On Monday Take Two discusses the latest on the drought, recent evidence that could impact the Michael Brown case and what gold medalist Mark Schultz, the brother of murdered gold medalist Dave Schultz, says happened in real life to inspire the new film "Foxcatcher."
Drought: For diminishing groundwater, California is center of a global crisis
Forecasters say the chances of a wet El Niño winter seem less likely, dashing hopes that rain will provide relief for the parched West.
That puts more pressure on a source of water that's already deeply taxed, not only in the West, but around the world: groundwater.
Groundwater accounts for as much as a third of total water use worldwide.
For a look at the state of groundwater depletion and what that means for global water security, Take Two turns to Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Drought takes toll on wildlife
Wildlife is also suffering from the effects of the drought.
Here in the West, three brutally dry years are making survival difficult for animals who depend on meadows, streams and wetlands.
Scientists say they're seeing signs of trouble in everything from ducks to salmon.
More on this from the California Report's Daniel Potter.
Michael Brown case: New evidence provides more on timeline of events
People across the country are awaiting the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri.
The small St. Louis suburb has been the focus of national attention since August. That's when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer, Darren Wilson.
There have been wildly different accounts of what happened that day.
Now new evidence - police radio calls and video - provide more information on the timeline of the events.
Robert Patrick joins Take Two for more. He's a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Disappearance of Mexican students points to broader corruption among officials
Recently, Take Two has reported on a tumultuous story out of the Mexican city of Iguala where 43 college students went missing in September.
Now, the former mayor of the city, José Luis Abarca, has been charged with six counts of aggravated homicide and one count of attempted homicide.
For more on this, Take Two is joined by reporter Tim Johnson with McClatchy's Mexico Bureau. As Johnson recently reported, officials who cover up such incidents are rarely brought to account themselves.
On The Lot: Bill Cosby's future, 'Dumb and Dumber to' and more
Stupid reigns at the box office, "Foxcatcher" catches fire and how accusations against Bill Cosby might ripple in Hollywood. It's "On The Lot," Take Two's weekly peek behind the scenes in Hollywood.
And with Rebecca Keegan filling out, John Horn, the host of The Frame - Southern California Public Radio's new arts and entertainment show - is in.
1) While one of Cosby's accusers recently wrote about the media's delayed reaction to her rape claims, Deadline details how the accusations could impact Cosby's career.
2) "Dumb and Dumber To" does surprisingly well at the box office.
3) As does "Foxcatcher" in its limited market release.
The true story of 'Foxcatcher': Mark Schultz remembers his brother Dave's murder by John du Pont
The 2014 film, "Foxcatcher," is about the real-life murder of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz at the hands of his benefactor John du Pont (watch the trailer below).
But the story of how the two met is still being told by Dave's surviving brother Mark in the new memoir of the same name, Foxcatcher.
It began at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles when the Schultz brothers each walked away with a gold medal for freestyle wrestling.
They were at the top of their game, but they struggled to survive when the spotlight of the games faded away.
"We weren't getting any support from USA Wrestling or the government or anybody else," says Mark Schultz. "I considered joining the military or going on welfare.
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The L.A. City Ethics Commission alleges Renette Anderson misused her position for personal benefit.
"I couldn't even get married, I was so poor. I needed stability. That's when John du Pont came along."
Who is John du Pont?
Multimillionaire John du Pont, heir to the du Pont chemical fortune, had made a name for himself bankrolling various athletes through Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
He used his largesse to get in the good graces of many within the local community, even the police department.
Du Pont invited Mark Schultz to join him at his estate, Foxcatcher Farm, where he'd created a wrestling training facility. Schultz, seeing few other opportunities out there, reluctantly agreed.
But he says there was something more sinister lying underneath those good intentions.
"He wanted to use my name to climb up the ladders of power of USA Wrestling," Schultz says, "basically build his credibility off of my name, my words, my success."
Unnerving erratic behavior
Du Pont's erratic behavior also unnerved him for the time that he was at Foxcatcher.
"[Du Pont would] come into my room with a gun, waiving it around me and my girlfriend," Schultz recalls. "He'd walk into the wrestling room with a gun, waiving it around the Villanova wrestlers and me."
But despite the danger, Schultz felt that du Pont was somewhat manageable and stayed for several years. Plus, he didn't have much choice.
"I was kind of trapped in a way because I was competing for the world championships," he says, "and there weren't a whole lot of options for me. Because I was an Olympic champion, I was so used to people treating me with respect. It just didn't occur to me that someone would be so underhanded."
It wasn't until 1988 that Mark finally left Foxcatcher after he says another gun-waving incident sent him packing.
Because I was an Olympic champion, I was so used to people treating me with respect. It just didn't occur to me that someone would be so underhanded.
The following year, his brother Dave decided to head to du Pont's to train at the facility.
"Dave had a family that basically insulated him from du Pont," says Mark. He adds there were more wrestlers there at the time to take up du Pont's attention.
Ironically, the tension that existed between du Pont and Mark Schultz didn't exist between du Pont and Dave Schultz.
He was a fervent defender of du Pont up to the end. Dave once said, "You know what the best thing to happen to amateur wrestling was?" His answer: John du Pont.
That's why it was a surprise when du Pont murdered Schultz in January 1996 — years after Dave first arrived and just months before he hoped to compete again in the Atlanta Summer Olympics.
Mark recalls he was in his office at Brigham Young University, thousands of miles away, when his father delivered the news. Once he heard, he trashed his office in anger and spent weeks mourning.
He says Dave had been working in a driveway when John du Pont drove up. Dave said, "Hi, coach!"
Du Pont shot back, "Do you have a problem with me?!" before firing a gun into Dave's arm, chest and back.
Du Pont stayed holed up in his estate for several days avoiding police capture — the same police that he helped finance. The stand-off ended when authorities froze him out by shutting down the boilers.
Du Pont was eventually declared guilty of third-degree murder, but was found have been mentally ill at the time. The court never determined a motive for the murder.
A possible motive
But Mark Schultz has his theories.
"He admired us and at the same time was jealous of us, kind of hated us in a way, because we had what money couldn't buy," he says.
But he also said it was surprising because he never thought John du Pont would ever shoot his gun and kill someone.
While Mark wasn't present during the murder, he was on hand as the scene was being filmed for the new movie, "Foxcatcher."
"It was very difficult. I had to leave the set. I couldn't even stay and watch a lot of the scenes," he says.
However, he thinks about that moment and all the choices leading up to it every single day: struggling to stay afloat financially, meeting John du Pont and not saying more to his brother Dave to convince him to stay away from Foxcatcher Farm.
"I regret my brother died, and I regret that I met du Pont," he says, "but had it not been for these horrible curses, this movie would not be made, and Dave would not be immortalized."
Read more of Mark's recollection in his new memoir, "Foxcatcher," out in stores Nov. 18.
Will Truvada pill reduce HIV risk for gay men?
The number of new HIV infections in the U.S. has leveled off at about 50,000 a year.
But young black gay men join that group more and more often. A clinic in Baldwin Hills this week launches a program to give many of these men access to a pill called Truvada. It drastically reduces the chance of getting HIV, but the effort comes with a number of challenges, as KPCC's Adrian Florido reports.
Homeless kids: 1 in every 30 US kids goes to sleep homeless every night each year, study finds
Two and a half million children in America -- one in every 30 -- go to sleep every night without a home of their own each year.
That's according to a new report by The National Center on Family Homelessness titled, America's Youngest Outcasts. Download the full report here.
In California alone, more than 500,000 kids are homeless. In fact, the authors of the report ranked the 50 states according to four domains: the extent of child homelessness, the well-being of the children affected, the risk for family homelessness (poverty and affordable housing issues), and the state's policy response. California ranks 48th (with 50 being the worst).
Here's how "The Golden State" stacks up:
Dr. Carmela DeCandia of The National Center on Family Homelessness joined Take Two to talk about the causes and of child homelessness and some solutions for better protecting Americas youth.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
How do you define homelessness for this report?
We define homelessness according to the U.S. Department of Education's definition and their count of homeless children in U.S. schools and use the most recent 2013 census data. So this definitely looks at not just homeless kids in shelters or living unsheltered but they are also living doubled up--this is really where the majority of kids are. They are living with family and friends, sometimes their families split up so they have to go to different places to have a place to stay. So sometimes you see multiple moves and multiple of those kind of doubled up relationships before a family may end up at a shelter, which is often a last resort.
Your study outlines six causes of homelessness. What are those causes?
The nation's high poverty rate and lack of affordable housing across the nation.
Continuing impacts of the great recession, particularly on highly vulnerable groups of families living in poverty, particularly single mothers trying to raise their children and they're below the poverty line.
And we see how traumatic experiences, like domestic violence, can precede and prolong homelessness as well as racial disparity issues.
How does domestic violence make the uncertainty of homelessness even harder for these kids?
We know through research that violence is unfortunately a common denominator among the lives of homeless families. Among homeless mothers, over 90 percent have experienced some sort of lifetime trauma, which most often is an experience of domestic violence. So kids are seeing these experiences and we know from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study that the impact of those experiences on a young child's development can be quite profound and quite long-reaching into their adulthood.
How does California rank?
Overall they rank 48th. It has a high extent of child homelessness in its population. And there are really high risk factors, particularly the disparity between poverty and children living in poverty and the issues regarding affordable housing. California showed 24 percent of children in the state are living in poverty and almost 8 percent of those children don't have health insurance. And then we see the really wide disparity between the state minimum wage of $8 an hour and the income it actually would take for a single mother to afford a two-bedroom apartment, which is over $25 an hour. So that kind of three-fold difference in wage disparity and housing cost really is a high risk factor that leads children and families into homelessness.
Nationally what needs to be done to fight this?
We know what to do, this is a solvable problem. So we need to really act and make a decision to make child homelessness a priority so we can target resources effectively because if we do that then we really can bring down these numbers.
Record number of foreign students study in U.S. colleges
American colleges and universities enrolled a record-breaking number of international students last year: almost 900,000 foreign students studied in the U.S. in the 2013-2014 academic year.
Students from China, India and South Korea made up about half of all the international students in the U.S. And for the first time in 13 years, USC was not the top destination for foreign students.
The findings are the result of the new Open Doors report from the New York-based nonprofit Institute of International Education. Allan Goodman, president and CEO of the Institute of International Education, joins Take Two for more on the Open Doors report.
Apple heads to court to battle antitrust case
Apple heads to court to face the music this week. A federal lawsuit dating back almost a decade questions the tech giant's past dominance in the download market.
The antitrust case alleges Apple created a monopoly situation when it blocked iPod owners from going to competitors for their music.
joins Alex Cohen to talk about the case. He's a Senior Writer at Bloomberg Businessweek and covers mass litigation cases.
Old mobile phones cause toxic waste issue in Africa
Now to that iPhone or, really, any mobile phone.
Prices of these devices have dropped in recent years and more and more people all over the world are now able to get their hands on them.
But as we rush to upgrade and get the latest gadgets, what happens to all our old phones?
The answer is, many of them are finding their way to Africa - and the environment is suffering as a result.
The BBC's Tamasin Ford reports from Abidjan in Ivory Coast.
Drought: As wells run dry, water trucks gain popularity
As the drought grinds on, more and more communities that depend on well water are watching their wells run dry.
Drilling new, deeper wells is expensive, and there's no guarantee they'll actually produce water.
So, what to do?
Ezra David Romero with the California Report has this story about another solution -- one which rolls on four wheels.
Documentary spotlights Glen Campbell with Alzheimer's on tour and at home
In 2011, country legend Glen Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and faced with such news, many other artists might have chosen to stay away from the public. But not Campbell.
The "Rhinestone Cowboy" decided to hit the road once again and performed more than 150 shows before his final appearance in Napa two years ago.
The new documentary "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me," directed by James Keach, looks at Campbell's battle with the disease and how it affected his family.
Director James Keach and Glen Campbell's daughter Ashley, who is also a musician and played with her dad and siblings on the tour, joined Take Two to discuss the documentary.
"I'll Be Me" is currently playing in the L.A. area at the Laemmle Music Hall and Burbank Town Center.