President Trump talks peace and security in Israel, how support for charter schools is growing in Los Angeles, the latest news from the Cannes Film Festival.
Trump in Israel fulfills the 'dream of generations' for some SoCal Jews
President Trump arrived at Israel's Ben-Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv early Monday morning local time. He received a warm reception from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
Israel is the second nation Trump has visited on his nine-day foreign tour. On the docket: Regional security. He'll talk about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with leaders on both sides.
Faith communities around the world will be watching those meetings very closely, including the more than 600,000 Jews who live in the LA area.
What will they be looking for? And how are they reacting to the President's visit?
Take Two put that question to Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder, and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
Charter schools to likely get a boost on national and local levels
Proponents for a parent’s right to choose private education and get federal money to pay for it, may be getting some good news today. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is unveiling her new "School Choice" platform today in Indianapolis.
In Los Angeles, the focus of debate is on charter schools. Votes are still being counted from last week's election but it seems like the LAUSD school board will have a majority of members supported by the Charter School Association.
So what does this shift, both locally and nationally, means for getting an education in LA?
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Mikhail Zinshteyn. He writes for the online publication, EdSource.org, and he’s spent some time looking into the public, charter, private school tug-of-war that’s been going in on education for decades.
To hear the full interview with Mikhail Zinshteyn, click on the blue Media Player above.
The effort to remake remedial courses at community colleges
California community college system is huge with 2.5 million students, but not all of them are headed down a road to success.
Some are forced to take non-credit remedial classes before they really get started on their degree, and Katie Hern argues that this sets them up for failure.
Hern, co-founder of the California Acceleration Project, joins Take Two to make the case for a system where these same students are thrown into the deep end with harder classes from the get go.
To listen to the full interview with Katie Hern, click on the blue Media Player above.
'It was drama from start to finish': A recap of the California Democratic Party convention
The California Democrats' sometimes raucous state convention wrapped on Sunday. When the dust settled there was a new party chair and droves of unhappy people.
Eric Bauman narrowly defeated progressive newcomer, Kimberly Ellis. His victory was met with boos and crowds chanting "shame."
The tight race further highlighted democratic divisions at the state level and it may not bode well for the party in the future. Politico's Carla Marinucci was there and she joined A Martinez to discuss some convention highlights.
"It was drama from start to finish."
"This was at the end of a caustic contest between Eric Bauman who is, of course, a longtime party operative...and this newcomer, Kimberly Ellis, who's been working for Emerge America, a woman's political group.
This was sort of cast as this contest between the "Berniecrats" with Ellis who said new faces, new voices for the party are necessary. And Bauman who said that California has a good record of producing democrats in higher office and he wanted to continue that. So, it was insider vs. outsider...
This contest came down so close, 62 votes out of 3,000 cast and Kimberly Ellis's folks just said that they thought the election was stolen....Ellis says she wants to see an audit, documentation of the votes. She did not appear on stage with him, there was no unity hand raising at the end. It was drama from start to finish."
The division is affecting the state party
"This is five months after the election of Donald Trump, you would've thought the 'Berniecrats' and the Hilary folks would've been able to sort of put it aside and move forward and it's very clear that that still hasn't happened.
That's what party officials are worried about. At the convention people like Christine Pelosi and John Burton were saying, 'Look, we got to have harmony. We got to have unity because there's a lot to do.' When you're talking about 2018, California can be key to flipping back the house and if you're going to have this kind of division going forward and it looks like the bitterness over this contest can go on, democrats have got to be worried about how it's going to affect things like fundraising, organizing, get out the vote, all this stuff is at stake and it was on full display this weekend at the party convention in Sacramento."
Gubernatorial candidates went 'full peacock'
"This was a moment for them and this is where you saw Gavin Newsom the frontrunner of the race, he's lieutenant governor, he's got more money, he's ahead of the polls. He was out in full display, he had a huge concert with Common. He was doing multiple events, back to back events. He was all over the place.
The rest of them used their moment. State Treasurer John Chiang did back to back interviews with folks, he really seems to have upped his game in terms of his ability to get his message out.
Antonio Villaraigosa, he was there and really really taking off the gloves on Gavin Newsom, referring to Davos democrats, that world economic forum in Switzerland, you know, for the elite and talking about how you can't go after Donald Trump just on twitter. That was definitely a throw at Gavin Newsom...
Everybody was watching all of these folks. This is an important race coming up, who's going to succeed Jerry Brown? This was the moment for them to make contact with those grassroots activists and up their name recognition."
To listen to the full interview, click the blue play button above.
Rams/Chargers stadium construction rained out?
The opening of the new football stadium that will be the future home for the Rams and the Chargers will be delayed a year, until 2020.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell blamed it on the rain.
Some fans are skeptical fans while some sports journalists simply aren't buying the reasoning behind the postponement. They figure there's likely more to this story.
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Rick Eckstein. He's a sociologist at Villanova University, and the author of "Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle over Building Sports Stadiums."