The Atlantic end of the Panama Canal is further west than the Pacific end.
While globally the Atlantic Ocean is east of the isthmus and the Pacific is west, the general direction of the canal passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is from northwest to southeast, because of the shape of the isthmus at the point the canal occupies.
Maine is the closest US State to the Continent of Africa.
The title of "closest US state to Africa" belongs to Maine and, specifically, a peninsula called Quoddy Head. Its quaint, little lighthouse, the Quoddy Head Light, is at the easternmost point of the US. It's also the point closest to Africa, about 3,154 miles from El Beddouza.
The Kentucky Bend.
Variously called the New Madrid Bend, Madrid Bend, Bessie Bend, or Bubbleland, is an exclave of Fulton County, Kentucky, encircled by the states of Tennessee and Missouri. It is a portion of a peninsula defined by an oxbow loop meander of the Mississippi River, and its inclusion in the state of Kentucky stems from uncertainties of the course of the Mississippi River when the boundary between Tennessee and Kentucky was established.