The Brief

Growing up, Rob Caves remembers there was always a train set under his family Christmas tree.

As an adult, the Los Angeles native has brought this fond memory, and his passion, on a grand scale to the backyard of his home on the famed Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena.

For more than a decade, Caves has invited the public to experience this ever-growing labor of love built by him and his fellow hobbyists in the Christmas Tree Lane Model Railroad Society.

The model train display first started in the garage — and quickly outgrew the 400-square-foot space.

Rob Caves standing next to one of the many train sets he and his fellow hobbyists built.

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" It was completely wall to wall, five decks of trains," Caves said. " So we decided it's time to make it bigger, it's time to make it better."

That was 2010. What Caves and his club members did were constructed what he called "peninsulas" — or extensions — out of the garage. They then built displays housed inside — complete with train tracks, scenic backdrops, landscapes, structures and whatever else you can think of.

"The whole idea behind the layout was to model the West Coast of the United States," Caves said, who moved into the Altadena house with his partner about two decades ago. "Just do the whole thing in miniature."

Specifically, the plan was to recreate a train journey from San Diego to Seattle — featuring a hit parade of locations along the route.

In San Diego, he said, the layout includes the Pacific Surfliner running along the Pacific Ocean. Customary with this massive built, Caves made many of the set's miniature elements himself via 3D printing.

"You can't go buy a Surfliner in the store, so I just go ahead and build them on the computer," he said. "I like to add people sitting in the seats on the trains. It's the little details that make everything so much fun about the hobby."

Miniature Disneyland.

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In Orange County, one of the highlights along the route is Disneyland. "When kids come to see the layout ... they go right to Disneyland and they love the fireworks and all the stuff that we put there, the little details and Main Street USA," Caves said.

Minature downtown Los Angeles.

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Moving northward to Los Angeles proper, the set includes different scenes of downtown.

A Los Angeles street scene in the miniature train set build by Rob Caves and members of the train society.

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One of his favorite set pieces is Union Station — a place that cemented his passion for trains.

"When I was a kid, my grandmother used to take me on train trips out of there. So I scratch built that station — one of the first things that I actually did way back in 2010," Caves said.

Model train set of Union Station built from scratch by Altadena resident Rob Caves.

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Another favorite of Caves is the L.A. River.

A miniature model of the L.A. River lined with model train tracks

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The train ride also zips by places like the former Glendale Southern Pacific train depot that is now an Amtrak station.

The Glendale model train depot.

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And the project memorializes bygone everyman landmarks like Fry's Electronics in Burbank.

The old Fry's Electronics store in Burbank.

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The train keeps going north, passing by a station in Lancaster.

Lancaster model train station. The train layout is protected behind a clear vinyl cover.

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Caves said there are scenes of the Sierra Nevada mountains and whimsical touches along the way, like Godzilla knocking down power lines, or the Star Trek mountain — "kind of like Mount Rushmore" but with characters from the franchise.

The train layout's Mount Rushmore of Star Trek favorites.

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Until finally, we arrive in Seattle.

Last stop: Seattle.

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This vision have taken up multiple rooms of added space in his backyard — and counting.

 "The layout has definitely gotten bigger each year," Caves said. And when necessary, new "peninsulas" are built to house new sceneries.

For example, there's a room dedicated to narrow-gauge trains that were used in the 1900s.

A scene from the narrow-gauge train room.

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"Those would be able to go around curves because the track is a little bit smaller than standard trains," Caves said. "You see a lot of trains in Europe that are like that because they just need to be able to negotiate steeper grades."

Another scene from the narrow-gauge train room.

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So far, Caves estimated that his backyard train universe contains 30 scale miles of tracks. In non-model train speak, he explained, think of one scale mile as "if you were a tiny figure on the layout, and you walked 30 miles on the layout."

Basically, a lot. By his account, he and his fellow model train enthusiasts have about a third more to go.

But who knows, because just like the real deal, building a miniature model is an experience that keeps on giving.

"The idea that you're gonna get on a train and go travel somewhere is just such a neat concept," Caves said. " I think there's something kind of hypnotic about being on a train and looking out the window and just kind of like forgetting about the rest of the world."

How to visit

Caves typically opens up his backyard for the public to enjoy these creations on the first Saturday of November. This year, these Saturday viewings end on Jan. 4. Hours are between 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.

For more information, including the address, visit Christmas Tree Lane Model Railroad Society's Facebook page or Instagram.

Nineteen hours after leaving Coachella Valley, Oscar Deleon Jr. stepped off a bus with four bags of clothes, $800, admission to Chico State University, and no idea where he was going to live or work. All he knew was that he was taking his agriculture professor’s advice from College of the Desert and transferring to a university to continue his education.

He checked into a hotel. Two days later, at orientation, he learned about the Rapid Rehousing program at Chico State. The program’s community partner, True North Housing Alliance, a nonprofit that addresses homelessness in Butte County, paid for Deleon’s hotel bill. The university transferred Deleon to student housing for the school year and helped him secure financial aid to cover most of the cost.

“When I needed somewhere to go, they were willing to help me out, no questions asked. ‘Let’s get you situated,’ you know? You don’t forget that kind of help,” Deleon said.

Since the program launched in 2020, the College Focused Rapid Rehousing program has helped over 9,000 students facing housing insecurity or homelessness. Through partnering with local community-based organizations, Rapid Rehousing provides students with emergency housing, rental subsidies, case management and advising.

Rapid Rehousing operates at all 10 University of California campuses, 25 community colleges and 18 California State University campuses. Students in the program reported higher GPAs and improved mental health and nutrition, according to an evaluation of the program in 2025 by the Center for Equitable Higher Education at Cal State Long Beach. As of 2025, California spends $31 million annually on Rapid Rehousing programs in higher education. The governor’s proposed budget for 2026-27, released in January, also includes $31 million.

Rapid Rehousing came to the rescue

Following the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, Butte County lost over a third of its housing stock, impacting students at Chico State.

“A whole town was lost of housing,” said Emma Jewett, the senior basic needs case manager at Chico State. “Our students are often struggling to get housing and find sustainable housing as it is, because they don’t have the qualifying factors, such as making three times the rent.”

But students everywhere were having a hard time finding affordable housing. In 2018, 10.9% of 27,805 students surveyed across the Cal State system reported they had experienced homelessness in a Student Basic Needs survey commissioned by the chancellor’s office. In a separate survey of California community college students, 19% of nearly 40,000 respondents had experienced homelessness between 2016 and 2018.

Meanwhile, off-campus housing costs across the state increased by more than 30% between 2018 and 2022, according to California Competes, a research organization focused on higher education and workforce issues.

In response, the state Legislature included $10 million for a rapid rehousing pilot program in the state Budget Act of 2019, with $3.5 million going to UCs and $6.5 million to Cal States. Universities applied within their systems to receive grants to participate.

Left to right, Emma Jewett and Leah Slem, staff leaders of the Basic Needs Center at Chico State, stand inside a Rapid Rehousing home in Chico on Feb. 5, 2026.

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Chico State was one of the Cal State campuses initially awarded funds in 2020, alongside Long Beach, Pomona, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San José. The state expanded the program to include Northridge in 2021. All UC campuses participated in the pilot as well.

Moving from kitchen to garage to student housing

Rapid Rehousing felt like a “support system,” said Eli Reyneveld, a third-year communications major and soccer player at Sacramento State. He didn’t always want to be a student athlete, but after playing soccer at Modesto Junior College, the opportunity presented itself. “I scored a lot of goals,” he recalled.

When he received a Division I scholarship offer to cover his tuition at Sacramento State starting in spring 2024, he had just two days to accept. He worried whether he would be able to afford moving from his parents’ house in Modesto.

“I wasn’t ready to move anywhere, but I had to just take the jump,” Reyneveld said.

At first, Reyneveld moved into a house with five guys on the soccer team. He slept in the kitchen and paid $550 a month for his share of the rent.

It felt far from a home. It was hard for Reyneveld to get enough sleep, and there were tensions among his housemates. He moved into a different house shared by more of his teammates, where he slept on a mattress in the garage for $800 a month. A full night of rest was just as hard to get as the sound of cars never stopped.

Being a student athlete required Reyneveld to juggle school, traveling for games, training and maintaining a healthy diet. But his living conditions made it hard to eat and sleep consistently.

He avoided telling trainers and staff about his living situation, recalling being “too prideful to tell anybody,” until his athletic performance deteriorated. By September 2024, his trainer pulled him aside at practice and Reyneveld told him everything.

Eli Reyneveld, a member of the Sacramento State men’s soccer team, on the university’s soccer field on Jan. 27, 2026.

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That week, Reyneveld met with Basic Needs Center staff and, that night, he was transferred into a hotel that Rapid Rehousing fully covered. Three days later, he moved into student housing where he would pay just $500 a month for five months, meals included.

“As soon as I got moved into a room, I think my coach and trainer could tell you, like, my performance is 180. I was a whole new player,” Reyneveld said.

Reyneveld moved out of student housing in February into his own apartment, where Rapid Rehousing is now paying him $200 a month for five months to help with his rent.

“I was about to turn down the scholarship to a D1 because I didn’t have the necessary means to move, but I just took a risk and (it) ended up working out because people are helping me,” he said.

Local organizations help campuses assist students

All campuses with Rapid Rehousing partner with community organizations that connect students to case managers, housing assistance, and academic and mental health support.

Long-term case management makes a big difference, according to Jessica Wolin, a public health lecturer at San Francisco State, who led the Cal State Long Beach evaluation of the program.

“Our evaluation showed the more meaningful outcomes for students who are experiencing homelessness is through this longer term, higher touch, more holistic intervention,” Wolin said. “And those needs are not met with (just) an emergency voucher.”

At Sacramento State, all students in the Rapid Rehousing program pay $500 per month toward their housing costs until they are ready for the next step. Other campuses, such as Chico State, determine students’ costs based on what they can afford. On-campus teams also work with financial aid offices to incorporate emergency grants into students’ aid packages.

Rapid Rehousing also teaches students about managing personal finances, understanding lease agreements, handling roommate conflicts, and planning for housing after graduation. Community partners work with students one semester prior to their graduation date to find housing they can afford or find relatives they can live with after graduation.

“Because these programs are (tied to enrollment), we have to make sure that we structure them so that students have some sense of urgency about the importance of working with us to find their next more permanent and stable housing that will be more long-term,” said Sacramento State Campus Wellness Director Emily Tupper.

ince 2020, Chico State’s Rapid Rehousing Program has provided over 600 students emergency shelter, transitional housing, or grants.

“A lot of students were thinking about dropping out of school and, after, they report that Rapid Rehousing has helped them stay in school,” said Chico State Basic Needs Director Leah Slem. “Our program is a lifeline to these students who possibly would have dropped out had they not received this assistance.”

When R.S., a student at Chico State who requested anonymity due to her international student status, first heard from her parents that they were on the verge of going bankrupt, she immediately went to the university’s International Student and Scholar Services office. In less than a month, she moved out of her off-campus apartment into on-campus student housing, which has been fully covered since November 2024.

With the help of her case manager, R.S. was referred to work on campus at Chico State’s Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry, which helped pay for her tuition.

International students often face unique challenges in college, Wolin said. In addition to not being able to access family support nearby, they are also not eligible for benefits like CalFresh.

“I was kind of going through a lot, but I didn’t really reach out for anything until the water almost got into my nose, and I’m like, ‘Oh no, you know, if I don’t help myself, who can help me?’’’ R.S. recalled. She urges all students to put themselves “out there” and to not be scared to ask for help.

Even with programs like Rapid Rehousing, housing insecurity still affects students across the state. As of April 2024, 1 in 5 community college students, 1 in 10 Cal State students and 1 in 20 UC students face homelessness, whereas 1 in 12 face homelessness in the general California population, according to California Competes.

From formerly homeless to doctoral dreams

The Cal State Long Beach evaluation of the Rapid Rehousing program at eight Cal States and two community colleges revealed how homelessness and housing insecurity disproportionately impacts certain student groups.

Of Cal State students, 4% identify as Black or African American, compared to 18.5% of Rapid Rehousing students. One-third of Cal State students are transfers, but transfers made up nearly half of Rapid Rehousing participants. Three-quarters of Rapid Rehousing students were first-generation, compared to a quarter systemwide. Foster youth made up 17% of the program, versus less than 1% of all students at Cal State.

Wolin said the findings reveal that “the program is reaching who they need to reach.”

As a formerly incarcerated, first-generation and transfer student at Chico State, Deleon recalled how “even having an associate’s (degree) was a big thing” for his family. He enrolled at College of the Desert to earn a 25-unit certificate in agriculture. On his first day, he recalled his professor telling him, “if you’re here for the certificate, you may as well stay for the degree.”

He completed his associate’s degree in agriculture, delivered his class graduation speech, and got accepted by all five Cal State universities he applied to. But after he left a long-term relationship at the end of that school year, he found himself homeless and couch surfing.

At Chico State, Rapid Rehousing helped Deleon remain in student housing throughout the 2024-25 school year while he worked on campus at Project Rebound, a program that supports formerly incarcerated students. In June, he moved into a shared off-campus apartment.

This fall, Deleon will be starting a master’s degree in agriculture at Chico State, and he hopes to later obtain a doctorate. If it weren’t for Rapid Rehousing, he said he doesn’t know if he would have had “the courage to stay in school.”

Deleon just returned from his first plane ride and research trip in Puerto Rico, where he saw plantain, mango, coffee berry and pineapple farms. Agriculture is what led Deleon back to school, he recalled, but Rapid Rehousing kept him in it.

“I’m planting those seeds of getting a Ph.D. now,” Deleon said. “(As) someone that’s formerly incarcerated, messed up his life before he got it back together … now that I have a second chance of getting my life right, look what I’ve done with it, with the opportunity I was given.”

Khadeejah Khan is a contributor with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

The Trump administration on Tuesday sued the University of California system over allegations that UCLA officials allowed antisemitism to flourish on campus and impede on the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli faculty and students.

The UCLA campus became a flashpoint in Los Angeles after Hamas militants atttacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompting the war in Gaza, which in turn spurred pro-Palestinian activism on campus. A student encampment against the war ended in arrests and violence from counter-protesters on the Westwood campus in 2024.

An independent audit released in November 2024 found that UCLA police and administrators lacked sufficient plans with how to deal with the campus disruptions and were slow to respond and were “more chaotic than they should have been.”

The 81-page lawsuit alleges UCLA officials “turned a blind eye to — and at times facilitated — grossly antisemitic acts and systematically ignored cries for help from its own terrified Jewish and Israeli employees.”

“Based on our investigation, UCLA administrators allegedly allowed virulent anti-Semitism to flourish on campus, harming students and staff alike,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

Mary Osako, UCLA's Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications, said in a statement that as Chancellor Julio Frenk has made clear: "Antisemitism is abhorrent and has no place at UCLA or anywhere."

She pointed to "concrete and significant steps" the university has taken to "strengthen campus safety, enforce policies, and combat antisemitism in a systemic and sustained manner," including reorganizing the Office of Civil Rights and hiring an official to ensure oversight.

"We stand firmly by the decisive actions we have taken to combat antisemitism in all its forms, and we will vigorously defend our efforts and our unwavering commitment to providing a safe, inclusive environment for all members of our community," Osako added.

The faculty union did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit comes months after the Trump administration unsuccessfully demanded a range of concessions to bring UCLA more in line with its ideology, in addition to more than $1 billion in fines. But a series of court rulings curtailed that effort.

In December 2025, ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education published a report showing “the extent to which the government violated legal and procedural norms to gin up its case against the school.” The DOJ’s career attorneys eventually recommended a lawsuit against only UCLA.

The Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino is gearing up for its annual Bonsai Celebration this weekend, which will include expert talks, a bonsai marketplace, live auction and more.

The Huntington’s bonsai collection is about 500 plants strong, with some of the tiny trees believed to be more than 1,000 years old.

One piece in The Huntington’s collection, a California juniper in the semi-cascade-style, has original plant material estimated to be 1,500 to 1,800 years old.

Daniel Deephouse, assistant curator of bonsai at The Huntington, told LAist it's a good time to be into what he calls “magical” trees, with dozens of bonsai clubs active throughout California.

“Right now it’s on fire," Deephouse said. "I think since COVID a lot of people have gotten back into plants... which I think is coming at a really great time because we’re having less and less time, and less and less space.”

With its roots stretching back in Japan more than 1,000 years ago, the art form began to take off in California after World War II.

The journey of a bonsai curator 

Deephouse said it was his grandmother who got him into bonsai back in the 1980s. Living with ADHD and dyslexia, he said his passion for these ancient miniatures has gotten him through much of life.

Caring for bonsai is a quick way to disconnect from the noisy world around him, Deephouse said.

Bonsai collection at The Huntington, San Marino, California.

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“You can only do one thing at one time... so when you’re actually focusing on your tree, you get to go into a Zen focus,” he said.

The highlight of working with The Huntington's bonsai collection? Deephouse said that’s the 100 or so volunteers who regularly care for the trees.

This weekend’s celebration of everything bonsai will also include an exhibition from the California Bonsai Society, as well as a guided walk with Deephouse on Sunday.

Want to attend?

The Huntington Bonsai Celebration runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Feb. 28 through March 1. The festivities are free with general admission.

Adopted from Iran at age two, she takes great pride in her quintessential American upbringing.

The woman was raised on a small farm in the Midwest. She attended church every Sunday. And she loved listening to her late father's stories from when he was in the Air Force during World War II. 

But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the woman, who's now in her 50s and lives in California, is not American. Instead, she's an immigrant who overstayed her visa since she was a toddler and therefore, subject to deportation. She spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because she fears speaking publicly will complicate her immigration case.

"How could this happen?" she said. "I'm American. I've never had any other identity besides that."

Most international adoptees receive automatic citizenship thanks to the 2000 Child Citizenship Act. But the law excludes those who were already adults when the legislation passed or adoptees who entered the U.S. on the wrong type of visa, which is what happened to the California woman.

Earlier this month, she received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security saying removal proceedings have begun. The woman, who has no criminal record, has no idea what prompted the letter. 

An adoptee brought to the United States by her American parents from Iran as a young child holds the immigration removal order she received recently, photographed in California on Feb. 21.

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She's terrified to be deported to Iran given her father's military service and her Christian faith. Open Doors, which tracks Christian persecution, ranks Iran among the top 10 most dangerous countries for Christians. The woman also has no family there nor does she speak Farsi. And the prospect of deportation comes amid great upheaval in Iran, from anti-government protests to looming threats of a U.S. military strike. 

"The sheer possibility of the daughter of an American WWII hero being sent overseas, through no fault of her own, epitomizes a broken system," her attorney Emily Howe said in a statement.

It's unclear exactly how many adoptees are in the same vulnerable position as the California woman. Many don't realize their situation until adulthood, when obtaining citizenship becomes far more difficult. Others live in limbo because of lost paperwork and the sheer difficulty locating it decades later — which is also a layer of the woman's case.

An adoptee brought to the United States by her American parents from Iran as a young child stands for a portrait in California on Feb. 21.

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Adoptees have been deported in the past, often because a crime triggered their removal. But with President Donald Trump's historic mass deportations, noncitizen adoptees are more fearful than ever of being sent to countries they barely remember.

A bill to close the gaps in the 2000 law has bipartisan support but failed several times in Congress, partly because of its tie to immigration, NPR reported last year.

The Department of Homeland Security would not respond to a request for comment unless provided the woman's name, which NPR declined to do. In a statement, DHS said immigrants facing deportation "receive full due process and asylum seekers have their fear claims heard."

'I don't understand this. How could this happen?'

Born in Iran in the 1970s, the woman doesn't know what happened to her birth parents or why she was placed in an orphanage. At the time of her adoption, she said her American father was working in Iran as a U.S. government contractor.

An archival childhood family photograph of an adoptee brought to the United States by her American parents from Iran as a young child, photographed in California on Feb. 21.

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Fast forward, three decades later, the woman had finished paying off her student loans and wanted to travel outside the country. But when she applied for a passport, she realized something was wrong.

Pretty soon into the application process, the woman received a letter saying her parents did not complete her naturalization when she was a child. She recalled reaching out to an immigration attorney, who told her point blank, " You're deportable to Iran."

"I couldn't stop crying," she said. "I just, through my tears, kept asking like, I don't understand this. How could this happen?" 

The California woman was brought to the U.S. on a tourist visa, which was fairly common to use when adopting from countries that did not have formal intercountry adoption systems in place, according to Joy Alessi, a Korean adoptee who is with the Adoptee Rights Campaign.

"These nonimmigrant statuses routinely expired before state adoption proceedings could conclude," she said. "The status lapse required a formal adjustment to permanent residency."

The California woman firmly believes that her parents took the necessary steps to naturalize her. She points to a local newspaper article in which her parents mentioned working toward her citizenship, which NPR reviewed. Among her father's belongings, the woman said she found a document requesting lost citizenship paperwork. She added that her mother repeatedly insisted she was indeed a citizen.

An undated photo of the adoptee's father, who served in the military.

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Over the years, the woman said she has spent tens of thousands of dollars and sought help from several lawyers to track down missing documents and rectify what she believes is a clerical error.

"There was just paperwork and a paper trail letting me know and I'm grateful for that," she said. "And I stand by the fact that my dad loved me and he made sure that he did his part to make me an American in this country."

'I fight for myself, but at the same time, I fight for my dad's legacy'

Up until her passport debacle, the woman said she never thought of herself as an immigrant. 

"I didn't know what a green card was, alien number, I had no clue," she said. "But obviously now through this journey, I know it really well."

Now, she winces every time she turns on the news and hears about Trump's crackdown on immigration. Since she received the DHS letter, the woman has kept a low profile — switching to remote work and rarely leaving her house or driving her car. The woman also shares her location with her friends in case she is detained by ICE. 

"It used to be that, before some of the laws were changed, that you were safe in hospital spaces, churches, schools," she said. "Some of those places that I should be able to come and go are not safe havens for me anymore."

A "Home Sweet Home" decoration along with family portraits of an adoptee's American family in her home in California on Feb. 21.

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Her case is scheduled before an immigration judge next month, which she does not have to appear in-person for. Although she's terrified, part of her has always wanted to resolve her legal status and put an end to the fear she has been carrying.

"I welcome fixing this. I've always wanted to fix this," she said. "I feel like I haven't been able to freely embrace my life."

As painful as this time has been, the woman attributes her strength to her father, a retired Air Force officer who was a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II. She imagines that if her father was alive today, he'd be angry on her behalf. 

"I fight for myself, but at the same time, I fight for my dad's legacy and what my dad wanted for me and how he prepared me for this life," she said. "And I'm not gonna let somebody take it from me."
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