‘The danger of adjusting state borders to reflect political divides’
Conor William Howard at Time
A bill to shift the Indiana and Illinois border “remains stuck in committee,” but the “issues raised by the proposed move speak to the difficult balance between promoting national unity and recognizing local distinctiveness,” says Conor William Howard. History “highlights why local voters pursue such solutions, along with the unintended national consequences which can arise as a result of these goals being realized.” The “eventual outcome of the geographic tensions could deepen our already hardened partisan divides.”
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‘Health is a shared priority, not a privilege of the few’
Jerome Adams at Newsweek
There are “questions about whether there is a sincere plan to improve America’s health or if the intent is simply to dismantle existing infrastructures,” says former Surgeon General Jerome Adams. But it’s “critical to understand public frustration with the status quo; the U.S. has the world’s most expensive health care system but some of the worst health outcomes.” This is “not just about staving off cuts or resisting changes to a dysfunctional system; it’s an opportunity to build true health care.”
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‘America should recycle its own rare earths, not grab Ukraine’s’
Elisabeth Braw at Foreign Policy
Little is “known about Ukraine’s actual rare-earth deposits, and a large part of them sit in Russian-occupied territories,” says Elisabeth Brew. Building the “infrastructure for extraction would take years.” A “better idea, one that would make the United States dependent on no one,” is to “recycle rare earths in Americans’ used gadgets.” If the United States “could marshal the rare earths sitting around in people’s homes and garbage cans, it could slash its dependence on China and create jobs at home.”
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‘Florida Gators fans, please cover your ears’
Alex Kirshner at Slate
March Madness is “not ‘college sports,'” says Alex Kirshner. It is a “three-week tournament that got its nickname because of its propensity to deliver several huge upsets every year.” But in a “year with no serious upsets to speak of,” it is “enough to point out that we may be looking at much more boring basketball tournaments for the foreseeable future. Life has tradeoffs.” But this doesn’t “justify going back to restrictive and likely illegal player movement rules.”
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