It’s Monday: time to ask our guests what will we'll see in the news this week. For a look at the agenda of the week ahead, we’re joined by Marcus Mabry, International Business Editor of The New York Times and by Jonathan Marcus, Diplomatic Correspondent for the BBC.

In the movie “Twister,” a group of renegade scientists chase tornadoes, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats until they were reminded that it’s just fiction. Well, a group of real life scientists are doing just this, but not for the drama, but to really understand how tornadoes form. If we needed any reminder of how deadly tornadoes can be, last week, twisters in Missouri and Oklahoma killed at least two people and destroyed homes and businesses. In an effort to prevent such incidents, the largest and most ambitious study of tornadoes is now underway. The project is named Vortex 2 and involves almost 100 scientists and students from 16 universities and research institutes. Throughout the plains states, scientists are deploying sophisticated technology to better understand the storms. The Takeaway checks in with Katja Friedrich, a meteorologist at the University of Colorado, to learn how they are conducting their experiments, and what they hope to learn.

For another look at the sophisticated science of tornado studies, watch this clip.

Today, President Obama meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the first time since either leader took office. On the agenda will likely be whether Mr. Netanyahu will accept the idea of an independent Palestinian state and how the U.S. and Israel could work together to combat Iran's nuclear threat. Joining The Takeaway is Aaron David Miller, former adviser on the Middle East to both Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State, and the author of The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.

The Cannes Film Festival is underway, and many big name directors including Ang Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar, and Francis Ford Coppola are premiering films there this year. Movies by newer, riskier talents are also on offer at the festival. Karina Longworth, film critic and editor of SpoutBlog, a daily movie news blog, joins The Takeaway from Cannes to tell us what to watch.

One of the most anticipated films this year is the Korean film Thirst by director which offers a new take on the vampire story. It is definitely no Twilight:

Some biologists believe that we are now in the midst of what they call “the sixth extinction”—the sixth time in the history of the earth when a devastating mass extinction has occurred. New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert says that some estimate that half of all species may have disappeared by the end of this century. She joins The Takeaway to explain what may be causing this event, and what can be done to stop it.

For more, read an abstract of Elizabeth Kolbert's article, The Sixth Extinction? in The New Yorker. If you are a subscriber to the magazine, you can read the entire article.

A truce was announced this weekend between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan army after a quarter-century of civil war. But fighting continues despite government claims that it has defeated the rebel Tamil Tigers and killed a key leader. It's hard to independently verify what is happening on the ground: journalists and observers have been barred from the war zone. But it appears possible that the civil war may indeed be at an end. To help us understand the future for Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, The Takeaway is joined by Robert Blake, the U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives.

Here are President Obama's comments on the situation in Sri Lanka:

President Obama has appointed Utah's Republican Governor Jon Huntsman as his Ambassador to China. Many say it’s a politically savvy move that will ensure the moderate Republican Huntsman,a Mormon who co-chaired John McCain's campaign, is out of the running as a candidate for the 2012 presidential election. The Takeaway talks to Alexander Burns, a reporter for Politico.

Here's the President announcing his choice of Jon Huntsman:

The Republicans' claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefed about the CIA’s "enhanced interrogation techniques" placed her and other California politicians under a microscope. Leon Panetta, head of the CIA and a longtime California politician, has been friends with Pelosi for years, but now the two are pitted against each other. And Dianne Feinstein, the California Senator, is siding with Pelosi, cementing her opposition to Panetta. How will these California rivalries affect the national debate over torture? To help us understand the California trio, we talk to Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington Correspondent.

The Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic played Game 7 of their NBA series last night, and the Magic played themselves to a 101-82 victory and a trip to the Eastern Conference finals. The Magic haven't made it to the Eastern Conference finals since 1996, when Dwight Howard, the Magic's current star dunker, was just 10 years old. But it wasn't just about basketball this weekend. The Preakness Stakes were run and for the fifth time ever, a girl beat the field. For a recap of last night's game, The Preakness, and what to look forward to this week, we turn to The Takeaway's sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin.

Watch Rachel Alexandra beat Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird in the Preakness in the video below.

Today could be the end for a 25-year struggle in Sri Lanka between the rebel Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. State television in Sri Lanka says the country's military has reclaimed all land previously held by the rebels and that the Supreme Leader of the Tamil Tiger rebels, or LTTE, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed by government forces in fighting in the north of the country. The Northern provinces have been embroiled in escalating violence in recent weeks and thousands of civilians have been displaced. The Takeaway gets the latest update from Sri Lanka from the Head of the BBC’s Tamil Service, Manivannan Thiramalai

This weekend, 1,100 auto-dealership owners across the country took in the sobering news that their contracts with GM will disappear in the auto maker's reorganization. A huge blow to the dealers who will be losing their livelihoods, the closings also raise the question of what to do with all the shuttered car dealerships. Most cities have at least one strip of town dedicated to car-dealer row. So what will happen when the dealers close up shop? For a few ideas we turn to Ellen Durham-Jones, Director of the Architecture Program at Georgia Tech and co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs.