California
Missing house cat makes incredible trek from Yellowstone to California
At the edge of their campground in Yellowstone National Park in June, Susanne and her husband, Benjamin “Bennangy” Anguiano, gazed at the lodgepole pine tree forest. The ground was covered with piles of broken branches and dry, old trees that had fallen on top of each other.
The Anguianos felt overwhelmed and distraught: Somewhere in that forest was their small, brownish seal point Siamese cat that had run off from the Fishing Bridge RV Park.
For five days the couple searched the area, calling out for their 2-year-old cat named Rayne Beau (pronounced “rainbow”). They used cat food and toys to try and lure him back.
Benjamin and Susanne Anguiano in Yellowstone National Park.
(Benjamin and Susanne Anguiano)
But it would be weeks before they would reunite with their beloved pet, a tearful reunion that by some miracle would also take place hundreds of miles west in California.
There is no shortage of stories about pets traveling great distances to get home. In 2012, a black Labrador named Bucky walked 500 miles from Virginia to South Carolina, eventually reuniting with his owner.
Hollywood has even made movies about them — take 1993’s “Homeward Bound,” in which an American bulldog, a golden retriever and a Himalayan cat make their way through the Sierra Nevada to San Francisco to reunite with their family.
And now, there’s Rayne Beau.
Although it has been a month since the cat returned home, it wasn’t until this weekend that the Anguianos felt comfortable enough to talk about the incident, in part because they want to know if anyone helped the cat travel more than 800 miles from Yellowstone to California.
In a phone interview Friday, Susanne Anguiano said everything began June 4 when the couple arrived at the campground. She said she was trying to transfer Rayne Beau and his sister, Star, a flame point Siamese cat, from the truck to the traveling trailer.
Anguiano said she was untangling the cats’ leashes when Rayne Beau jumped out of the vehicle, slipping out of his collar before dashing toward the forest.
“I screamed,” she said. “I swear, I think the whole campground heard me.”
She ran after Rayne Beau, leaving the truck door open and the other cat behind. She said her husband shut the door to prevent the other cat from escaping.
She said Rayne Beau ran under a log, where she tried to scoop him up, but that caused him to run off again, this time deeper into the woods. Eventually, she lost sight of him.
The next day they reported the cat missing with the ranger’s office, providing a photo.
“Every morning I went out for an hour and called,” she said. “Even his sister, from the safety of the screen door of the trailer, meowed for him.”
The couple spent days searching the forest, calling out for him, trying to entice him with tuna and toys well into the night.
“But he never showed up,” she said. “Then came the day when we had to leave and that was horrible.”
“It felt like I was abandoning him,” she said.
As their truck pulled out of the campground on June 8, Anguiano looked out the window, crying, calling and scanning the road.
“I knew it was hopeless to do that but I did it anyway,” she said.
The ride home was somber. The couple didn’t talk, and Star clung to Susanne. She worried about Rayne Beau getting stuck in a tree or falling from one. Would he starve? No, she told herself, there were plenty of mice he could live off.
Susanne Anguiano took a sighting of a double rainbow in the Nevada desert as a sign of hope.
(Benjamin and Susanne Anguiano)
As they were entering the Nevada desert, the couple saw a double rainbow. For Anguiano, it was a sign that their cat was safe.
“I’m a Christian and I was praying the whole time,” she said. “God told me: ‘I have him safe,’ and that’s what I hung on to.”
It was July 31 and Alexandra Betts had arrived at her job at Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville, Calif. It was hot and temperatures were in the triple digits, she recalled. She was making her way from the parking lot to the hospital when she heard yowling coming from some bushes.
Betts said it sounded like a cat in heat or in labor, so she walked over to take a look. There, she noticed saw a small brownish cat near a storm drain.
She stayed with it for a few minutes before going into work. Her co-workers told her the cat had been there for days and likely belonged to someone nearby. Betts didn’t buy that. A cat yowling and in the same spot for days didn’t seem right to her.
Alexandra Betts found a panting cat during triple-digit temperatures in Roseville, Calif. She took it home and posted pictures in hopes of finding the owner.
(Alexandra Betts)
She checked in with her sister, who once worked at an animal shelter, and learned that cats that yowled were either in distress, in heat or lost.
Betts ordered cat food from DoorDash. On her lunch break, she went out to feed it.
“I could tell it was a house cat of some kind because it could register what the sound of a can opening was,” she said.
But the hot weather was starting to take its toll on the cat. Betts said it was panting, and she felt she needed to bring the cat home.
Betts was no stranger to helping animals. She owned a cat herself and often fostered many felines for many years. The next day, a Thursday, she brought the cat home in a carrier.
That night, she said, she took photos and uploaded them to the Facebook account for Roseville Lost and Found Pets.
The cat stayed with the family until Saturday, snuggling and playing.
“It was just the sweetest cat,” Betts said. “My son wanted to keep him but I told him: ‘if your cat Ninja got out, how would you feel if you never got to see him again?’”
She told him they needed to do everything they could to get the cat back to its owner.
On Aug. 3, she took the cat to the Placer Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Roseville. She updated her post on Facebook that day to let people know where she took the cat.
Betts took more photos of the cat after bringing it home, where she said it loved to cuddle. Her son wanted to keep it, but she took it to a shelter so it could have a chance of being reunited with its owners.
(Alexandra Betts)
Leilani Fratis, chief executive with Placer SPCA, said the cat was in fairly good condition when it arrived at the shelter. She said staff immediately scanned the pet for a microchip, and it had one.
“What’s really incredible is that we get over 1,000 cats that come through our shelter,” she said. “Only 23 are ever reunited with their owners and of that number, a teen of them are microchipped.”
“Microchipping is especially important for cats,” she added, “as it can be hard to keep a collar on them.”
She hoped the story will encourage more people to microchip their pets if they haven’t done so.
It was Saturday afternoon when Susanne Anguiano got the call, but she didn’t pick up. The number didn’t show up as Placer SPCA. In fact, the shelter had to call her daughter to inform them of the news.
Even then, Anguiano didn’t believe it. She thought it was a scam. She Googled the number to make sure it matched that of Placer SPCA in Roseville.
She called them and asked if they had Rayne Beau. They told her they did. She asked them to describe the cat and they did that too.
As she was on the phone, her husband walked in and told her he had received a text message that Rayne Beau had been found.
“Wait, is this really happening?” she recalled telling herself.
She said her husband asked the shelter to provide photos. When they received them, the couple was stunned: It was Rayne Beau.
“Eight weeks of hoping and praying just came full circle,” she said. “We were blown away, we hugged and cried, it was just so surreal.”
The next morning, they drove to Roseville, about four hours from their home in Salinas. They walked into the shelter and reunited with Rayne Beau.
Shortly after, Anguiano said she took the cat to the vet.
“He was so skinny,” she said. “He had lost 40% of his body weight.”
She said his blood work showed low protein levels, and the pads on his paws were dry, cracked and calloused, proof that he had spent a lot of time on his own.
Anguiano said they wanted to thank the person who had found their cat but for privacy reasons the shelter couldn’t release that information.
A few days later, however, her husband stumbled upon Betts’ Facebook post. They were able to thank her and provide some details of the story.
“She’s the only one who did something,” she said. “She’s our hero, our angel.”
Betts was elated to hear that the family had reunited with their pet. She was also happy that she decided to help Rayne Beau after learning about his long journey.
“I think everything lined up perfectly for it to work out the way it was supposed to work out.”
SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — Starting Jan. 1, 2025, a new California law will double the response time for tenants facing eviction, offering them more opportunity to seek legal advice and adequately prepare their cases. The law extends the response period from five business days to 10 business days.
Genea Nicole Wall, a tenant from City Heights, experienced the turmoil of eviction earlier this year after failing to pay her rent on time.
“You’re trying to pack up and trying to respond. You’re just all over the place. You’re emotionally all over the place,” Wall says.
Unlike most other court summons that allow for a 30-day response period, eviction notices in California have traditionally given tenants only five business days to act. Wall described her struggle to navigate the court system under these constraints.
“Going to court trying to get assistance… It was just a grueling task. Daunting trying to get stuff done,” she says.
The new state law is designed to provide tenants with more time to stabilize their situation and seek proper legal support.
“What do those extra five days mean for someone who was just served an eviction notice? It’s giving people more time to get your bearings, figure out what you’re going to do before it’s too late and you lose automatically and get fast-tracked to being homeless and kicked out of your home,” says Gilberto Vera, an attorney with the nonprofit Legal Aid Society.
According to Vera, 40% of tenants facing eviction in San Diego last year did not respond to their court summons, effectively forfeiting their cases.
“If they don’t respond and tell the court that the eviction was wrongful and invalid – they’ll lose automatically,” Vera says.
Vera hopes this law will help tenants better understand their rights and prevent wrongful evictions by providing the necessary time to form a defense.
“I would be able to think — you could plan to take the time off to do what you need to do to get the assistance,” Wall says.
Wall, now living in Brea after being evicted from her City Heights apartment, believes she could have won her court case had this law been in effect.
California
Federal homelessness data says California homeless population grew to 187,084 – Washington Examiner
(The Center Square) – Newly released federal data says California’s homeless population grew to 187,084 at the start of 2024, up from 181,399 in 2023, raising questions about the efficacy of the state’s tens of billions of dollars in recent homeless spending.
Most of the state’s increase in homelessness can be attributed to growth in the state’s unsheltered homeless population, which is nearly half of the nation’s total. However, the state’s homeless population did grow much less than the national average, suggesting some of the state’s programs — albeit costly — may finally be making an impact.
In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office brushed off a CalMatters estimate that the state’s homeless population grew to nearly 186,000, telling The Center Square the organization’s reporting was based on incomplete data that analyzed only 32 of the state’s 58 counties.
“California and other officials use official confirmed data published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and not CalMatters’ estimates, which are unverified,” said a Newsom spokesperson to The Center Square in September, when CalMatters released its report.
Now, the verified count from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recommended by Newsom’s office shows that homelessness is even higher than CalMatters estimated. This 5,685 individual increase in the state’s homeless population could suggest the state’s homelessness efforts — and tens of billions of dollars in recent state funding — have been unable to stop the growth of the state’s homeless population.
Earlier this year a state auditor looked into $24 billion of state homelessness spending, finding “the State lacks current information on the ongoing costs and outcomes of its homelessness programs” because it has “not consistently tracked and evaluated the State’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness.”
Newsom vetoed two widely-supported bipartisan bills to better track and evaluate homelessness spending and outcomes, saying his own directives to increase accountability make the measures redundant.
The state is now home to 123,974 unsheltered homeless individuals — up from 117,424 the year prior — or nearly half of the nation’s total. In 2019 — before the COVID-19 era — California had 151,278 homeless individuals, 108,432 of whom were unsheltered.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:
The best movies that capture the essence of California
The Essential California team this year expanded opportunities for readers to directly engage with the newsletter. Each week we ask readers to answer a question — from the best local restaurants to favorite books.
One question in particular got a lot of attention and sparked some debate: What is your favorite movie that captures the essence of California?
Below are the most mentioned movies and comments from readers about what makes these films special to California. We hope this list will help find something to watch this weekend. Enjoy!
“Chinatown”
Adelaide writes: “It doesn’t get more iconic than a film noir that tackles tremendous geopolitical issues that still affect us to this day.”
And Jim writes: “How can you talk about movies that capture the essence of California and not mention one of the greatest movies of all time, ‘Chinatown’? Today, despite the state’s beauty and glorious climate (most of the time), it is still as corrupt and morally bankrupt as it was back in the days of stealing water from the Owens Valley.”
Paul Giamatti, left, and Thomas Haden Church in the 2004 movie “Sideways,” directed by Alexander Payne.
(Searchlight Pictures)
“Sideways”
Raymond Ballesteros writes: “One of my all time favorite movies to see that truly captures the essence of California, hands down, is ‘Sideways.’
“Alexander Payne seizes the beauty and majesty of California’s Santa Barbara wine country, including a handful of wineries that encapsulates the hearts of fellow wine lovers across California and the country. Of course, not to be watched with a glass of Merlot!”
Keanu Reeves, left, and Patrick Swayze in the 1991 film “Point Break.”
(20th Century Fox)
“Point Break”
Fritzi Lareau write: “I am a tour guide and when touring the Golden State I show my guests ‘Point Break’ (the original with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze) or ‘Hollywood Homicide’ starring Harrison Ford.”
Edward James Olmos stars as Garfield High School math teacher Jaime Escalante in 1988’s “Stand and Deliver.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Stand and Deliver”
Robert Reul writes: “One great film that is 100% California is ‘Stand and Deliver,’ with Edward James Olmos and an amazing cast of young actors. I have found few, if any, films that capture the absolute magic that can happen in the community of first-generation Americans, descended from hard-working Mexican immigrants.”
Jeff Bridges as the title character in the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Lebowski.”
(Merrick Morton / Gramercy Pictures)
Honorable mentions
“Top Gun”
“The Birds”
“The Parent Trap”
“The Big Lebowski”
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
“La La Land”
Want to wade into the debate over which movie captures the essence of California? Feel free to email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
The week’s biggest stories
President-elect Donald Trump, shown at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2023, is stocking his cabinet with Floridians.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Florida is winning the political battle with California as Trump takes office
- Trump is stocking his cabinet with Floridians. And his plans to reverse California’s policies on the environment, crime, homelessness and education are facing far less pushback than they did during his first term.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to continue the fight against Trump’s policies but without what he called “a resistance brand” that defined his earlier clashes.
- Meanwhile, healthcare is Newsom’s biggest unfinished project. Trump complicates the governor’s task.
Destructive waves keep thrashing Santa Cruz, causing millions of dollars in damage in recent years
Scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs
- Scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic as the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe. But when that could come to pass is hard to predict.
- Just one mutation can make the bird flu a threat to humans, California researchers found.
- L.A. County health officials are warning pet owners to avoid raw cat food after a feline died of bird flu.
California is growing again
- The Golden State’s population grew by almost a quarter of a million residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a rebound that brings California almost back to its pre-pandemic numbers.
- While California’s population gain of 232,570 people from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024, represents the largest numeric population increase in the nation’s West, it lagged behind Texas, which expanded its population by 562,941, and Florida, which grew by 467,347 people.
More big stories
Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here.
This week’s must reads
(Emiliano Ponzi / For The Times)
A California inmate recruited “wives” to spread fentanyl across Alaska, federal authorities say.
The prisoner, Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez, oversaw a sprawling drug ring that spread death and addiction to the most remote corners of Alaska, prosecutors say.
More great reads
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.
For your weekend
Refresh yourself on “Squid Game” before starting Season 2 on Netflix.
(No Ju-han / Netflix)
Going out
Staying in
How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.
(Times staff and wire photos)
Which creature gets top billing in the title of the Barry Jenkins–directed “Lion King” prequel that hit theaters last week? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
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