What’s the best way to crack down on gang violence?

Coming up on today’s show:

• The gang Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, grew out of 1980s Los Angeles and has since has spread across the United States and into Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, and other parts of Central America. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is advocating a “zero tolerance” approach to gang violence and has said that the federal government would work to prosecute and deport members of the gang. Jose Miguel Cruz, the director of research at the Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, weighs in on how to deal with MS-13.

• According to a post-election report from the South Carolina State Election Commission, there were nearly 150,000 attempts to penetrate the state’s voter registration system on Election Day. Duncan Buell, a professor and NCR Chair in computer science and engineering at the University of South Carolina, says that the breach is one local example of the vulnerabilities states face in their voter systems. He joins The Takeaway to discuss protocols that lawmakers could adopt to improve election cybersecurity. 

• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has championed President Trump’s proposed 30-percent cuts to the State Department, and this week, reports emerged that he plans to shut down the State Department office that coordinates cyber issues with other countries. Sally Wentworth, the vice president of global policy development at the Internet Society, discusses what these changes mean for both U.S. cybersecurity and the direction of the State Department. 

• Proposed legislation similar to North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” which regulated public bathroom access for transgender people, is being debated by Texas senators today. Mark P. Jones,a fellow in political science at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, says this controversial legislation reveals a widening rift between the state’s major Republican factions.

• Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday and The Takeaway, drops by to discuss the WWII story “Dunkirk,” the comedy “Girls Trip,” starring Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith, and the sci-fi flick “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.” 

• Fifty years ago on July 23, police raided an illegal after-hours bar in Detroit, Michigan, sparking an uprising that lasted nearly a week, leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured. Civil disturbances in cities across the country followed, as racial tensions reached a breaking point during “the long, hot summer of 1967.” That year, Darryle Buchanan turned 12 years old, and joins The Takeaway to reflect on how those summer events forever changed his neighborhood. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.