The Brief

At the crack of dawn in California’s Central Valley, birds sing their morning songs and critters chirp unabashedly. In a shady grove next to a river, an owl swoops down from the spindling branches of an oak tree that has stood its ground for centuries.

A few feet above the tree’s base, its massive trunk is lined with a white ring, indicating how high the San Joaquin River rose during a flood last year. Dos Rios is supposed to flood — it’s a floodplain, recently transformed into California's newest state park.

The park opened this summer, emerging among the never-ending rows of agriculture the valley is known for. It's a lush 2.5 square miles now bursting with hundreds of thousands of native trees, bushes and animals.

Dos Rios, named for the Tuolumne and San Joaquin rivers that meet at the edge of the park, is the first new California state park in more than a decade.

But it isn’t like most state parks. In addition to bringing much-needed green space to an underserved area, its unusual design uses nature-based climate solutions that reinvigorate native wildlife.

By restoring the natural floodplain, the park will also help mitigate flooding that threatens residents in the area.

Sunflowers in the Oak grove photographed June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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Transforming farms fields back to a floodplain

Dos Rios is like a time machine. Just 15 years ago, this plot of land looked much like its surroundings.

“These floodplains were once laser-leveled fields that grew alfalfa, or a rotation of corn and winter wheat, which would be harvested and moved over to where the dairies are to feed the cows,” says conservationist Julie Rentner.

Now, the land looks more like it did hundreds of years ago, before farms and towns cropped up, before the Central Valley became an agricultural hub of America.

Julie Rentner, President of River Partner, a nonprofit that restores ecosystems back to their native state. photographed in June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California.

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Rentner is president of the nonprofit organization River Partners, which began the process of purchasing the plot from a farming family back in 2008. Since then, her team has been transforming the land to return it to some semblance of the floodplain it naturally was.

“Most of the critters here, the willows, the cottonwoods, the mugwort and the gum plants are actually stimulated by occasional flooding,” she says.

In the summer months, the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers flow lazily around the edges of this park, but in the spring and early summer, when snow melts in the Sierras, the rivers take on a forceful character, rampaging through this land, swelling above their banks and flooding this area.

Last year, the rivers rose about 20 feet higher than they are now. At the time, River Partners was giving boat tours through the area, as floodwaters brought back animals like river otters, beavers and waterfowl.

San Joaquin River, June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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Working with nature to tame floodwater risk

While flooding is now welcome at Dos Rios, for Central Valley farmers and residents, it has long been a demon. It destroys crops and homes.

A 2018 report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its state partners said that Stockton, a large metropolitan city about 30 miles north of Dos Rios, faced an “unacceptably high risk of flooding from levee failure.” Dos Rios is meant to be an escape valve, before torrents of water threaten levees in nearby places like Stockton.

“This place is reducing flood risk for downstream communities by absorbing floodwaters as they pour out of the Sierra Nevadas,” Rentner says.

Reengineering Dos Rios involved cutting holes into berms and levees, and allowing the rivers to flood instead of attempting to constrain them. The floodwaters then soak into the ground, sparing nearby communities, and recharging groundwater. These, Rentner says, are solutions designed to work with nature instead of against it.

Lilia Lomeli-Gil, Assistant Manager, United Community Foundation & Director, Grayson Community Services District Board photographed in June 27, 2024 inside Grayson Community Center, Patterson California.

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Another community that could benefit from Dos Rios is Grayson, a small, unincorporated area just a few miles west of the park. Lilia Lomeli-Gil, a community leader there, remembers suffering from the devastating floods of 1997. At the time, she was living in Modesto, just east of Dos Rios.

“It still brings tears to my eyes,” she says, as she recalls her house swamped with 3 to 4 feet of water. “We had to start over, we were homeless.”

Eventually, Lomeli-Gil and her husband were able to relocate back to Grayson, where she has spent most of her life. Now she says she is relieved that Dos Rios is in Grayson’s backyard — not only because of flood-risk mitigation, but also because it’s a new place to recreate.

“A place to go barbecue, join other family members,” and it’s a place to appreciate nature for local community members, she says. “I think that emotionally, it’s going to be very good for their mental health.”

Grayson is a tiny, 4-by-5-block farming community. Most of the residents are agricultural workers. The community center Lomeli-Gil runs is the only gathering place in town for residents, other than the gas station market next door.

“We need more, we need a variety, not just one place,” she says.

Dos Rios mural signage, photographed June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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A new place to enjoy nature

At 8:30 on a recent Friday morning, Lomeli-Gil had gathered a group of parents, teenagers and young children from Grayson around some picnic benches on the edge of an old riverbank at Dos Rios. Everyone in the group speaks Spanish, like most of the surrounding community, so their tour guides, Eduardo Gonzalez and Julian Morin, lead the group through a portion of the park in English and Spanish.

“We want to continue to increase accessibility to parks, they're out here for everybody,” says Morin. “Language barriers shouldn't be why people can't get out and enjoy state parks and experience everything they have to offer.”

Gonzalez leads the group on a walking path that, in a way, divides the past and future of this park: An old almond orchard is on one side, and a lush landscape of bushes, trees, birds and animals on the other.

Grayson community members joining a tour in Dos Rios, June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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In Spanish, Gonzalez says, “12 years ago this was all pure orchard, and [River Partners] removed them.” Pointing to the other side of the path, where birds are chirping loudly, he says, “And they began to plant more native plants that were here before agriculture.”

He tells the group that like the rest of the park, that almond orchard will eventually become a campground or a place for families to gather. The park will also offer family events like group campfires and stargazing nights. When school is in session, the park plans to organize educational visits for students.

Opening up the land to indigenous people, as a place to gather plants

The Dos Rios team has also consulted with Indigenous tribes about how this new park can benefit their communities. Austin Stevenot, the San Joaquin field manager for River Partners, first came across the organization a few years ago when they invited his extended family to visit the park.

Stevenot and his family are members of the Northern Sierra Miwok tribe. Stevenot consulted his mother and aunts, founding members of the California Indian Basketweavers’ Association. They put together planting palettes of native plants — like a mood board for plants — that would be beneficial to the habitat, but also for Indigenous medicinal and cultural practices.

“All the things we were like, ‘It would be great to gather this here!’”

Austin Stevenot, San Joaquin Valley Field Manager for River Partners. photographed in June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California.

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Stevenot brought members of local tribes to plant native shrubs like Valley Sedge, which is used for basket weaving, or mugwort, used as a natural bug repellent. Now, a 3-acre Native Use Garden is blooming at Dos Rios.

A century ago, he says, his people were forcibly removed from their ancestral village, about 60 miles from here. So it means a lot to him to have a piece of this land his family and other Indigenous people can use as their own.

“It looks like a big weed patch right now. But there's a lot here. There's a lot of meaning here,” he says.

Though removing plants from public lands is typically illegal, a 2016 rule permits parks to enter into plant-gathering agreements with Native American tribes. Stevenot says tribal members can reach out to the park to inquire about accessing the Native Use Garden now, but their goal is for the park to eventually implement a formal permitting process for tribal members to gather anywhere in Dos Rios.

“We need thousands more acres just like this,” he says. “Not just not for just water, not for habitat, but for the people of the land, for the people that were here long before anybody else.”

Native use garden, photographed June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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"10 more Dos Rioses" in the next 10 years

Dos Rios holds great promise for the Central Valley — it provides new recreational space, restores native habitat, protects against flood damage and recharges dwindling groundwater in the Central Valley. But it’s only about 2½ square miles in a vast region dominated by agricultural farms, and even restoring that much land has been no easy task.

“Here in the Central Valley, we have a history of fighting over water, really being at odds with the environmental movement,” says Julie Rentner. But she adds that over the years, the community surrounding Dos Rios has shown great excitement about its multiple benefits.

Austin Stevenot holding a mugwort, photographed June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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“You talk to anybody in this neighborhood and you realize, oh my gosh, we all want the same things,” she says. “We want clean, healthy communities to live in. We want beautiful places to be able to take our kids and grandkids.”

And she says California’s state government is on board with more projects like Dos Rios, as evidenced by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2020 executive order, which has been dubbed the “30 x 30” initiative, because it aims to conserve 30% of California’s lands and coastal waters by the year 2030. “And that encouraged us to think, how do you scale all of this?”

Rentner is optimistic. “We’ve done the planning, we’ve done the mapping,” she says, “We’re thinking about doing 10 more Dos Rioses just in the next decade. Maybe more.”

Oak Tree Grove, photographed June 28, 2024 in Dos Rios located in Modesto, California

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Copyright NPR 2024

Master escape artist and world-famous entertainer Harry Houdini had been dead for decades by the time teenager Kevin Connolly sat down with his dad in their New Jersey home in the late 1960s to watch Houdini, the biopic with actor Tony Curtis in the title role.

“I'm so engrossed in the movie that I'm crying that he passed away. And my dad looks down at me and says, 'What's the matter, son?' I said, 'Houdini died,'" Connolly said.

His father then comforted him.

That experience with the movie and with his father sparked a five-decade-plus collector’s obsession in the teen that led him to amass thousands of items from Harry Houdini’s life and career.

The collection includes handcuffs owned by Houdini, a signed life-size portrait of Houdini in chains, a linen bag his wife, Bess Houdini, made him and a pocket watch she gifted him on his birthday in 1910, at the height of his career.

Signed Cabinet Card Photograph of Houdini in Chains.

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“Engraved inside the cover is a very personal note from her to him that also contains a little hidden code in the inscription,” said Gabe Fajuri, president and principal auctioneer at Potter & Potter Auctions. The watch has the highest valuation of the items, with an estimate between $20,000 and $40,000.

The auction house has been displaying these 100 items at its Chicago offices and will transport them to the Magic Castle in Hollywood for display on Oct. 30 and the final auction the day after.

“ These are things that potentially have his DNA on them. These are things that Houdini himself owned, handled, used, treasured,” Fajuri said.

The auction marks two milestones: 100 years since Houdini's death and the winding down of 71-year-old Connolly's collecting efforts, which enriched his and his family’s life.

“It broadened our world, and it was nice to be recognized for your collecting abilities,” he said.

Connolly’s collection has turned him into a Houdini authority, attracting the attention of Houdini biographers, film documentarians, as well as museums and galleries.

Houdini was born in Hungary in 1874. He came to the U.S. as a young child and moved to New York with his father, a rabbi, at 13. He began performing as a magician four years later and shot to stardom on the vaudeville circuit with bold escape acts. There wasn’t a straitjacket, chains or ropes that he couldn’t escape.

Connolly admires how Houdini inspired a generation of immigrants with these stunning feats.

A photo of an escape stunt by Harry Houdini. It's the first Houdini item Kevin Connolly bought as a teen during his 50-plus years of collecting Houdini memorabilia.

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One of those acts is captured in the very first Houdini item Connolly bought after watching that Houdini movie. It’s a photo of Houdini hanging upside down from a rope in front of a building, two stories up. His arms are bound to his body. Crowds look up from the street, staring at Houdini as he attempts to escape. “TORONTO OCT. 18/’16” is written along the bottom edge of the photo.

“That one is not in the auction,” he said. Oct. 18 is Connolly’s father’s birthday, which makes it special. Plus, “That would be probably the last one I'd let go, because that's the one that started it all.”

With Halloween approaching, a women’s walking group is helping Angelenos explore the city’s spooky and historic landmarks. Their next outing is Angelino Heights — home to century-old Victorian homes and an iconic piece of pop culture history.

Los Angelistas organizes weekly walks throughout Los Angeles. October draws some of its biggest crowds, according to the group. Earlier this month, the group visited the Spadena House in Beverly Hills for a witch-themed walk and explored Los Feliz for a murder-themed tour.

Members of Los Angelistas stand in front of the "Spadena House" in Beverly Hills in 2025.

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Exploring LA’s spooky side

On Nov. 1, the group heads to Angelino Heights, a tiny neighborhood next to Echo Park known for its Victorian homes.

“It has so much history, but also really beautiful, stunning Victorian architecture,” said Jillian Goodman, one of the group’s three co-founders. “It’s such a cool place that I don’t think many people know about.”

Some of the homes have been backdrops for films and TV shows, including Michael Jackson’s 1983 “Thriller” video — which will be a stop on the tour.

Los Angelistas visit the "Charmed" house while on a walk through Angelino Heights in 2024.

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Building friendship beyond the walks

Los Angelistas began in April 2023, when Goodman and a few women who met through another social club decided to continue spending time together through walks.

The group has since grown to more than 7,000 members, Goodman said. Its organizers live across L.A., allowing them to host events in neighborhoods like Brentwood, Mid-City and Glendale.

Goodman said the walks encourage women to discover parts of L.A. they might pass by without stopping.

“Everyone thinks of L.A. as a driving city. No one ever really stops and takes a breath,” Goodman said.

For Goodman, watching members build friendships that extend beyond the walks has been one of the most rewarding parts of the group’s growth.

“They go to each other’s weddings. They go to concerts. Seeing people connect, not just in the group, but then having that extend outside has been amazing to watch,” she said.

The group has also helped members support one another during devastating times. Amid last year’s Eaton and Palisades wildfires, some members helped others find places to stay, despite having only met on walks.

“I thought that was so beautiful and wonderful that without us they wouldn’t have known each other,” Goodman said.

A slew of Medicare Advantage plans are disappearing for next year, leaving seniors in many areas with fewer options. In 193 counties across the country, no plans are offered at all.

Medicare's annual open enrollment period kicked off October 15 and runs until December 7, and seniors enrolled in those privatized Medicare plans that are closing in certain markets should carefully review their options.

Medicare Advantage means private insurers run Medicare for older Americans who choose it over traditional Medicare, where the federal government itself administers the program. More than half of the 70 million Americans in Medicare choose Medicare Advantage. It's popular because it covers services like vision and dental, often with lower premiums than traditional Medicare. It also often folds in the "Part D" drug benefit, simplifying that decision.

But a downside of Medicare Advantage is that companies can pick and choose where they offer plans. If a certain community is not profitable, a company can leave that market. And that has been happening on an increasingly large scale the last three years, according to research published in JAMA.

Who is affected

Big swaths of rural America are losing Medicare Advantage choices and so are some major metro areas.

Last year, 2.9 million seniors were in Medicare Advantage plans that closed up shop, according to JAMA. This year, an analysis of insurance company announcements by An Arm and A Leg podcast, shows at least 2 million people will be affected. Other preliminary estimates range from 3.2 million to 5 million seniors. About 35 million people are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

According to an analysis of federal data by the health policy research organization KFF, the 193 counties that will have zero Medicare Advantage plans are mostly rural. Last year that number was about 120 counties without a plan offered.

KFF's numbers also show that there will be far fewer plans offered in some metro areas. Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Houston and Portland all have between a quarter and a third fewer Medicare Advantage plans for seniors.

What happens next

If your plan is ending, and you don't choose another, the insurance company will assign you to another Medicare Advantage plan or the government will enroll you in traditional Medicare — but without a supplemental or drug plan.

If you want to switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare and your plan is ending, you can enroll in a Medicare supplemental plan — also known as Medigap — without the same restrictions that you would normally have. If you have a pre-existing condition that has prevented you from enrolling in Medigap before, that could be good news.

Another wrinkle this year is that insurance companies can cap enrollments on some of the Medicare Advantage plans that they do offer.

Which means: If you wait to sign up, a plan you want might already be full.

The companies are supposed to enroll people on a first-come, first-serve basis — and not cherry-pick customers based on health conditions, age, or demographics.

Another reason not to delay is that with so many people on the hunt for new plans, it may take longer than usual to get help.

How and where to find help

Here are some tips for navigating Medicare open enrollment this year:

• Find out if your plan is still offered: First, check your mail. Medicare Advantage plans that are closing should have sent letters the first week in October. You can also log in to your account on Medicare.gov to check your plan's status for next year.
  
• Try calling your SHIP: There's a State Health Insurance Assistance Program — known as a "SHIP" — in every state to help seniors with Medicare. The name's not easy to remember or particularly descriptive, but it's free, mandated by the federal government, and the staff and volunteers are required to give you unbiased information on all available options. Find your state in the directory at shiphelp.org. Your county may have a specific number that you can find on your state's SHIP website.
  
• Look for local Medicare counseling services: Friends, family, leaders at your place of worship, and the constituent services of your local elected officials may have the scoop on where you can get one-on-one help. The nonprofit Medicare Rights Center also has a national helpline, and a well-organized library of online guides.
  
• Brokers can be helpful, but be savvy: You want a broker who's going to talk with you about all your options — including switching to traditional Medicare and a supplemental plan. Ask if they sell plans from all available insurance carriers. And ask if they answer questions about your plan year-round, because insurance never stops being confusing.
  
• Double check what you see on Medicare.gov: Medicare's Plan Finder allows you to search plans online. But lists of doctors and drugs that are covered can sometimes be wrong. To be safe, double check with your doctor's office or a SHIP counselor, broker, or other Medicare assistor.
  
• Don't share your personal information with services you find online: Be careful where you share your personal information like your phone number. Some online agencies will sell your information, leading to spam calls and potentially even scam artists.
  
• Be mindful of the deadlines: Open enrollment for Medicare runs October 15, 2026 through December 7, 2026. The coverage starts January 1, 2027. If your plan is ending, you qualify for a "special enrollment period" to give you a little more time — until February 28, 2027. (For coverage that starts January 1, 2027, enroll by December 31.)

Emily Pisacreta is the senior producer for An Arm and a Leg, a podcast about the cost of healthcare produced in partnership with KFF Health News and distributed by KUOW, Seattle's NPR member station. 

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Los Angeles County registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office in a lawsuit that aimed to block them from counting the votes of roughly 20,000 people who are “likely” noncitizen voters. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Trump administration asked the 9th Circuit court of appeals to rule on the lawsuit barring a decision from the district judge assigned to the case. They set a deadline for Saturday.

Now, according to the LA County registrar’s office, at least 18 counties across the state have received similar letters. They have been given a 48 hour deadline to provide identifying information corresponding with ballots that the federal government believes were sent to noncitizens illegally registered to vote. The letter requests that county officials also sequester any ballots where citizenship cannot be verified.

“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

The Justice Department is asking counties to send information about the voters it suspects are noncitizens including social security numbers, ID information, a copy of their registration and more.

That information can help the government and state quickly assess each person suspected of illegally registering to vote, said the letter sent to San Bernardino County voting officials. The letter says the government’s list of suspected noncitizen voters includes 1,133 people from the inland Southern California county.

California’s secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar have opposed the federal government’s demands. In legal filings, lawyers for California say the request threatens to delay the certification of the vote and undermine the legitimacy of the November midterms. They have also argued that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that their demands risk disenfranchisement of citizens.

Voting is underway in California, with the state’s more than 23 million registered voters receiving ballots in the mail earlier this month. The state said in legal filings that over 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.

The letters on Friday came on the heels of statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork. Those charges could lead to years in prison.