Today’s Headlines: O.C. supervisors approve first majority-Latino district

Hello, it’s Tuesday, Nov. 23, and have you been doing any early Black Friday shopping? We’d been hoping some of the lackluster deals would improve once Friday dawned. But industry experts just popped our balloon.

It’s shaping up to be the year of shallow discounts. Why? Inventory’s tight, thanks to the (you guessed it) supply chain. And because consumers are in buy mode, retailers are betting they can offset inflation with fewer deals while not hurting demand. What deals there are won’t be “anywhere close to satisfying,” one expert said.

It makes you want to Buy Nothing (a project that connects folks who give away stuff they don’t want, then ask for what they do want, which they often get. Gratis).

Now, on to today’s headlines.

TOP STORIES

O.C. supervisors approve, for the first time, a majority Latino district

In a historic vote, the Orange County Board of Supervisors has selected a redistricting map that creates a majority Latino district for the first time while also giving influence to Asian voters.

The lines for the supervisors’ districts have long been drawn in a way that makes it hard for Latinos to be elected to the board despite the ethnic group’s rapid growth in the county — Orange County hasn’t been majority white in nearly 20 years.

The move drew applause but also allegations of gerrymandering by the majority-GOP board to shut out Democrats in three of five districts.

More politics

• President Biden announced he was nominating Jerome Powell for a second four-year term as Fed chair.
• Michael Cohen completed his prison term after serving three years for Trump-related crimes.
• Columnist Mark Z. Barabak writes how a new podcast makes the case that George McGovern and a campaign 50 years ago helped to poison today’s politics.
• A committee investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to five more individuals, including former President Trump ally Roger Stone and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
• The White House on Tuesday said it had ordered 50 million barrels of oil released from the strategic reserve to bring down energy costs, in coordination with other countries including China.
  

Sign up for our California Politics newsletter to get the best of The Times’ state politics reporting and the latest action in Sacramento.

About 44,000 LAUSD students may lose in-person instruction

On the one hand, the fact that 80% of LAUSD students are complying with a COVID-19 vaccination mandate is big progress. On the other, it means about 44,000 kids may still be at risk of losing in-person classes when spring semester starts Jan. 10. School officials say they expect the number of vaccinated students to increase “as families upload their vaccination records to our Daily Pass system.”

Families that don’t comply will have to enroll their children outside L.A. Unified or transfer them to an independent study program that has been beset by staffing shortages and instability.

More top coronavirus headlines

• The COVID-19 surge affecting Central California is so dire that health officials are pleading with state officials to make it easier to transfer hospital patients to areas including Los Angeles County.
• Colorado offers a cautionary tale of how things can go south quickly, even in a state where many residents are vaccinated.
• As another pandemic Thanksgiving nears, families navigate plans with unvaccinated relatives.
• More than 90% of federal workers received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Monday’s deadline set by President Biden.

Stay up to date on pandemic developments, coronavirus case counts and vaccine news with Coronavirus Today.

For poor farmworkers, there is no escape from heat and high prices

Fewer and fewer Californians are now showing up for the blueberry harvest in the Northwest. Experts and farmers say economics and a lack of affordable housing are largely to blame.

But it’s not the only reason. The places so many farmworkers considered relatively pleasant to pick are no longer the same as summers in the Pacific Northwest are getting hotter and drier.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

The L.A. Auto Show is back. A child jumps from rock to rock in a virtual river at the Subaru display on the opening day of the show, which is back after a pandemic hiatus. It runs through Nov. 28 at the L.A. Convention Center.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

CALIFORNIA

A new breed of takeover robbers hits luxury retailers. A weekend in which high-end stores in famed shopping districts in California were hit by large and seemingly sophisticated theft rings has generated national attention as the holiday shopping season begins and retailers are hoping shoppers finally return as the coronavirus crisis eases.

San Jose State settles for $3.3 million with former athletes over sexual abuse allegations. The payout follows a federal civil rights investigation that found San Jose State did not take adequate action in response to the athletes’ reports and retaliated against two employees who raised repeated concerns to the university.

“Fat Leonard” — the central figure in a U.S. Navy corruption case — breaks his silence on a surprise podcast. He secretly recorded a podcast with a Singapore-based journalist, offering for the first time publicly his own account of the bribery scandal that has rocked the Navy, led to the prosecution of dozens of military officials and put hundreds more under scrutiny.

NATION-WORLD

Florida school massacre families will receive millions in a settlement. Relatives of most of those killed and wounded in the 2018 Parkland, Fla., shooting announced they had reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the federal government over the FBI’s failure to stop the gunman even though it had received information he intended to attack.

The SUV driver who plowed into a Christmas parade was fleeing a domestic dispute. He is accused of killing at least five people and injuring 48. Nine patients — most of them children — were in critical condition. Waukesha, Wis., police say he’ll face five charges of intentional homicide.

Florida clears the Groveland Four of the 1949 rape of a white woman. A judge officially exonerated four African American men of the false accusation that they raped a white woman seven decades ago, making partial and belated amends for one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of Florida’s Jim Crow era.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

The Grammy nominations for 2022 are being revealed today. Taylor Swift, Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo were all expected to be nominees, as well as Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett.

Rita Moreno gets candid in a documentary on her decades-long career. With the documentary “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It,” director Mariem Pérez Riera fits this path-breaking, EGOT-winning seven-decade career into 90 minutes, with the aid of a subject who can’t help but express herself with radical candor.

Caitríona Balfe has learned you must “create your own destiny.” The actor reflects on “Belfast,” “Outlander” and waiting her entire career to be offered a project in Ireland.

BUSINESS

Netflix’s next acquisition: a Vancouver VFX studio. The company said it would acquire visual effects firm Scanline VFX as it ramped up its production in Europe and Asia. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Two former Netflix employees have withdrawn a labor complaint. The pair, who raised concerns about transphobic remarks in Dave Chappelle’s latest special, “The Closer,” withdrew an accusation they had lodged with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company tried to stop them from speaking up about working conditions.

SPORTS

Mike Bohn has been tasked with resurrecting USC football with one perfect hire. As he sells the USC community on his vision, his approach could not stand in starker contrast to his predecessors.

Eight decades of Bruins standouts look back at the UCLA-Gonzaga Final Four thriller. They also make their predictions for the rematch between the top-ranked Bulldogs and second-ranked UCLA on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Should Dave Roberts stay or go? For the Dodgers Dugout newsletter, Houston Mitchell surveyed readers on that question, and got 68,493 responses. A majority want the Dodgers to keep the coach. Houston shares his thoughts.

OPINION

He quit Fox News after over a decade. Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg writes: I left Fox News after 12 years. Tucker Carlson’s “Patriot Purge” was the final straw.

The surge in port pollution is threatening our lungs. It’s time for air quality officials to drop the hammer and regulate pollution from the ports of L.A. and Long Beach, where a jam of diesel-spewing cargo ships has nearly doubled emissions during the pandemic.

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA

Call it a fraternity of stink, and Carson is the newest member. Despite weeks of a lingering stench, residents can’t quite agree on how to describe it, but they’re not alone. Places in Los Angeles and beyond have had nostrils assaulted by all manner of stank for years, whether it was the “Big Stink” of 2012 or the Aliso Canyon leak.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Nov. 25, 1937: Leo Carrillo — an actor who became a well-known California conservationist — hosts Thanksgiving dinner for local children at La Golondrina restaurant in Los Angeles 84 years ago this week.

(Los Angeles Times)

We appreciate that you took the time to read Today’s Headlines! Comments or ideas? Feel free to drop us a note at headlines@latimes.com.

— Amy Hubbard and Laura Blasey