Artemis II Offers a Bit of Inspiration During an Otherwise Awful News Week; Expect Windblown Dust Over the Next Few Days–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: April 9, 2026

Indy Digest: April 9, 2026

As far as I am concerned, this has been the most disconcerting news week since the arrival of the pandemic.

When the week started, the president was threatening to annihilate a whole civilization. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, because the Trump administration made some sort of arrangement with Pakistan for Pakistan to say it was brokering a cease-fire Tuesday evening.

That cease fire has not really played out all that well, but, hey, we’ve been able to stop worrying about the president trying to wipe out Tehran for a couple days. So that’s something, I guess.

Amidst all of the concerning chaos, there’s been another news story that’s offered a wonderful dose of hope and joy—a tiny bit of assurance that humanity is not completely deranged.

That story: The Artemis II mission.

As the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this week:

NASA’s Artemis II crew flew past the moon Monday, traveling farther from Earth than any humans in history and becoming the first to see some sections of the moon’s far side in the sunlight with the naked eye.

The four astronauts, sitting in the dark of their capsule, described the far side in eloquent detail: geometric patterns of browns, blues and greens amid the moon’s typical shades of gray. Scratches and steep canyon walls dotting the lunarscape. Some areas looking as if ponds of choppy water, invigorated by winds, had suddenly frozen. Others, as if they had been paved over.

Lunar scientists and geologists responded with nods, grins and lively discussion back in Mission Control.

“I just had an overwhelming sense of being moved by looking at the moon,” said NASA astronaut and Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch. “The moon really is its own unique body in the universe. … When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle.”

NASA has been releasing a stream of amazing photographs from the mission, like this one, taken on April 6:

Awesome.

After seeing and experiencing things that no other humans have, the Artemis II astronauts—Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen—are on their way home. If all goes according to plan, they’ll splash down tomorrow (Friday), a little after 5 p.m. Pacific, off the coast of San Diego. With every ounce of my being, I wish them a safe journey.

In the midst of what has been an otherwise a daunting, terrible news week, these astronauts have offered inspiration—and maybe even a wee bit of hope.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Just in time for the big music festivals, the South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued a windblown dust advisory for the Coachella Valley. From a news release: “Windblown dust and high particle pollution (PM10) in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups or higher Air Quality Index (AQI) categories are expected on Thursday and Friday in Coachella Valley. Unhealthy or higher AQI is expected at times on Thursday night. The northwest Coachella Valley will see the highest impacts. Windblown dust is due to high winds with gusts up to 45 mph expected Thursday and Friday across the Coachella Valley.” Get current air quality data here.

• Green Room Theatre Co. is encouraging students to create works regarding the history of Palm Springs’ Section 14—and the deadline is tomorrow, April 10. From a news release: “The call invites high school and college level students to explore the Staging Section 14 Community Archive and create original works inspired by its materials, including short theatre scenes, poems, visual art, or songs rooted in Section 14 history. The College of the Desert Social Justice Club and GRTCCV will select submissions from each category to be featured at the Community Archive Listening Session on April 23, 2026.” Learn more here!

• The state’s Professional Fiduciaries Bureau is supposed to protect the state’s seniors from unscrupulous or incompetent conservators. An investigation by our partners at Calmatters shows the bureau is failing miserably at that job. Here are a few reasons why: “The information it maintains on fiduciaries is often kept secret or is sometimes inaccurate, giving the people who rely on the industry little information about who they should — and shouldn’t—trust. The agency operates largely on an honor system, leaving it to fiduciaries to report publicly whether they’ve been removed from a case for misconduct. The bureau itself has puttered along with no leader and a few employees. Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t filled its open chief position for a year and a half. In fact, it has just one employee at the moment, because two of its other three positions are also vacant, an agency spokesperson told CalMatters. The bureau oversees nearly 900 licensed fiduciaries; it said it also gets support from its parent agency, the Department of Consumer Affairs.”

• Journalists at one of the nation’s best nonprofit news outlets engaged in a one-day strike. The New York Times (gift link here) explains why: “ProPublica journalists walked off the job on Wednesday, for 24 hours, after more than two years of negotiations that failed to yield a deal for a union contract. It was the first major labor action at ProPublica, one of the country’s largest nonprofit newsrooms. About 150 of its workers, including reporters, copy editors and communications staff, unionized in 2023 and have been negotiating a contract since. The core disagreements were over wage increases, layoff protections and the use of artificial intelligence, said Katie Campbell, a video journalist who has worked at ProPublica for eight years. She said workers wanted a say in how A.I. was being adopted at the company, protections against being replaced by the technology and transparency for readers about its use. … Newsrooms around the country are grappling with similar issues over the use of A.I. in reporting, editing and disseminating journalism. Some embarrassing errors, such as Bloomberg’s corrections for A.I.-generated summaries or the inadvertent publication of A.I.-written articles, have raised the stakes. Collective bargaining agreements at unionized newsrooms increasingly contain language that offer protections against replacing jobs with A.I. and guardrails for its use.”

• Amazon is ending support for some older Kindle devices—and that means they can no longer access the Kindle store? Why? No good reason, really. Wired reports: “On May 20, Amazon will stop supporting any of its Kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier. That means these devices—even if they’re perfectly functional—won’t be able to connect to the Kindle Store to download new ebooks. Amazon says affected devices include the first- and second-generation Kindles, the Kindle DX and DX Graphite, the Kindle Keyboard, the Kindle 4, the Kindle Touch, the Kindle 5, and the first-generation Kindle Paperwhite. According to The Verge, Kindle Fire devices will also be affected on the ebook front, though other apps will still work on the device. The move doesn’t completely turn your ebook reader into e-waste. On the older devices, you can still read the books you have downloaded. You can also manually download documents via USB cable. It’s unclear whether services like Libby will work, which uses the Kindle Store to deliver downloads. (Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Other recent examples of companies killing parts of the software on older devices include Spotify ending support for its Car Thing in 2024 and Google discontinuing its older Nest thermostats in 2025. In February, Netflix ended support for nearly 87 million older devices.”

• A Bay Area coffee chain is removing pride flags from all locations—angering a lot of customers and employees as a result. SFGate reports: “Philz, the coffee chain that was founded in San Francisco and has been operating for more than 20 years, is facing backlash for making the decision to remove pride flags from its cafes. According to a petition that employees launched a few days ago, this ‘recent decision to remove pride flags from their stores has left many team members and customers feeling confounded and unsupported.’ … But Philz CEO Mahesh Sadarangani says this measure will make the Bay Area-born cafe chain more welcoming to customers. ‘Our longstanding support of the LGBTQIA+ community is unchanged,’ Sadarangani said in an emailed statement to SFGATE. ‘We are working toward creating a more consistent, inclusive experience across all our stores, including removing a variety of flags and other decor. This is a change in how our stores look, not in who we are,’ he continued, adding that the company plans to hold a pride event in June. ‘Mahesh Sadarangani is making a really s—tty decision and it’s bound to backfire, I have no idea what he’s thinking,’ a person who said they were an employee wrote on social media.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … steam cleaners! USA Today explains: “Millions of Bissell cleaning machines sold at popular retailers, including Target, Walmart and Amazon, have been recalled after causing over a hundred reported burn injuries. According to an April 9 warning from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 1.7 million Bissell-branded steam cleaners have accessories that could detach from the main machine, allowing hot water or steam to escape. Bissell has received 206 reports of the cleaners’ attachments unexpectedly disconnecting from the machines as of April 9, resulting in 161 burn injuries and at least one second-degree burn.” Eek!

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