National:

After much debate over the state of the U.S. healthcare system, President Donald Trump declared his support to repeal Obamacare on March 27. This decision aligns with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House Chief of Staff, who has been in favor of repealing Obamacare for a number of years. However, Vice President Mike Pence shared concerns regarding the removal of Obamacare, especially as there is currently no contingency plan for the uninsured.

Following a live stream of the New Zealand shooting as well as a manifesto expressing white nationalist views on Facebook, the social media company decided on March 27 to ban white nationalist and separatist content. While Facebook has prevented much distasteful content on their site, they overlooked the harm that could result from white nationalist content. Facebook has been consulting various civil rights groups over the past three months to continue to improve the company’s ability to restrict hateful material.

International:

British Prime Minister Theresa May expressed on March 27 her plan to step down from her position in hopes of helping her Brexit plan succeed. She explained to Conservative Party lawmakers in a private meeting that she will begin the process for a new prime minister if her plan is approved by lawmakers. While there is no certain plan for her resignation, her motivation for stepping down is that a different leader may be better suited to finalize the second phase of Brexit.

The European Union (EU) will have a vote by 2021 to determine whether they will continue to use daylight savings time or revert to standard time. Daylight savings time was intended to conserve energy but is not as effective as was expected. The overall hope from the vote is to have countries in the bloc remain coordinated in this decision so that there are not inconsistent time zones across Europe.