A study found that coastal California condors have seven times more DDT-related chemicals in their blood than that of their inland counterparts. Scientists suspect the poisoning is linked to the dumping of thousands of barrels of DDT off the coast of Los Angeles between the 1940s and 70s. The new findings build on research that has detected DDT or its effects in sea lions, dolphins, and humans. L.A. Times | S.F. Chronicle

Brian Dahle, a legislator from Lassen County who is running for governor, is favored to finish in the top two in the June 7 Republican primary. That’s the easy part. In November, he’ll face an electorate in which Democrats outnumber Republicans almost two to one. “What matters today is that California has the highest poverty rate, the highest crime, and inflation is out of control,” Dahle said. “I’m going to ask Californians one question: Do you think your life’s gonna be better with him at the helm for another four years?” L.A. Times

Redwoods owe their awesome height to their ability to ingest large amounts of water, and researchers say they’ve now unraveled the mystery of how they do it. The trees grow two types of leaves, one specialized for photosynthesis and another that scrapes moisture from the air — with a tall redwood collecting up to 14 gallons in just an hour. The division of labor allows them to thrive in both wet and dry habitats, a trait that could help them survive in a changing climate. Scientific American | The Conversation

Boiling acid pits in Lassen Volcanic National Park, underground rafting on the North Fork of the American River, and a camel dairy in the high desert east of San Diego.

John Bartell, a travel journalist who’s been just about anywhere you can imagine in California, gave his picks for 10 summer road trips in the Golden State. ABC10/YouTube (~4:45 mins)

In 2021, Chesa Boudin, the district attorney of San Francisco, secured no convictions for fentanyl dealing despite an overdose crisis that killed nearly 500 people, court records showed. His office won just three convictions overall for people accused of selling drugs, including meth and heroin. That’s compared with more than 90 convictions by his predecessor, George Gascón, in 2018. A major factor driving the shift: Boudin has sought to avoid triggering the deportation of suspects in the country illegally. SF Standard

Poll: 48% of San Franciscans plan to vote “yes” on recalling Boudin; 38% plan to vote “no.” SFGATE

Apple scrapped its plan to return to the office next week, citing a resurgence of Covid-19 cases. The reversal came as many employees have pushed back against the company’s demand that workers who grew accustomed to working remotely start showing up on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. One of Apple’s top artificial intelligence engineers, Ian Goodfellow, quit two weeks ago over the policy. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that he’s now joined Google. N.Y. Times | Washington Post

Survey: 64% of workers would consider quitting if asked to return to the office full-time. CNBC

“Elon Musk, chaos agent.”

The world’s richest man created more confusion over his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter, declaring Tuesday that “this deal cannot move forward” until the platform can prove that no more than 5% of its users are fake. Analysts said Musk was likely trying to negotiate a lower price. But Twitter’s board stood firm, releasing a statement that said: “We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.” N.Y. Times | A.P.

On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman chats with Carolyn Chen, author of the new book “Work Pray Code.” Chen argues that work has become the new religion in Silicon Valley as companies increasingly take on roles once held by churches, temples, and mosques. The result, she says, are workers who are not just materially dependent on their jobs, but also socially and spiritually dependent.

David Chou’s life was unraveling in the months before, police say, he opened fire inside a Laguna Woods church. Living in Las Vegas, his wife had returned to Taiwan to seek treatment for cancer in the midst of a divorce. Unable to pay his rent, he was evicted in March. “He was just a homeless old man,” a neighbor said. “He told me, ‘I just don’t care about my life anymore.'” It remained unclear what drew Chou to California. On Tuesday, he faced a murder charge that could carry the death penalty. L.A. Times | A.P.

Here’s an explainer on the confusion over Chou’s identity. 👉 New Bloom

A group of 200 women and men have come forward with accounts of unchecked sexual abuse by staff members at a facility for foster children near Los Angeles. On Monday, several former residents of MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte filed a lawsuit against the county, including descriptions of assault, drugging, and forced sexual acts between 1988 and 2001. One victim said he was abused when he was just 5. “It was a house of horrors for the children that lived there,” a lawyer said. L.A. Times | City News Service

Gifted education is shrinking in San Diego. The program was created to maximize the potential of bright students who don’t feel challenged by regular classes. The problem is the district has tended to identify far fewer children as gifted in schools with higher proportions of Black and Latino students. Yet rather than make the program more accessible, parents say officials have opted to let it dwindle. In 2012, 31% of eligible students were identified for the program. This year, the figure was 18%. S.D. Union-Tribune

The actor Dennis Hopper used to tell people he really wanted to remembered as a photographer. Between 1961 and 1968, he took about 18,000 pictures with a 35mm Nikon perpetually slung around his neck. The best known is probably “Double Standard,” shot on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. In an essay, Mark Rozzo, author of a new book on Dennis Hopper, called it among the great photos of Los Angeles: “The image is pure cacophony, a distillation of Los Angeles as riotous streetscape, the motorized city as information overload.” New Yorker