Get Ready for a Wet Weekend; How Fox News Mislead Viewers (Again)–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Nov. 13, 2025

Indy Digest: Nov. 13, 2025

If you have any plans outdoors over the next several days … well, you will probably want to reconsider those plans.

A significant atmospheric river is arriving in California tonight/tomorrow morning—and it’s going to bring the Coachella Valley some legit rain, if the forecasts are correct. The National Weather Service says between a quarter-inch and a half-inch of rain is possible on Friday night, with up to three-quarters of an inch of rain possible on Saturday. After that … the NWS shows “a chance of showers” locally through Tuesday night. Here’s a handy little graphic the NWS office in San Diego posted earlier today.

This significant late-fall series of storms has led to the postponement of a number of events. Earlier today, the Palm Springs Cultural Center announced this Saturday’s farmers’ market in Palm Springs has been cancelled, while the inaugural Desert Hot Springs Certified Farmers’ Market is being pushed back a week, from Sunday, Nov. 16, to Sunday, Nov. 23.

Other events being postponed include:

• The Coachella Valley Filipino Festival, which is being delayed a week, to Saturday, Nov. 22.

• The Coachella Valley Horse Rescue’s “Raising Hay” Fundraiser, which has been rescheduled for Saturday, Dec. 13.

If you go out this weekend, be prepared to deal with rain. There may be flooding, and the roads through the washes could be closed. Be safe!

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight writes about drama at the Palm Springs Art Museum: “On Sept. 29, the Palm Springs Art Museum announced the selection of a new director, the fourth person who would hold the institution’s top administrative position in just seven years. One week later, the chair of the search committee tasked with filling that position, trustee Patsy Marino, resigned from the museum’s board citing ‘inappropriate interference and attempts to influence the process’ on the part of the museum’s executive committee, individual trustees and other unidentified museum staff and donors. So far, two more of 22 trustees have followed Marino out the door, after she addressed a carefully written, 1,200-word letter to the full board warning that ‘PSAM’s already poor reputation’ would be further damaged by the selection. … The museum’s chief curator Christine Vendredi, former administrator of the corporate art collection of French luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton, was named the museum’s director. She was an unconventional choice. … She joined the staff only last year, with no prior nonprofit museum experience. Marino, in a copy of the resignation letter obtained by The Times, revealed that no other candidates were interviewed for the post.” (If you hit a paywall, here’s an accessible ARTNews piece regarding the controversy.)

• The Trump administration, which supported Texas’ efforts this year to give the GOP more likely congressional seats via a redistricting plan, is now joining a suit against the voter-approved California initiative that would give Dems more likely congressional seats via a redistricting plan. Reuters explains: “The Justice Department intervened as a plaintiff in a Nov. 5 lawsuit by the California Republican Party and 19 registered voters in the state. The case challenges California’s ballot initiative Proposition 50, which allows temporary use of new congressional district maps. … In August, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new Republican-backed map into law that was aimed at flipping five Democratic-held seats. Civil rights groups have sued over the new Texas map, claiming it reduces the electoral power of minority voters. … The Republican-led lawsuit in California alleged that the state’s redistricting effort violates provisions of the U.S. Constitution. It said California illegally drew new congressional district lines based on race to favor Hispanic voters.”

• Sort-of related to the intro to Monday’s Indy Digest: ProPublica looks at the role Fox News had in deceptively painting Portland, Ore., as a dangerous place before the president sent troops to the city: “ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed more than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counter-protesters and others in the three months preceding the Sept. 4 broadcast. The review found that the news network repeatedly provided a misleading picture of what was happening in Portland. As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland. Fox News chyrons about Portland the week of Trump’s remarks carried phrases like ‘violent demonstrators,’ ‘protesters riot,’ ‘anti-I.C.E. Portland rioters’ and ‘war-like protests.’ One host said protesters were attacking federal officers. This portrayal of protesters as routinely instigating violence or rioting was also misleading.”

• So it turns out a surprise clause in the just-passed government funding bill outlaws most hemp products in the country. CNBC says: “The hemp industry is bracing for layoffs, production reductions and billions in lost revenue after Congress passed a government funding bill late Wednesday containing a surprise provision that will ban nearly all hemp-derived consumer products. Hemp, a derivative of the cannabis plant, was legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill for industrial uses like rope, textiles and seed. But the law’s broad definition created a loophole in federal rules on THC—the psychoactive compound responsible for a high—experts said, allowing producers to extract psychoactive cannabinoids from federally legal hemp. Companies used that opening to flood the market with gummies, drinks and vapes capable of delivering a marijuana-like high. The new ban, tucked into legislation ending the longest shutdown in history, outlaws products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. Industry executives said that threshold will wipe out 95% of the $28 billion hemp retail market when it takes effect in a year. For reference, a single hemp gummy typically contains 2.5 to 10 milligrams of THC, according to the Journal of Cannabis Research.”

• Today’s recall news involves … Toyotas! CBS News says: “Toyota is recalling 126,691 Tundra and Lexus models because the engines can stall, increasing the risk of a crash, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In a Nov. 6 recall notice, NHTSA said that ‘machining debris’ may not have been removed from the cars’ engines during manufacturing, which could cause the engines not to start or to turn off while driving. The impacted vehicles include: Toyota Tundra, Model Year 2022-2024; Lexus LX600, Model Year 2022-2024; and Lexus GX550, Model Year 2024.”

• And finally … we’ll conclude with a rare bit of good news regarding press freedom. The Associated Press says: “A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom. Marion County sheriff’s officers were involved in the raid on the Marion County Record and helped draft search warrants used by Marion city police to enter the newspaper’s offices, the publisher’s home and the home of a local city council member. … The raid prompted five federal lawsuits against the county, the city of Marion and local officials. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother Joan, the paper’s co-owner, died of a heart attack the next day, something he blames on the stress of the raid. During the raid, authorities seized cellphones and computers from the newsroom and rifled through reporters’ desks. Search warrants linked the raid to a dispute between a local restaurant owner and the newspaper, which had obtained a copy of her driving record while reporting on her request for a city liquor license. The raid also came after the newspaper had dug into the background of the police chief at the time who led the raid.”

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