Indy Digest: Oct. 8, 2026

As I write this, the Coachella Valley is in the midst of an extreme heat warning from the National Weather Service.

Good news! Cooler weather—substantially cooler weather—is coming this weekend. Bad news! That’s because a tropical storm appears to be heading straight for us.

Tropical Storm Rachel is currently spinning in the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles west of the tip of Baja California. Forecasters expect it to head northeast and make landfall in northern Baja California late Saturday/early Sunday.

The National Hurricane Center’s most recent forecast (issued at 2 p.m. this afternoon) says:

1. Rachel is expected to approach the coast of northern Baja California, Mexico, and the northern Gulf of California at tropical storm strength over the weekend, and a Tropical Storm Watch could be required for a portion of this area by tonight.

2. Strong gusty winds associated with the remnants of Rachel are expected to spread over interior portions of the Southwest United States, especially in areas of higher terrain, from this weekend into early next week.

3. Rachel and the moisture associated with the system will spread over portions of the Southwest United States and northern Baja California peninsula through this weekend. This will lead to increasing coverage of rainfall and potential for flash and urban flooding.

Here’s the National Hurricane Center’s current tracking map:

In other words: There’s a very real chance we’ll be dealing with wind and a LOT of rain this weekend.

Please: Take this seriously. Three years ago, Tropical Storm Hilary showed us how devastating cyclones can be here—and that storm could have been much worse. Rachel may very well fizzle into a nothingburger. But it may also bring us a LOT of rain—and it’s best to be prepared.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Congratulations to my friend Brad Fuhr, of KGAY Palm Springs and Gay Desert Guide—and the others who will be part of the Coachella Valley Journalism Hall of Fame’s class of 2027. He will be inducted along with the late Joan Behrmann (the first female executive editor of The Desert Sun); Héctor Félix Sr., the founding publisher of El Informador del Valle; and NBC Palm Springs fixture Thalia Hayden, at the Coachella Valley Journalism Foundation’s Hall of Fame awards ceremony on Monday, Jan. 25, at which legendary journalist Carl Bernstein will give the keynote. Get all of the details here.

• There’s a passage in this NPR story, headlined “ICE has quietly used this warehouse as a detention facility all summer, neighbors say,” that shows how truly evil—and I don’t use that word at all lightly—Stephen Miller and the Trump administration are right now: “NPR spoke to an official at a government contractor whose company was approached to convert several of the warehouses into ICE facilities. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the government. ‘No one that we spoke to at DHS was for this idea whatsoever. The deputy director told us point-blank that they had pushed back very hard on it. Everybody knew warehouses are horrible places to put people,’ he says. At a meeting with a deputy director at DHS, he says, his company proposed an alternative: FEMA-style camps in Texas that would be more humane. He says that idea was swiftly shot down. While White House adviser Stephen Miller was not at the meeting, they were told that this was not what Miller wanted. The contractor says his understanding from that meeting was that ‘Miller did not want the facilities that were comfortable. He did not want facilities that were humane. We were told point-blank that that was not what the administration wanted.’ ‘Steve Miller certainly seemed to make that point to everyone that he wanted it to be cruel.’ … In a statement to NPR, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said the contractor’s comments were ‘false hearsay allegation(s) from someone who has never even met or talked with Stephen Miller.’”

• Depressingly, tangentially related, from The Associated Press: “The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being ‘public.’ The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009. Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, ‘We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.’ Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow. The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution—let alone one as violent as a firing squad—has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.”

• I am not sure if this one is evil, or dumb, or both. The New York Times (gift link) reports: “It was a bustling Monday morning at a little pediatrician’s office in central Texas. … The doctor, who had been treating kids in the community for 20 years, was delighted when a woman she had cared for as a child came in with her newborn. Until recently, she had planned to continue her practice for years to come. But this year, she has begun to reconsider amid the stress and legal costs of defending herself in a statewide investigation by Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, who has accused doctors, drug companies and insurers of conspiring to push parents into vaccinating children. … In December, Dr. Rachel received a letter from the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division demanding her vaccine purchase records over the past 10 years. ‘The division believes that you are in possession, custody or control’ of material, ‘involving potential misleading or deceptive acts regarding incentives associated with the administration of childhood vaccines,’ it said, adding that such acts could be in violation of the state’s deceptive trade practices law.”

• Meanwhile, here in California, the efforts to sow doubt about elections—efforts which have no basis in fact or reality—continue on. Our partners at CalMatters report: “A national election-denier group with a history of funneling large sums of its donors’ money into its leaders’ pockets. A law firm that once admitted to falsely accusing thousands of voters of being non-citizens. A self-proclaimed election integrity advocate fundraising off disproven claims that spread across conservative media. These groups and others have been making dozens of requests for public records from California election officials in the lead up to the November election. As Republican Party leaders continue to make false and unproven allegations about California and national elections, CalMatters obtained public records request logs from the elections offices of 13 California counties to learn more about the organizations seeking information. Under California public records law, everyone has the legal right to request government documents. But election-fraud activists have a proven history of using information obtained from public agencies to add the veneer of credibility to disproven claims of election irregularities.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … Gatorade! The reason for this one? Dyes! CBS News says: “PepsiCo has recalled roughly 122,000 cases of Gatorade sold across the U.S. because the product contains undeclared dyes, the Food and Drug Administration said in a notice. The recall affects cases with 28-ounce bottles of Gatorade Lemon Lime, Gatorade Lemon Lime Zero, Gatorade Orange and Gatorade Orange Zero that were sold in 37 states (including California). The FDA said the beverages contain undeclared Yellow No. 6 and/or Yellow No. 5, artificial dyes that affect the product’s color. PepsiCo initiated the recall on Sept. 25. On Oct. 2, the FDA updated the recall to Class II, which means that exposure to the product ‘may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences,’ according to the regulatory agency.”

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