The Brief

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing has reached iconic status long before its scheduled completion in Agoura Hills by the end of 2025. Not only will it be the largest bridge of its kind for wild animals to traverse in and out of the Santa Monica Mountains, it also has a Hollywood ready mascot in the late P-22. To top it off, the bridge has inspired a Lego set — before a single mountain lion has even set foot atop the decade-in-the-making structure, whose construction has required expertise from across a range of disciplines.

"We have everyone from wildlife biologist to horticulturalist to [expertise in] engineering [and] architecture," said Robert Rock from Living Habitats, the landscape architecture firm in Chicago that is designing the entire project. "We've got a soil scientist, a soil biologist, a mycologist."

A rendering of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, slated for completion in 2025.

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Courtesy of National Wildlife Foundation

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The Lego model of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing.

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Courtesy of Living Habitats

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As the folks responsible for the look, feel, functionality and the ecology of the real-life crossing, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Rock and his team are also behind its humbler, and admittedly a smidge less complex, Lego counterpart.

Disclaimer: if you want to get your hands on a set, you'd first need to cast your vote for the project — 10,000 supporters are needed — before Lego would consider mass-producing the set.

The Lego idea

The idea to create a Lego version of the wildlife crossing came to Rock on a muggy August day in 2022, when he was at the zoo in Chicago with his son. To escape the heat, Rock went into the air-conditioned gift shop, and on the display case were boxes of Lego sitting next to a few animal figurines.

"I had this kind of light bulb turn on in my head and I thought, 'huh, well, maybe we could create a Lego version of the crossing just as something fun,'" Rock said.

He knew just the guy to help make it happen — an old college buddy named Martin Egemo, who has picked up Lego as a hobby, someone who's built intricate sets and models off his imagination.

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Courtesy of Living Habitats

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"I still remember that [day]. Rob called me and he's like, 'Hey, I've got this crazy idea. What do you think?'" said Egemo, who's known in the Lego community as TMX. "I just thought, yes, this sounds awesome."

The building process

Over the next year, the team started to design and build their Lego crossing, a process that gave Egemo a crash course in the painstaking work done by Rock and Living Habitats to make the real-life crossing a reality. In exchange, he said, "I was able to help show them what Lego is capable of doing."

Like many creative challenges, the first order of business to making a Lego model from scratch was to understand the parameters.

"Honestly one of the biggest challenges was that we had to pick a scale to work in the Lego universe," Rock said.

"How big are we going to go with this? What is our true goal? What are we trying to showcase?" Egemo said.

A question Rock had posed to Egemo early in the process was whether the Denmark-based toy giant would ever consider manufacturing their set commercially. The answer from Egemo was yes, but only if they enter it into something called Lego Ideas, where 10,000 upvotes from the public will trigger an internal review of the project by the company.

The Lego model of the wildlife crossing features trees and animals that are part of the Southern California landscape.

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Courtesy of Living Habitats

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One of the competition's requirements is that a submission has to be made up of under 3,000 parts. Using that as a baseline, Rock and Egemo began to figure out other aspects of the model — which details to lose, which to amplify — down to how the layers of soil should look like at the bridge's cross-section.

"Our goal isn't to show 10 lanes of the freeway. Our goal is to really showcase all the different types of plants that they are going to source that came from the area itself. So we've got to use the right colors, the right shapes and sizes," Egemo said. "What are the animals that are going to be crossing this? How can we get those animals included?"

Egemo said he made a down-and-dirty prototype. "I just took Lego and started kind of playing around," he said.

Egemo's Iowa home office during the Lego build.

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Martin Egemo

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Then Rock and his team took what he did, supercharged the design and created a digital model that came with instructions on how to piece together the more than 2,300 Lego parts needed for the build.

"I think we had to go to something like 14 or 15 different vendors because of some of the colors that we used," Rock said. "You've got a lot of ochres and olive colors in the landscape. Finding those colors within the Lego world, sometimes that was a little bit challenging."

Soon, bags and bags of the bricks arrived at Egemo's home in Des Moines, Iowa. Organizing them alone — and by color — took between 10 to 12 hours.

Egemo estimated the construction itself took 16 to 20 hours over the course of about 10 days. The final product weighed in between 10 to 15 pounds, at a dimension of 23 by 10 by 8 inches.

Rock remembers seeing the finished model at Egemo's home for first time.

"In the line of work that I do, we understand scale, we understand the size of things," Rock said. "Seeing that in person, seeing the scale of it, the degree of specificity and the technical process that [Egemo] had to go through, I was kind of in shock."

The debut

The model was finished shortly before this year's P-22 Day festival held at Griffith Park in October, where Rock and Egemo had planned to unveil their miniature creation.

The two friends drove from Iowa to Los Angeles with the Lego crossing in the back of the SUV, because they had decided against shipping it. "Lego's strong, but we didn't glue anything," Egemo said.

Caltrans workers working on the construction of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing

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Courtesy of Caltrans

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On their way, they picked up a bunch of Lego for kids attending the festival to build their own versions of the real-life crossing.

"I'm not sure that there's a better way to tell the story of all of the passion that's bound up in this hopeful project than to imagine it through the ingenuity of a child, right?" Rock said.

As to Egemo, he finally got to see the inspiration behind his and Rock's yearlong passion project, as the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing sprouted to life from the 101.

"That was so cool driving on the freeway, seeing the construction in process, and knowing that in some way I'm a part of this, and it made it even more real," Egemo said.

Republicans in the House could be on track today to approve the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a vote that follows President Donald Trump's unexpected blessing for a measure that has driven rancor through the party and its base.

The bipartisan effort, which has been led by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., was long fought by Trump and Republican leadership from reaching the House floor. As recently as last week, White House officials met with Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., about her support for releasing the files, but her position was unchanged after the meeting.

Trump has also attacked Republicans for pushing the measure, including Massie and most recently Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

However, Trump did an about face over the weekend as it became clear a vote in the House was likely to succeed, and said Republicans should approve the bill.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., speaks at a press conference alongside alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein at the U.S. Capitol on September 3, 2025.

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Bryan Dozier

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AFP via Getty Images

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On Monday, Trump told reporters at the White House that the Senate can take up the bill as well, and that he would sign it if it passes. The measure, if passed, would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on the convicted sex offender within 30 days.

"I'm all for it," Trump said from the Oval Office, but maintained it was a "hoax" that he didn't want to "detract" from his party's success.

Trump does not need legislation in order to approve the files for release, but he told reporters that Congress "can do whatever they want" on the vote.

His remarks came after a simple majority of House members signed onto what is known as a discharge petition – a workaround that forces votes without leadership or committee approval. Last week, the chamber's newest member, Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., became the decisive 218th signature on the petition.

President Trump speaks with reporters from the Oval Office on Monday. Trump said he would sign a bill to release the Epstein files if it passes through Congress.

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Brendan Smialowski

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AFP via Getty Images

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Grijalva's swearing in was delayed for seven weeks after her election, galvanizing Democrats who accused House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., of stalling in order to put off the vote. Johnson rejected that claim, saying her oath of office would not be taken until the government shutdown fight was resolved. He also committed to not block the vote on the House floor.

Tuesday's expected vote also comes after a wave of Epstein files were released last week by members on the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. Democrats first released a set of three emails, followed by thousands of pages of new files released by the panel's chairman, James Comer, R-Ky. The documents triggered new questions about the extent of Trump's relationship with the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender before his death in 2019.

Ahead of the vote, Massie and Khanna plan to gather with survivors and their families and friends. They last appeared together in September on Capitol Hill to lobby for the release of the Epstein files, saying transparency was the path to holding those involved fully accountable.

Survivors reiterated that position in a Friday letter to Congress in which they urged the release of files relating to Epstein and his longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving time at a Texas facility after her conviction on trafficking charges.

"Epstein and Maxwell's crimes exposed a double standard of justice, where rich and powerful men and women evade repercussions," they wrote.
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Americans will likely face higher prices on items for their Thanksgiving dinners this year.

Turkey, typically the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, will be one of the biggest sticker shocks for consumers. Wholesale prices for a turkey have jumped 40% from a year ago, according to the Department of Agriculture. Outbreaks of avian influenza, or bird flu, and increased demand have contributed to these higher prices.

Those opting for beef instead of turkey should also prepare to pay more. Beef prices are nearly 15% higher than they were last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Canned vegetables are 5% more expensive compared to last year, due to higher packaging costs from the steel and aluminum tariffs the Trump administration put in place earlier this year.

President Trump announced Friday that he would be rolling back tariffs he imposed on beef, coffee, tropical fruits and other commodities, in an effort to combat high prices at grocery stores.

David Ortega, a professor and food economist at Michigan State University, said those rollbacks won't lower prices completely, as tariffs aren't the only cause of increasing prices.

"By removing the tariffs, what we're doing is we're slowing down the increase in the price of many of these goods," Ortega said. "So while we may not see prices go down for the holidays, it helps in terms of moderating the price increases that we've been accustomed to at the grocery store."

Some grocery items have seen some price decreases in time for the holiday season. Egg prices have seen a decline from earlier this year, and domestic wine prices are down about 1.2% from last year due to a steady supply and softening demand.

Ortega says buying fresh produce rather than canned fruits or vegetables is one way consumers can avoid higher prices from aluminum packaging. He also recommends shoppers plan their meals out in advance, look for private label or store brands over name brands, and shop early for certain items to take advantage of sales or promotions grocery stores might have.

"It really pays off to plan ahead and create a shopping list, making sure you're sticking to it and avoiding impulse purchases," Ortega said.
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This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Nov. 17, 2025.

After a report revealed federal immigration agents are allowed to interfere in medical decisions at Adventist Health White Memorial, the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network is calling for hospital administrators to uphold patient privacy and ensure that staff can advocate for patients without retaliation.

The article, published by LAist on Oct. 9, reported that hospital administrators are blocking doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care. Administrators at White Memorial have told doctors not to call a detained patient’s family members, even to find out what type of medication they’re on or what conditions they have, doctors told LAist.

Community demands stronger protections

Since then, community stakeholders who are part of the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network presented demands at a Nov. 5 meeting with hospital leaders, including Kerry Heinrich, the president and chief executive officer of Adventist Health System, and John Raffoul, president of Adventist Health White Memorial.

As part of those demands, the network — which is made up of residents and community leaders from organizations like Legacy LA, InnerCity Struggle and Centro CSO — wants immigration agents out of patient rooms during medical consultations and procedures. Many in the network have deep ties to White Memorial, including having friends who were born there or taking their children for care at the hospital.

Hospital issues memo in response to community concerns

In response, White Memorial, in a Nov. 12 memo, thanked community leaders for sharing their concerns and outlined the following five points:

• “Every patient’s privacy is protected and respected. We follow the laws that keep people’s medical information private, and we take that responsibility very seriously.
• Doctors and nurses make care decisions together with their patients. No outside groups tell them how to treat a patient.
• When there is a medical reason to contact a family, our team can do that through the right process. There are rules we must follow, but our goal is always to support care and connection whenever possible.
• Law enforcement officers cannot interfere with medical care or put anyone’s safety at risk. Our hospital protects the privacy and safety of everyone here — patients, families, and staff.
• We stand by our care teams. They are supported and protected as they care for every person with kindness and respect.”

“We know trust takes time to build and can be lost quickly. Many of you told us that trust has been broken, and we understand that. We want to keep earning your trust through open communication, transparency, and action, not just words,” the memo reads.

The memo — signed by Juan De La Cruz, president of the Adventist Health White Memorial Charitable Foundation — does not specifically address the network’s demand that agents be kept out of patient rooms during medical consultations and procedures.

Leaders say the memo falls short of key demands

Raquel Roman, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral, which operates the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, said White Memorial’s memo is a “good first attempt.” But, she added, “it doesn’t meet the demands we presented.”

“There is still opportunity to continue dialogue,” Roman said.

“Ultimately, we want to make sure our community and the doctors treating our community feel safe being at White Memorial, whether they go in there on their own or if somebody gets detained by ICE,” she said.

Lucy Herrera, executive director of Legacy LA, said the memo contained “a lot of gray area.”

“The way they [White Memorial] responded in the memo makes it seem like they’ve already been doing all of these things, when we’ve been hearing the opposite,” said Herrera.

Herrera said an open dialogue with White Memorial can be beneficial. “As a coalition, I want to stay vigilant to ensure that they comply with our demands,” she said.

Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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For Henry Perez, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, the memo “signals that they have heard the community’s concerns.” However, he said, the hospital’s response is doing the “bare minimum.” As a hospital, “they already should be protecting patients’ privacy,” he said.

“White Memorial has the opportunity to fully stand with our immigrant communities … and it falls short of really communicating and conveying that they understand the horrors that our community is going through at the hands of ICE agents,” Perez said.

Sol Márquez, with the social justice group Centro CSO, wants White Memorial to make specific assurances that hospital staff won’t be punished when advocating for patients. In the memo, Marquez said, “I don’t think that they’re actually saying anything concrete.”

“We just really don’t want any of the staff to be reprimanded for asking ICE to leave the room, and for trying to make a rightful connection with the detainees and their families,” Márquez said.

Network presses for concrete changes in ongoing talks

As part of efforts to call attention to the issue, Centro CSO launched a petition soon after the LAist article was published, calling for White Memorial to uphold HIPAA, the federal law that safeguards patient privacy, and to bar U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making medical decisions for patients.

It urges White Memorial not to retaliate against or reprimand doctors and nurses “for asking ICE to leave examination rooms.”

Sammy Carrera with Centro CSO said the petition has garnered more than 300 signatures so far.

The petition highlights the role of White Memorial in Boyle Heights.

“White Memorial is situated in a working-class neighborhood made up of predominantly Chicano, Latino, and undocumented people. ICE is bringing detainees to this hospital knowing their presence threatens the very community they are attacking and deporting,” the petition reads.

The Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network is meeting to discuss next steps. De La Cruz notes in the memo that the hospital is “committed to keeping the conversation going.”

“We are opening our doors for guided visits to help you see how care works inside the hospital. We are also creating new ways for you to be part of hospital discussions and advisory groups,” the memo reads.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House.

The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of illegally yielding to Trump's demands that the network be financially punished for its news coverage. The argument, part of a broader lawsuit by NPR and several stations against the Trump administration, focused on CPB funding for NPR's operation of a satellite distribution system for local public radio stations. NPR announced Monday it would waive all fees for the stations associated with the satellite service.

The judge in the case had explicitly told CPB's legal team he did not find its defense credible. CPB lawyers had argued that the decision to award the contract to a new consortium of public media institutions was driven by a desire to foster digital innovations more swiftly.

"The settlement is a victory for editorial independence and a step toward upholding the First Amendment rights of NPR and the public media system in our legal challenge to [Trump's] Executive Order," Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR, said in a statement. "While we entered into this dispute with CPB reluctantly, we're glad to resolve it in a way that enables us to continue to provide for the stability of the Public Radio Satellite System, offer immediate and direct support to public radio stations across the country, and proceed with our strong and substantive claims against this illegal and unconstitutional Executive Order. We look forward to our day in court in December."

In its submission Monday evening to the court, CPB did not concede that it had acted wrongfully — nor that it had yielded to political pressure from the administration.

Instead, in a statement posted on its website, CPB asserted its side "prevails" as a result of the settlement.

"This is an important moment for public media," said Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of CPB. "We are very pleased that this costly and unnecessary litigation is over, and that our investment in the future through [Public Media Infrastructure] marks an exciting new era for public media." CPB had awarded a rival contract to PMI, a newly created consortium of public radio organizations including several major stations, to ensure the digital distribution system functions properly. That contract will continue, CPB said.

Federal subsidies for public broadcasting stopped on Oct. 1 as a result of a party-line vote over the summer by Congress, called a rescission. Only a skeleton crew remains at CPB, which was created as a nonprofit corporation more than a half-century ago to funnel federal subsidies to public media. While PBS has had layoffs and NPR is monitoring its own finances, many local stations across the country have been hit hard.

Over the course of the litigation this fall, mounting evidence appeared to demonstrate that CPB's board chair and executives had acted against NPR in what turned out to be a futile attempt to salvage the corporation's own future.

In hearings last month in Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss told CPB's legal team they had not made a credible case for why the corporation reneged on the contract just a day after a top White House official warned senior CPB leaders against doing business with NPR. A trial had been set to start on Dec. 1.

CPB's change of mind — and NPR's ensuing lawsuit — sparked consternation and unease within the larger public media ecosystem. The two organizations had served as partners for decades. But that relationship frayed earlier this year, as the system came under attack from the Trump administration.

Trump's public campaign against NPR and PBS started in earnest soon after he returned to the White House. Trump kicked it into high gear in late March with a series of social media posts.

In early April, CPB leaders sought to get money out the door before Trump took action against public media. On April 2, CPB's board approved the extension of a contract with NPR to distribute public radio programs, including those not produced by NPR. The arrangement stretched back four decades. The amount included millions still due on the then-current contract.

The next day, CPB's board chair and two senior executives met with a top White House budget official who attested to her "intense dislike for NPR." The budget official told them CPB didn't have to "throw the baby out with the bathwater," according to a deposition from CPB executive Clayton Barsoum submitted as part of NPR's legal filings.

And the day after that — just 48 hours after that board vote — CPB reversed itself. CPB executive Kathy Merritt informed NPR's top official over the satellite and distribution service that it had to be spun off: it could not be part of NPR. NPR refused to do so. CPB revised the scope of the contract and solicited new bids. NPR's submission proved unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the White House was ramping up the pressure. It accused NPR and PBS of bias. On April 14, for example, it issued a formal statement that called their offerings "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news'." NPR and PBS's chief executives have rejected the accusations of bias.

On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that no federal money should go to the two public broadcasting networks. NPR and three Colorado public radio stations then filed suit against the White House, saying they were being unlawfully punished because the president did not like their news coverage. They contended the executive order represented a violation of First Amendment protections. Their suit names CPB as a defendant as well for, in their characterization, bending to the president's will. In Monday's legal filing, CPB agreed that the executive order was precisely the sort of government interference that Congress sought to prevent in establishing CPB as it did.

In the summer, Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress, urged on by Trump, pulled back all $1.1 billion for future public broadcasting that had already been approved and signed into law by the president.

Throughout the legal battle, NPR has said, regardless of the outcome of the case, it would work with Public Media Infrastructure.

NPR's broader constitutional case against Trump's executive order purporting to ban federal funding of public media continues. A hearing on its merits is scheduled for December.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. It was edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
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