Stimulus check snafu

US citizens sue over exclusion from stimulus checks; France discovers coronavirus may have spread in the country far earlier than previously thought. Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters. TOP NEWS US citizens, excluded from stimulus payments, allege discrimination Jeff Fusco/Getty Images - At the end of March, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that included a direct stimulus program: checks of up to $1,200 to help Americans get through the pandemic. But the children or spouses of unauthorized immigrants have been left out. [[ABC News / Sarah Kolinovsky](] - Now immigration advocates have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of those relatives, who are US citizens. They argue that exempting US citizens from the payments because of their relationship to unauthorized immigrants is discriminatory and unconstitutional. [[Vox / Nicole Narea](] - The families, as BuzzFeed News points out, do pay federal and state taxes and — but for their immigration status — “would otherwise meet the income-based criteria for being eligible for relief funds, per court papers.” [[BuzzFeed / Zoe Tillman](] - The decision to exclude people in the same household as an unauthorized immigrant means that some 1.2 million Americans won’t see a stimulus check, according to the Migration Policy Institute. [[CBS News / Aimee Picchi](] - Meanwhile, NPR reported on Wednesday that the IRS has still managed to send stimulus checks to the bank accounts of dead people. [[NPR / Tim Mak](] - It’s also managed to send checks to the wrong living people: The Washingtonian’s Jane Recker wrote last month about how her check seems to have ended up in her high school sister’s account, just another example of the glitches that have troubled stimulus payments. [[Washingtonian / Jane Recker](] - And some people simply haven’t received their checks yet as the IRS struggles to resolve difficulties in distributing payments. For more on that, the Washington Post has a timeline of how things went wrong. [[Washington Post / Michelle Singletary](] - If you’re one of those people who isn’t sure where your check went, you can check the tool on the IRS website and make sure it has your electronic deposit information. [[NYT / Ron Lieber](] December Covid-19 case upends Europe's coronavirus timeline - France’s first known coronavirus case may have occurred a month earlier than previously known, according to new research. Scientists now believe the country’s first Covid-19 patient could have been infected in mid-December. [[NPR / Laurel Wamsley](] - The discovery was made by retroactively testing samples from people sick with undiagnosed respiratory illnesses late last year. It throws the timeline for France’s coronavirus outbreak into question — previously, the first case in the country was thought to be directly linked to travel from Wuhan, China, in late January. [[Bloomberg / Marthe Fourcade](] - It’s still unclear how the suspected patient, a 43-year-old man who hadn’t traveled to China before coming down with Covid-19, came into contact with the coronavirus. [[BBC](] - A case in December could explain why parts of Europe suffered such severe outbreaks of the virus. If the new sample is accurate, the coronavirus may have had months to spread largely unchecked before France implemented a lockdown in March. [[NYT / Adam Nossiter and Aurelien Breeden](] MISCELLANEOUS For the first time in its 115-year history, the New York City subway plans to shut down service for a few hours every night. [[NYT / Christina Goldbaum](] - The Education Department is rolling out new rules on campus sexual assault. Critics of the rules believe the change will hurt survivors. [[Vox / Anna North](] - The Senate is forging ahead with a confirmation hearing for a 37-year-old federal court nominee championed by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. [[CNN / Ariane de Vogue and Devan Cole](] - Why the stock market doesn’t reflect our current economic crisis. [[Vox / Emily Stewart](] VERBATIM "To be honest, I’m terrified. I’m putting on spikes for the first time in 10 months. That’s crazy. It’s also a reminder of why I do this. That feeling of when you have nerves, when you have that, that’s a feeling to your core that you care about this." [[Professional distance runner Drew Hunter on his plan to raise money for health care workers in Haiti in a livestreamed time trial / Washington Post](] WATCH THIS [Rotoscoping changed animation by allowing animators to effectively trace real motion.]( Rotoscoping changed animation forever. This is how. 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