ICE Doubles Down, A Contraceptive Crisis, The Anime View of the World

Coming up on today’s show:

• Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions doubled-down on tough Trump-era immigration policies. John Sandweg, former acting director and acting general counsel of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2013 to 2014, says the administration may be biting off more than it can chew.

• Author Nir Baram was born in Jerusalem and has received acclaim for his works of fiction. Beginning in 2011, Baram traveled throughout Israel and Palestine to talk to real people, challenge his own perceptions, and ask everyone what they envision for the future of this increasingly polarized state. He’s the author of “A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank.”

• On Thursday, the United Nations Security Council will vote on whether to close its 13-year peacekeeping mission in Haiti. If the vote passes, the U.N. will remove more than 2,000 troops in favor of a smaller operation. Jacqueline Charles, Haiti correspondent for the Miami Herald, has the details.

• The Philippines may completely run out of contraceptives as soon as 2018. Ana P. Santos, a journalist and Pulitzer Center grantee based in Manila, says the nation’s instability and politicized battle over access to reproductive care is putting women’s health in jeopardy. 

• In East Asia, power games are putting North Korea’s neighbors at risk. On Wednesday, Japan announced a plan to send destroyers to the East China Sea along with a U.S. Navy supercarrier, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson. Lindsey Ford, director for security programs at the Asia Society Policy Institute, discusses Japanese concerns in the midst of rising North Korean aggression.

• Japanese Director Makoto Shinkai’s new film,”Your Name,” has already grossed more at the box office than any other anime movie, and it’s coming to the U.S. this week. The Takeaway explores anime’s rise in the United States with Susan Napier, a professor of Japanese Studies at Tufts University and author of “Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation.”