The Trump Administration’s Insidious Assaults on History; a Lot of Nissans Get Recalled–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Feb. 19, 2026

Indy Digest: Feb. 19, 2026

A quote from Grammy Award winning songwriter Terry Abrahamson, in a piece we published earlier today about his new book, really stuck with me:

“There’s an assault on Black history in America and the validity of all those lessons, and I think it’s very important that the Blues exists as a vessel that carries all that Black history all around the world, and it has for over 100 years,” he said. 

This assault on Black history—and other histories the Trump administration does not like—is one of the most awful and insidious things happening today in our country. (A lot of awful and insidious things are happening right now, so that’s really saying something.)

Basically, if history is not focused on straight, cis, white people—men preferably—then the Trump administration doesn’t want it around.

In the rare cases when the Trump administration does admit non-white people have played a vital role in our country’s history, those admissions tend to be—MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT—poorly handled. For example, here are the first four paragraphs of an Associated Press piece about a reception Trump held yesterday to honor Black History Month:

President Donald Trump hosted a White House reception for Black History Month on Wednesday, less than two weeks after he sparked a bipartisan outcry by posting a racist video on social media that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle.

Trump on Wednesday didn’t reference the video, which he deleted after a widespread backlash but said he won’t apologize for posting. He also did not reference Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, but spoke of other history-making Black Americans.

“We celebrate Black History Month. We honor the memory of those who came before us by continuing their legacy,” he said.

Trump name-checked prominent Black Americans among his supporters, including boxer Mike Tyson, whom Trump praised for defending him against accusations of racism, and rapper Nicki Minaj, whose skin he praised as “so beautiful” while commenting on how long her fingernails were.

While Trump is singing the praises of a convicted rapist, his administration is doing everything it can to erase uncomfortable but important and very real portions of U.S. history. In an article for The Conversation, Timothy Welbeck, the director of the Center for Anti-Racism at Temple University, tells the story of Ona Judge, Martha Washington’s enslaved chamber maid—until she escaped in 1796—and an exhibit that honored her.

Welbeck writes:

Before January 2026, those who wished to learn about Judge could literally stand on the same walkway in Philadelphia where Judge once stood when she chose to flee. Several footprints, shaped like a woman’s shoes and embedded into the pathway outside of where the president’s House once stood, memorialize the beginning of Judge’s journey. These footprints composed part of an exhibit examining the paradox between slavery, freedom and the nation’s founding.

The exhibit, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation,” also included 34 explanatory panels bolted onto brick walls along that sidewalk. They provided biographical details about the nine people the Washingtons owned while living in the presidential mansion. The exhibit presented the sobering reality that our nation’s first president enslaved people while he held the nation’s highest office.

This changed in late January when the National Park Service dismantled the slavery exhibit at Philadelphia Independence National Historic Park. The removal sparked intense, immediate outrage from people across the country dismayed by the attempt to suppress unfavorable aspects of American history.

Downplaying the fact that our first president was a slave owner … that’s the very definition of whitewashing.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• An update: The Food and Drug Administration backtracked and agreed to review Moderna’s mRNA flu-vaccine application after all. Politico explains what happened: “The FDA’s decision this week to reverse course and review Moderna’s seasonal flu vaccine application followed a meeting in which President Donald Trump expressed frustration to Commissioner Marty Makary over the agency’s handling of vaccine issues, according to two people familiar with details of the meeting. Makary was called to the White House Thursday, two days after the company disclosed the agency’s letter refusing to accept the application, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the matter. … The meeting transpired at a time when Republicans are trying to play down the Trump administration’s controversial moves on vaccines ahead of the midterm elections. Recommendations for several longstanding childhood shots have been downgraded since Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, took the helm of the Health and Human Services Department a year ago. Polls have consistently shown that Americans are broadly supportive of vaccines. The FDA accepted Moderna’s application to license its seasonal flu vaccine after the company proposed an amended filing to address the agency’s concerns with its clinical trial design, the messenger RNA vaccine maker said Wednesday.”

• Late Show host Stephen Colbert accused CBS of lying after the network claimed it did not prohibit the show from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat. (Instead, the Late Show posted the interview online—where it was watched by far more people as a result.) CNBC says: “Late Show host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night called CBS’ denial of his claim that it blocked the broadcast of his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico ‘crap’—and urged the network and its parent, Paramount Skydance, to stand up to the ‘bullies’ in the Trump administration. … ‘The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,’ the network said. ‘The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett [D-Texas], and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled,’ CBS said. Colbert scoffed at the statement during Tuesday’s show. ‘They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS lawyers who, for the record, approved every script that goes on the air,’ Colbert said. ‘In fact, between the monologue I did last night, and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage,’ he said. ‘I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers. Something that had never, ever happened before, and they told us the language they wanted me to use to describe that equal time exception, and I used that language.’”

• The mountains around the Coachella Valley are white! The Los Angeles Times reports on what’s happened up in Big Bear: “Over the last three days, Big Bear Mountain Resort has gotten at least 68 inches of snow. The resort closed on Thursday due to ‘risk of snow slides and unsafe snow conditions.’ Although the worst of the storms has passed, people need to remain cautious while out in the slick and cold conditions, officials said. A winter storm warning is in effect until 10 p.m. Thursday for the San Bernardino County mountains. Big Bear Mountain Resort forecasts receiving an additional 5 inches of snow Thursday.”

• A massive cyberattack has hit the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Our friends at the Mississippi Free Press report: “A devastating cyberattack using ransomware hit the University of Mississippi Medical Center Thursday morning, bringing down its IT network and forcing the university to temporarily close its clinics and cancel appointments and surgeries all over the state due to the outage. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, confirmed the cause of the attack to the Mississippi Free Press at a press event. Countless systems statewide remain down, with clinical operations across dozens of clinics cancelled until further notice. ‘Early this morning, we sustained a cyber attack, which impacted our IT network and many of our systems, including our electronic medical records system, EPIC. We have triggered our emergency operations plan: this impacts all medical center locations,’ Woodward said. Emergency services are still available at UMMC, with downtime protocols in effect. Shortly before press time, an update from UMMC confirmed that all clinics would remain closed tomorrow, and all elective surgeries scheduled for Friday were cancelled. An exception is the dialysis clinic at the Jackson Medical Mall, which remains operational and open for scheduled appointments. ‘Patients in our hospital and in our emergency department are being cared for. Clinical equipment and operations remain functional,’ Woodward continued.”

• A biologist, writing for The Conversation, explains coffee wilt disease—and what scientists are doing to learn about and battle the coffee-crop-destroying malady: “For anyone who relies on coffee to start their day, coffee wilt disease may be the most important disease you’ve never heard of. This fungal disease has repeatedly reshaped the global coffee supply over the past century, with consequences that reach from African farms to cafe counters worldwide. Infection with the fungus Fusarium xylarioides results in a characteristic ‘wilt’ in coffee plants by blocking and reducing the plant’s ability to transport water. This blockage eventually kills the plant. Some of the most destructive plant pathogens in the world infect their hosts in this way. Since the 1990s, outbreaks of coffee wilt have cost over $1 billion, forced countless farms to close and caused dramatic drops in national coffee production. In Uganda, one of Africa’s largest producers, coffee production did not recover to pre-outbreak levels until 2020, decades after coffee wilt was first detected there. And in 2023, researchers found evidence that coffee wilt disease had resurfaced across all coffee-producing regions of Ivory Coast. Studying the genetics of plant pathogens is crucial to understanding why this disease continues to return and how to prevent another major outbreak.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … Nissans! CBS News says: “Nissan issued two recalls, affecting a total of 642,698 Rogue compact SUVs, because of separate problems with the vehicles’ gears and engines that can cause a loss of power, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The first recall involves 323,917 Rogue vehicles, model years 2023-2025, that are equipped with 3-cylinder 1.5L variable-compression turbo (VC-Turbo) engines. NHTSA said the vehicles’ engine bearings could fail, resulting in hot oil potentially leaking and increasing the risk of a fire. … The second recall includes 318,781 Rogues, model years 2024-2025, that have the same type of variable-compression turbo engine. The gears in the electronic throttle body assembly could break in these vehicles, increasing the risk of an accident, NHTSA said.”

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