The Brief

If you follow any cat rescue groups online, you know this time of year is rough.

You’ll see messages like these, from local nonprofits like Boyle Heights Cats, Luxe Paws and The Cat’s Meow:

“Fosters Needed Urgently”

“9 times out of 10 your garage, bathroom or basement can save a life.”

“This is an urgent plea for fosters to… help out during the 2 most challenging months of the year.”

The combination of more people taking summer vacations and the height of kitten season — the time of year when cats are most fertile — means organizations are overwhelmed trying to find fosters to care temporarily for rescues, trappers available to catch them and vets able to spay/neuter and vaccinate cats. It’s a difficult time for animal shelters too.

“So if you find kittens, if your neighbor finds kittens, if you find a cat, see what resources you can access or what resources the shelter has, and do your best,” says Dr. Kate Hurley, director of the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis. “That's a great contribution if you can help keep even one cat or kitten out of the shelter so that they can have room for one that has absolutely no other choice.”

L.A.’s ‘community cats’

There are, according to LA Animal Services, about 960,000 “community cats” living throughout the city. These are free-roaming, stray cats that are often described as “feral” or “unsocialized."

(“Community cats” has become the preferred terminology among many animal welfare organizations because some of these cats can be more socialized than others.)

These free-roaming cats are a part of life in any city, but it's easy for populations to get out of control if not managed. Cats reproduce quickly. A female cat can have three litters per year, with the average litter being about four kittens. And cats as young as four months old can get pregnant.

That’s where TNR comes in.

What is TNR?

UC Davis’ Kate Hurley is also a leading authority on “trap, neuter and return” (or TNR) — a practice that is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.

The process involves cats being trapped (in rectangular wire cages that shut behind the cat when they enter) and taken to a shelter or clinic to be spayed/neutered and vaccinated for infectious diseases. During the process, one of the cats’ ears is “tipped” so they are identifiable as having been fixed after they are returned to their outdoor homes.

The result, Hurley says, are cats that are less likely to fight, spray and roam. It’s also considered a more practical and humane option than trapping and euthanizing cats, but it does have its critics.

Some cities and counties support TNR efforts — by providing traps and spay/neuter appointments or vouchers to cover part of the cost — and some don’t.

The city of L.A. was prohibited from supporting TNR for many years but in 2020 the city council signed off on the “Citywide Cat Program” to help stabilize the population by allowing TNR. It’s been in place since 2022.

Still, even in the places where there is government support, the amount of work that volunteers take on to save cats and do TNR can be daunting.

The cat crusaders

Christopher Askew (L) and Marisol Ramos (R) outside a L.A. business where workers have been feeding about a dozen community cats.

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Monica Bushman / LAist

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On a warm Thursday afternoon in April, around the start of this year’s kitten season, Marisol Ramos of “Boyle Heights Cats” (“Boyle Heights Gatos” on Instagram) was already fielding many more requests for help than she could handle.

“Today I got like seven [requests] in the last three hours from people saying, ‘Help, I need to get this cat fixed.’ And it's just adding up. I have about 600 cats on a list that need to get fixed.”

Ramos’s focus is mainly Boyle Heights, where she lives, and surrounding neighborhoods. She started doing TNR in L.A. in 2021, and has since helped get more than 1,000 cats spayed or neutered.

What’s involved is a lot of communication with cat feeders and potential fosters, early mornings and late nights setting out traps and waiting for them to work, time spent fundraising for supplies and food, and the effort it takes to find spay/neuter appointments and vets that will accept vouchers the city of L.A. offers through the Citywide Cat Program. Then, when cats have been fixed, she’s back 24-48 hours later to pick them up.

Ramos does all this in addition to her day job as a researcher and grant administrator. At first she took on a second job to pay for her TNR work, but has since formed a 501(c)(3) and received a small grant.

She started doing TNR with her family in New York when she was 15 years old.

“We learned about TNR,” Ramos says, “did a community training and certification, and then we would take the subway to the city to get them fixed.”

The ‘front lines’

Now Ramos trains other people to do TNR work. Christopher Askew is one of them. He worked at a cat rescue/sanctuary and while he found that work fulfilling, he says, “it was kind of like being at an Army hospital, way back behind the enemy lines or something … [Doing TNR] is more like being right out in the front lines on the street where there's not enough being done for street cats.”

He lives in downtown L.A. and plans to do trapping there: “Downtown seems like it needs a lot of help and there's not really many people covering it. So hopefully I can maybe help fill that gap.”

Askew joined Ramos out on a call out to a business near railroad tracks, where workers were feeding about a dozen cats, to learn about what it takes to do TNR.

Marisol Ramos with Boyle Heights Cats takes a photo of some community cats she'd been called out to TNR.

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Monica Bushman / LAist

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Ramos had been able to secure three spay/neuter appointments for the next day, so she was there with three traps and wet food to lure the cats in. She’d be back on Saturday to hopefully trap seven more that she’d take to appointments at a spay/neuter clinic on Sunday.

She also spends time finding adopters for kittens and other cats that can’t be returned to where they came from — if, for example, they’re sick and by the time they recover they’ve been away from the streets for too long.

But for all the work involved in doing TNR in L.A., Ramos said the situation in Orange County is much harder.

TNR is designed to reduce the number of cats on the street over time, help them live healthier lives and be less of a nuisance to their human neighbors.

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Monica Bushman / LAist

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In Orange County there isn’t a large animal welfare organization doing TNR or providing low-cost vouchers. The county-run shelter doesn’t provide vouchers either, and stopped its TNR program in 2020.

In June of 2023, a Grand Jury report called on Orange County to reinstate its TNR program, saying that ending the program “increased the rate of euthanasia of cats, especially kittens.”

In a response to LAist, OC Animal Care said they’ve “been advised by counsel that the release of unowned cats into the community is prohibited by law. Since not all municipalities share this same understanding, we continue to monitor litigation processes happening around the state for rulings that may impact the penal code.”

OC Animal Care also faced a threat of legal action over their TNR program by detractors of trap-neuter-return and, more recently, was sued by supporters of TNR, who want the program reinstated. In reference to the litigation, OC Animal Care told LAist: “It is widely acknowledged that TNR plays an important role in animal welfare, and we, like the local community, look forward to clear direction on this issue, whether it be through resolution of the pending litigation or a legislative fix at the state level.”

On the question of whether TNR violates of the section of the California penal code that prohibits animal abandonment, the city of L.A.’s position is that “abandonment laws, defined by intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence leaving an animal behind, do not apply to community cat practices.”

“I've met a lot of folks from Orange County who drive up to Sun Valley to fix the cats because they just couldn't find appointments in Orange County, or help there,” Ramos says. “Or they drive to San Diego, but they try to trap a lot so it's worth their time.”

The cats of Orange County

Meredith Kirby, the volunteer coordinator for OC Community Cats, says, “When we had the shelter as a resource, that was great, because it didn't cost anything.”

Kirby has been with the nonprofit organization since it was founded in 2015. They feed and care for about 25 community cat colonies in North Orange County, which includes doing TNR and providing medical care.

In addition to the volunteer work Kirby does, she also works as a high school ceramics teacher.

In the almost 10 years she’s been with OC Community Cats, Kirby says the situation has gotten much more difficult — largely because the county shelter ended its TNR program, but also because of the shuttering of some low-cost veterinary clinics they used to rely on. There’s also a shortage of veterinarians that has grown worse.

As a result, Kirby says they’re forced to rely on donations and have to find workarounds to get cats fixed outside Orange County.

“Our transport team is a lot of retired people,” mostly women, Kirby says, who “can take 10 to 15 cats up to L.A. in the morning and go pick them up.”

But the shortage of vets is a problem in L.A. too, and across the country.

Not enough vets and vet techs

A kitten named Blizzard, up for adoption at Pasadena Humane on June 24, 2024.

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Monica Bushman

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Hurley with the Koret Shelter Medicine Program at UC Davis says the shortage of veterinarians didn’t start with the pandemic, but COVID did exacerbate it.

“The fewer vets there are, the harder it is, the more burnout there is, the more vets leave,” Hurley says. “And we're really in a negative cycle, it feels like right now, where the few vets that are standing are really stretched thin.”

That in turn has had an impact on spay/neuter rates.

“Spay/neuter in general took a huge hit during the early days of COVID,” Hurley says. “And it not only hasn't caught up, it hasn't even recovered to the baseline level that it was operating at before COVID in most places, in my experience.”

Chris Ramon, who heads up the Community Cats Program at Pasadena Humane, says another issue is a shortage of veterinary technicians and registered veterinary technicians (or RVTs).

“I have seen some of the most talented surgeons who can do a cat neuter in probably 20 seconds, no exaggeration,” Ramon says. But without a support team of technicians to help with surgery prep, anesthetization and recovery, “that veterinarian who can do a 20 second neuter is now investing 10 or 12 minutes into one case.”

The longer an appointment takes, that means fewer cats overall who can be fixed.

What can you do to help?

Even with the shortage of vets, technicians and the lack of support for TNR in some cities and counties, those who work to care for cats on Southern California streets say there are things you can do to help if you would like to get involved.

For one thing, Ramon says people often overestimate the amount of space that’s needed to foster cats and kittens. Even a bathroom, when you think about it, he says, “is a penthouse compared to a kennel at a shelter.”

There’s also lots of opportunities to volunteer or donate if fostering (or adopting) isn’t something you think will work for you.

Meredith Kirby with OC Community Cats says her number one request to those who’d like to help cats in their community is “be somebody who does something.”

“If you see an animal in need, help it. Don't go on Facebook or Instagram and go, ‘Oh, I saw this cat … Somebody go save it.’ You're somebody,” Kirby says. “If you don't know what to do, reach out to some of the local nonprofits and ask for guidance.”

Editor's note: This post has been updated to add information about the nature of the lawsuits that have been brought against OC Animal Care.

Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Thursday that he will run for Senate Majority Leader in the next Congress, setting up a challenge to Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer after the party swept to power in the midterm elections.

Van Hollen said in a statement that “the American people called for change” and that is why he is running.

“It’s now on us to meet this moment, and to do that we need new leadership,” Van Hollen said. “This is not about any one person — it’s about answering the call of the American people. That is why I’m running for Senate Majority Leader.”

Van Hollen’s challenge comes after he said he was considering a bid and after Schumer has said he has the necessary support to win. The closed-door, secret-ballot election will be held in early December.

The race will be the first contested election for Democratic leader in decades. The question of whether to reelect Schumer has already divided the caucus and many senators will not say publicly how they will vote. They have privately deliberated about what message to take from the election, and Schumer recruited many of the party’s winning candidates and raised money for them.

Schumer has been talking to Democratic senators since the election about forming an agenda for 2027.

“I’m going to win it,” Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview last week.

The Los Angeles Unified School District may lease spaces in its elementary, middle and high schools to use as childcare spaces for babies. 

The district is putting together a list of qualified providers and looking to identify spaces it could lease.

Ranae Amezquita, executive director of the district’s early childhood education division, said once the district has a list of spaces, it will start a request for proposal process that childcare providers can apply to during the 2027-2028 school year.

Why is LAUSD looking to expand childcare options now?

In April, LAUSD board members passed a resolution in an aim to expand childcare and early education slots in the district.

The district currently runs about 90 preschools, called early education centers, for children 2 to 4 years old, but it has only four centers that serve children under 2. “The problem with infant care — the reason we can't open them ourself at this time, is because of the cost,” said Amezquita at a board meeting Thursday.

The need for local infant and toddler childcare is high. In 2022, L.A. County assessed that the county only had enough licensed spaces to care for 4% of kids under 2. At the same time, the district has been facing declining enrollment amid lower birth rates. The resolution to expand early childhood care aims to, in part, strengthen the enrollment pipeline into the district.

Learn more about affordable childcare in LA

• For many California parents, paying for childcare means racking up credit card debt
• Why childcare in California may get harder to find

In an extraordinary turn of events, the state’s judicial watchdog has removed Judge Robert Draper, 84, from the Los Angeles County Superior Court after 14 years of service. He faced several counts of misconduct prior to losing reelection earlier this year.

The California Commission on Judicial Performance concluded Tuesday in an 87-page decision that Draper engaged in 17 instances of behavior that made him no longer fit for office. He hasn’t heard a case since 2023 because of the issues.

“Judge Draper persistently violated the standards governing judicial behavior and engaged in extensive and severe misconduct,” the commission said in a statement, adding that it was “aggravated by his refusal to accept responsibility for his misconduct, and his lack of insight or remorse for his misconduct and its effect on others.”

Draper previously admitted to some of the claims and denied others in interviews with LAist earlier this year. In a statement this week, he called the decision “deeply disappointing.”

“Any individual put under such intense and meticulous scrutiny likely would find themselves in a similar situation, albeit with slightly different facts,” he said.

Draper said the investigation came at a time when he raised concerns within the judiciary, and that it was used “presumably for purposes of dismissing his dissent by discrediting him.”

He plans to pursue “other avenues” to change the system, according to the statement. Draper's attorney declined to share what those would be.

 “It’s very rare for a judge to be removed from the bench,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School. “It’s the ultimate sanction against a judge.”

The commission has only removed 15 judges since it gained the authority to do so in 1995, according to its records, with the last for an L.A. County Superior Court judge happening in 2006.

The misconduct

The decision comes after a yearslong investigation and legal proceedings with independent evaluators. Prior to that, Draper had never been disciplined. According to the commission, his long list of misconduct includes:

• Making “offensive” and “insensitive” comments in court about race and gender.
• Sending “abusive” emails and unnecessary graphic pictures of his naked backside to colleagues.
• Acting with “deliberate defiance of his presiding judge’s orders” by continuing to access court systems and work on cases while on involuntary leave.

Some allegations the commission reviewed were dismissed for lack of evidence, including one that he inappropriately touched an attorney’s hair.

What happens next

While Draper lost reelection, his seat is now empty sooner than usual. Judge-elect Tal Khan Valbuena is on deck to replace him in January.

It’s possible Gov. Gavin Newsom may decide to appoint Khan Valbuena sooner. The court could also move another judge into his department.