats she's fostering at her home in East L.A.
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Susanica Tam
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Topline:
Across Los Angeles, more pets are being left behind as undocumented families face tough decisions amid rising immigration enforcement and voluntary departures. In response, local volunteers and animal advocates are stepping up to care for these animals, highlighting a quiet but growing crisis for pets and their families.
Volunteers take action: Marisol Ramos is one in a network of volunteers who organizes foster care and feeding to support animals left behind, especially in neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and East L.A.
Hard choices, growing response: As some undocumented residents leave the United States, many are forced to part with their pets. The growing need has prompted L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis to direct staff to explore expanding the county’s pet foster program and create more space for animals affected by immigration enforcement.
This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 23, 2025.
For about a month, Stefany Escamilla-Botello has been fostering three small kittens — Edward, Bella and Jasper — named after characters from one of her favorite movies, “Twilight.”
An animal lover, Escamilla-Botello, of East Los Angeles, has fostered before. She also has two cats of her own and has donated to local efforts that care for community cats on the Eastside.
But this particular kitten trio came with a unique sense of urgency.
The kittens are part of a colony of community cats left behind after their longtime caretaker saw no other choice but to move to Mexico as immigration raids escalated across L.A.
“When I heard that the caretaker had self-deported, it definitely broke my heart. I definitely saw the importance of taking them in,” Escamilla-Botello said.
Animal care providers have reported a noticeable uptick of pets left behind since immigration raids began across L.A. in early June. But it’s not just enforcement that’s separating families from their animals.
Some undocumented families are also choosing to leave the country voluntarily, forcing them to make tough decisions about their pets. When possible, they try to travel with their animals; if not, they seek help from local resources.
That’s where neighbors and animal care providers are stepping in.
Stefany Escamilla-Botello has been caring for three cats left behind after their longtime caretaker self-deported.
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Susanica Tam
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Marisol Ramos, who coordinates a network of volunteers that care for community cats in Boyle Heights and East L.A., helped find a foster — Escamilla-Botello — for the cats left behind after their caretaker moved to Mexico. Ramos also helps feed a different set of cat colonies the woman once looked after.
As the woman prepared to leave Boyle Heights, she didn’t want to completely abandon her community of outdoor cats, Ramos said. She had been living in the U.S. for several years and no longer wanted to live in fear.
“In some way, she had some control of the situation, [saying] ‘I can plan this out,’” Ramos said.
That meant having Ramos help find new cat caretakers, and guide her through securing a medical certificate so her 12-year-old cat could travel with her across the border.
Ramos said the need for support is even greater during kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile and shelters are flooded with kittens.
“But now you add people who are having to leave their pets or community cats behind and trying to troubleshoot who can take over,” Ramos said. “It’s hard because it is expensive to feed all these cats in the street and people’s personal cats.”
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Susanica Tam
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Susanica Tam
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Susanica Tam
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Boyle Heights Beat
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The issue has prompted L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis to direct staff to explore expanding the county’s pet foster program and to make room for more pets left behind due to immigration enforcement.
According to her directive, “pets are being found in empty apartments and homes due to their owners being taken by federal agents.” While collecting data on this issue is difficult, the county noted that the Department of Animal Care and Control “has begun to track the impact of the mass deportations on animals being accepted at their facilities.”
This “man-made crisis,” notes Solis, “will add to the number of animals that will lose their lives to make room for more animals to be taken in.”
Since June 10, at least 15 dogs have been relinquished to the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control as a result of their owners being deported. The dogs came from Palmdale, Compton, Lennox, Covina and La Puente.
“There may be other pets in the community that may need help,” the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control said in a recent news release.
For Escamilla-Botello, an administrative assistant at East Los Angeles College, fostering is a way to be proactive during a political climate she finds depressing and heartbreaking.
She doesn’t feel comfortable protesting against the immigration raids, but caring for someone else’s animals feels like a tangible way “to help my community,” she said.
“I just really hope that the caretaker knows that her kittens are okay,” she added. “I would just want to know that my own kittens, or my own cats would be okay.”
Every Sunday night, a semi-secret event at the tony Los Angeles Athletic Club lets anyone experience a near-private concert from jazz legends — for just $10.
Why it matters: The revolving cast draws from a repertory group of about 15 artists, including: saxophonist Rickey Woodard, who played for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and more; trumpeter Nolan Shaheed, who backed Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Stevie Wonder.
Read on ... to find the details of this hidden gem ...
It seems that jazz is everywhere in Los Angeles. Blue Note opened a club last year, venues like Sam First, Catalina’s, Vibrato and the Baked Potato draw large crowds, and hotels and bars are adding jazz to their schedules.
But every week, a semi-secret event at the tony Los Angeles Athletic Club lets anyone experience a near-private concert from legends such as Rickey Woodard, who played saxophone for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and others; and Nolan Shaheed, trumpeter for Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye and more.
That’s before you get to the evening’s singer, who might be 96-year-old pianist Betty Bryant, former Raelette Val Monroe or singer and Grammy-winning songwriter John Proulx.
Until recently, the Sunday night Jazz Salon was free. Now it charges a nominal $10 per person, which is still an outrageous bargain, so be sure to add something to the tip jar on the piano, and maybe try one of the cocktails or the steak frites.
Inside the club
Walking into the club earlier, you see black-and-white photos of all types of healthy pursuits on the walls, as well as trophies and mementos of the club’s nearly century-and-a-half history. Plush sofas, high ceilings and book-filled shelves are the order of the day, and alongside members in gym gear or lugging laptops, you go up in one of the elevators to the third floor, where the Jazz Salon takes place.
Dave Ross, bassist and founder of the Jazz Salon.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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The bassist who built it
Earlier in the day, Dave Ross, 76, was setting up the amps, drum kit, mixer and mic stands. He also administers the website, acts as MC and plays double bass as part of the ensemble. He began the venture over a decade ago, when he persuaded the LAAC, of which he had long been a member, to host concerts in their redecorated restaurant and bar.
Ross draws from a repertory group of about 15 artists, and the concert takes place opposite the bar in a wood-paneled room of just a few dozen leather chairs and tables. This small scale makes the night intimate and unique.
Sunday Night Jazz Salon
Location: Invention (3rd Floor), The Los Angeles Athletic Club, 646 S Olive St., Downtown Los Angeles
Time: Sundays, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM (with a brief intermission) Cost: $10 cover charge at the door Make reservations and check out the weekly artist schedule
“No gig is ever the same,” says Ross. “We don’t rehearse, and every time we play a song, we're never trying to play it the same way we played it before.”
That makes the night fun, too. Since you’re right near the musicians, you can hear their laughter and banter, as well as their impressive solos. Ross, stage left, stays out of the limelight — which is how he prefers it — and often says he's just happy to be there playing.
“You're there to keep the beat, the pulse of the music,” he says. “And then, secondarily, the notes that you play help the other musicians understand what the chord, what the harmony is. I'm just doing it for the pleasure of playing the music.”
The Jazz Salon is a $10 Sunday night concert at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Why $10 barely covers it
Once a month, Ross and some of his stable join a touring artist — recently five-time Grammy-nominee Karrin Allyson — in the club’s 250-seat ballroom for a more formal ticketed event, but there have been just two complete sellouts of them this year: tributes to Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond.
Donations and the tip jar on Sunday evenings sometimes haven’t been enough to break even, either, which led to Ross reluctantly introducing the $10 charge. No matter what, he is determined the Jazz Salon will keep going.
“When I was younger, there was a receptionist I knew who was a nun. She said: “‘You know what your problem is? You’re too optimistic!’”
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published August 8, 2026 5:00 AM
Phoebe Bridgers plays with her band Boygenius during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
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Frazer Harrison
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Getty Images North America
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Topline:
Phoebe Bridgers is giving Southern California fans an unusual way to hear her new album Lost Weekend with a listening session inside the Orange Coast College planetarium in Costa Mesa.
Why now: Lost Weekend, Bridgers’ first studio album in six years, is out Friday, with listening sessions taking place at dozens of planetariums around the world next week.
The backstory: Orange Coast College already has a tradition of pairing music with visuals through popular laser shows featuring the music of everyone from Pink Floyd to Taylor Swift. But the Bridgers event is by far the most high-profile, pairing the album with both a laser show by Laser Fantasy and a full-dome presentation with imagery by taken by astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi.
Next week Phoebe Bridgers fans in Southern California will get an otherworldly way to enjoy her new album ahead of its official release Friday.
And a Costa Mesa institution will enjoy the chance to introduce indie music lovers to what it does beyond astronomy lectures and field trips.
The Orange Coast College Planetarium is one of dozens of planetariums around the world – and the only in Southern California – hosting listening sessions next week for Lost Weekend, one of the year’s most anticipated indie releases and Bridgers’ first solo studio album in six years.
The Pasadena native is not expected at any of the planetarium shows. But that doesn’t matter to her fan base.
Phoebe Bridger fans can listen to her album in the planetarium's 125-seat dome theater.
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Courtesy Orange Coast College Planetarium
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Twelve shows in the 125-seat theater sold out within four hours of going on sale Thursday, according to the planetarium. So staff added 16 more, bringing the total to 28 screenings over four days, Aug. 10 through 13. (At last check, tickets for showings earlier in the day were still available.)
“We have never had an event that was this anticipated,” Rhiannon Graffio, lead speaker and educator at the planetarium.
Listening to Lost Weekend...at a planetarium
When: Aug. 10–13. Shows are scheduled throughout the afternoon and evening, with both fulldome and laser show experiences.
Where: Orange Coast College Planetarium, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa.
Tickets: $20. Tickets are available through Orange Coast College’s ticketing site.
Phone-free: Phones must be placed in locking Yondr pouches during the listening sessions. Smartwatches, cameras, Meta glasses and other recording
There’s two ways to experience the record from start to finish, which is a little over 50 minutes long.
One is a full-dome show featuring images taken by renowned astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi.
“It's gorgeous,” Graffio said. “There's some that are of the night sky, where you can see the paths of the stars as the Earth rotates, or auroras or lightning.”
The other option is a laser show created by Laser Fantasy, with scenes and storylines moving in time with the music.
Graffio said the planetarium had been approached by Bridgers’ label Dead Oceans to host the shows, which are being presented in partnership with Spotify.
Rhiannon Graffio, a lead speaker at the Orange Coast College Planetarium, has been working with Phoebe Bridgers' label on next week's listening sessions.
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Courtesy Rhiannon Graffio
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The events are strictly phone-free. To prevent album leaks, attendees will have to put their phones in pouches provided by Yondr, a company that works concerts and other events. Smartwatches, and Meta glasses also aren’t allowed.
The Lost Weekend events are the most high-profile but certainly not the planetarium’s first experiment with mixing music and visuals.
The theater regularly hosts laser shows set to music, cycling through different artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé each month while keeping some crowd favorites like Pink Floyd in rotation. Graffio said in the last year KPop Demon Hunters laser shows have been especially popular.
Accommodating the Lost Weekend shows has meant bringing extra staff to handle the weekday crowds at the community planetarium.
But Graffio said there's a big upside to introducing music fans to a place they may never have thought to visit.
“It’s a wonderful experience,” she said. “And most of the shows that we do are also educational in some sense. As cool as the visuals are, they are about the universe and what we know about it.”
And for those who can't make it to the planetarium shows, there's a more traditional route to marking Bridgers' new album. A dozen record stores around Southern California are hosting listening sessions at midnight Friday.
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Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published August 8, 2026 5:00 AM
Shemtob approaches strangers across Los Angeles and asks a simple question: What's your mom's best dish?
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Screenshot via Better Than Your Mom
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Topline:
Lime Truck founder and two-time Great Food Truck Race champion Daniel Shemtob is approaching strangers across L.A., asking what their mom's best dish is, and turning it into a taco on his food truck the same day. It's all part of a new five-episode series, Better Than Your Mom, launched on what would have been his mother's birthday.
Why it matters: What starts as a quick, chaotic street-corner challenge opens into something bigger — a Long Beach woman honoring her late mother-in-law's gefilte fish recipe, and a chef processing his own mother's death and the loss of his home in last year's Palisades Fire, one taco at a time.
Read on … for how a stranger's yes turns into a family's story, and what happens when a taco truck becomes a place to grieve, honor and remember.
Daniel Shemtob has been going around Los Angeles asking strangers this question: "What's your mom's best dish?"
He then turns their answers — from Filipino oxtail adobo to the Ashkenazi Jewish favorite of gefilte fish — into a taco for his new five-episode web series, "Better Than Your Mom."
One episode breaks from the format entirely: a head-to-head chopped salad taco challenge between Shemtob and Vanessa Silverton, daughter of famed L.A. chef Nancy Silverton, judged blind by Nancy herself.
Daniel Shemtob, founder of The Lime Truck and creator and host of Better Than Your Mom.
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Courtesy Daniel Shemtob
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A two-time winner of "The Great Food Truck Race" on the Food Network, Shemtob is no stranger to reality TV — he also founded The Lime Truck, serving Cali-Mex cuisine in Orange County.
What starts as a quick, chaotic street-corner challenge opens into something bigger — a Long Beach woman honoring her late mother-in-law's gefilte fish recipe, and a chef processing his own mother's death and the loss of his home in the 2025 Palisades Fire.
A dish for his mother
Despite loving fine dining, Shemtob said nothing beats the experience of having someone invite him to their mother's home for dinner.
"It's by far my favorite thing," he said.
Gundry watched as Shemtob reworked her mother-in-law's recipe in real time — a process that normally takes her more than two hours, done in 20 minutes.
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Screenshot via Better Than Your Mom
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That urge to connect with other people also came from wanting to celebrate his late mother's legacy and the impact she had on him in the kitchen.
"Eating was like a big part of how we shared and celebrated," Shemtob said. "It was a culture that was built around food."
A stranger says, 'yes'
While most walk past him or decline to talk, Shemtob said he's been surprised by how many strangers say yes almost immediately — like Anne Gundry, a retired biology teacher in Long Beach.
She answered with a dish from her mother-in-law from her first marriage — gefilte fish served cold.
Shemtob's take on Dena Levenstein's gefilte fish, reimagined as a taco with an apple-horseradish slaw.
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Courtesy Daniel Shemtob
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Gundry recalled her first meeting with Dena Levenstein, who would become her mother-in-law. The relationship started out cold — but cooking together changed their dynamic.
"That's where I honestly think we had the deepest bond with her," Gundry said.
Gundry described yearly visits to Levenstein's house as a cooking "apprenticeship," where Gundry was taught to cook by feel — adding ingredients by the handful, testing a dish's consistency by touch.
"She used to say, 'How does it feel?'" Gundry recalled. "And I'd say, 'I don't know, I don't know how it's supposed to feel.'"
Over the years, she learned. Now, Gundry teaches her own children that recipe the same way — without referring to what's written down.
Watching Shemtob cook on "Better Than Your Mom," Gundry was skeptical. Her own process takes over two hours; his took 20 minutes — until she tasted the apple-horseradish slaw he added.
"Brilliant," she said. "I've been trying to duplicate it at home."
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published August 7, 2026 9:19 PM
Ridge Fire evacuation zones.
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Screengrab from CalFire incident page.
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Topline:
Evacuation orders and warnings in both L.A. and Kern counties are in effect for the Ridge Fire, near the L.A.-Kern county line.
What we know so far: The fire started at 3:02 p.m. near Gorman School Road in Gorman, according to Cal Fire and grew to 1,000 acres in two hours. Both northbound and southbound lanes of the 5 Freeway were briefly shutdown.
Read on ... for more on evacuations and weather conditions.
This is a developing story and will be updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:
The 5 Freeway has reopened after a brush fire in Gorman near the L.A.-Kern county line shut down both northbound and southbound lanes at around 5 p.m.
Evacuation orders and warnings in both L.A. and Kern counties are in effect for the Ridge Fire, which started at 3:02 p.m. near Gorman School Road in Gorman, according to Cal Fire.
The fire quickly grew to 1,000 acres in less than two hours.
It was 0% contained as of Friday evening.
The Lower Castaic Lake — including the swim beach and the Cali Splash Park — are temporarily closed as the area is being used as a base camp for fire operations. The Upper Lake and West Boat Ramp remain open.
A Wildfire Smoke Advisory has been issued by South Coast AQMD through 2 p.m. on Saturday for areas around Gorman.
The basics
Acreage: 1,057 acres
Containment: 0
Structures destroyed/damaged: Unknown
Deaths: None reported.
Injuries: None reported.
Evacuation map and orders
Evacuation orders have been issued by the Los Angeles County Fire Department for the following areas:
