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INDIANAPOLIS -- It was not to be. Danica Patrick will not finish her final Indianapolis 500.Patrick hit the wall in Lap 68.She appears to be okay. 154

It¡¯s a tough time to do your banking if you prefer going to a branch. Hours have been cut at many locations, and social distancing guidelines mean bank lobbies are limiting traffic ¡ª assuming they are open at all.For customers who absolutely need to visit branches, banks are taking steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Sean Potter of Minneapolis, who blogs at My Money Wizard, saw these precautions during a recent meeting at his local bank. ¡°It was awkward because I had an appointment with the relationship manager, and we still had to maintain 6 feet of distance even though we had to review the same documents together,¡± he says.Potter appreciates that the branch was trying to ensure his safety, but says he¡¯s now considering other ways to bank. ¡°From now on, it¡¯s online or on the phone,¡± he says.Here are some ways you can bank without leaving home, along with safety tips if you do need to venture out to a brick-and-mortar branch.Explore online options¡°A lot of banking can be done with the click of a button,¡± says Brian Milton, head of retail banking at Union Bank. Union and most other banks and credit unions have robust websites and apps you can use for many banking tasks.Deposit checks. With mobile check deposit, you can snap a photo of a paper check and submit it online, via app or your bank¡¯s secure website.Pay bills. With online bill pay, you can log in to your bank¡¯s webpage and enter the name of the recipient and their contact information. Your bank handles the rest by making an electronic funds transfer or mailing a paper check.Apply for an account. Opening a new checking or savings account can be as easy as going to a bank¡¯s website and submitting an online application. To apply, have your driver¡¯s license and Social Security number handy to prove your identity.Sign documents. Some institutions use digital services such as DocuSign to prepare documents, including loan and account opening paperwork. They can be securely emailed to you, and you can sign them electronically by clicking highlighted prompts.Request payment assistance. Need some leeway with loan payments? Some banks are allowing customers to request arrangements online, including delaying due dates for bills, temporarily reducing monthly payments or asking for fee waivers.Or pick up the phoneKeep your bank¡¯s customer service number nearby. You can use it to speak to a real person about account questions or issues.For example, some banks have announced that customers can call and request to waive non-sufficient funds fees, overdraft fees and monthly service charges.But keep this in mind: If you¡¯re faced with steep fees, it may be better to simply switch to a cheaper bank. Online-only institutions, for example, tend to have low or no monthly service fees, and some offer toll-free customer service numbers staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To learn more, read our primer on online banks.Bank safely at a branchIf you still need to visit a bank branch, here are some ways to protect yourself.Get it on the calendar. ¡°Before you visit your local branch, it¡¯s a good idea to call ahead and schedule an appointment,¡± Milton says. He adds that doing so helps branches manage occupancy and social distancing requirements.Calling ahead can also help the bank make sure it has a staffer on hand who can help you with a specialized transaction or request, he says.Consider drive-up services. Some banks have drive-up lanes where customers can receive the same services offered inside a branch, such as making cash deposits and withdrawals, and getting money orders, all at a safe distance from other people. You could also withdraw cash from an on-site ATM without the need to interact with a teller.Bring your protective gear. Since you¡¯ll be touching screens, door handles and other public surfaces, consider bringing hand sanitizer or wearing gloves. If you do need to step inside a lobby, you may also be asked to wear a mask for everyone¡¯s protection.Accept the changes. Steve Turner, a publicist in Chesterfield, Missouri, says he visits his local branch a few times a month to make business deposits. ¡°There are signs on the floor showing where people should stand to keep their distance,¡± he says. Turner has also noticed there¡¯s less small talk with the tellers, and reasons it¡¯s because everyone is wearing a mask. He believes these changes will remain for a while. ¡°It was odd at first, but now it seems like a new normal,¡± he says.More From NerdWallet3 Ways to Skip Your Bank¡¯s Long Phone LinesLooking for Safer Ways to Pay? Go ContactlessIs My Money Safe in a Bank During the COVID-19 Crisis?Margarette Burnette is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: mburnette@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @Margarette. 4731

In post-Brexit Britain, trips to the European Union will get a little more expensive for millions of Brits in search of a continental break.The European Commission confirmed on Friday that UK travelers will be required fill out an online form and cough up €7 (.90) for visa-free travel, which will be valid for three years.Natasha Bertaud, a spokeswoman for the commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker, likened the "simple form" to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) scheme used by the United States -- which requires travelers to pay to apply for permission to enter the country.She also pointed out that the EU's version, called ETIAS, will be "way cheaper."But this all comes with a major caveat. If the UK crashes out of the EU with no agreement in place, Brits will be required to get a visa to travel to the EU, a commission spokeswoman told Reuters on Friday.ETIAS, which is expected to come into force in 2021, will apply to countries outside the EU whose citizens can currently travel in Europe visa free. There are currently 61 such countries, including the United States, Israel and Singapore.It will cover the so-called Schengen group of 26 European countries that share largely open land borders.The electronic visa waiver system was conceived to "identify any security or irregular migratory risks posed by visa-exempt visitors traveling to the Schengen area while at the same time facilitate crossing frontiers for the vast majority of travelers who do not pose such risks,"?according to the commission. 1554

It may not be as oft-quoted as the First Amendment or as contested as the Second Amendment, but the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution plays a critical role in supporting some of our closest-held notions of American freedom and equality.For one, it clearly states that American citizenship is a birthright for all people who are born on American soil -- something that President Donald Trump has announced he wants to end. Not only would this unravel 150 years of American law, it would loosen a significant cornerstone of the Constitution's interpretation of American identity.In order to better understand this part of the 14th Amendment, we asked two experts in constitutional and immigration law to walk us through the first section. The amendment has five sections, but we will only be dealing with the first, which contains the Citizenship Clause and three other related clauses.But first, some historyThe 14th Amendment is known as a Reconstruction amendment, because it was added to the Constitution after the Civil War in 1868. That places it at an important historical crossroads, when lingering wounds of divisiveness and animosity still plagued the nation and the reality of a post-slavery America begged contentious racial and social questions."Thomas Jefferson said men were created equal, but the original Constitution betrayed that promise by allowing for slavery," says Jeffrey Rosen. "The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were designed to enshrine Lincoln's promise of a new America."However, as so often is the case, this reaffirmed American ideal fell short of reality. Rosen notes that issues of civil rights and equal treatment continued to be denied to African Americans, LGBT people and other citizens for more than a century after the amendment's ratification.And Erika Lee points out that Native Americans weren't even allowed to become citizens until 1925."Even as [these amendments] were written, obviously there were major built-in inequalities and maybe at the time weren't intended to apply to everyone," Lee says.Why was citizenship by birthright such an important concept?"Citizenship was a central question left open by the original Constitution," says Rosen. "At the time it was written, the Constitution assumed citizenship, but it didn't provide any rules for it. In the infamous Dred Scott decision, the Chief Justice said African Americans can't be citizens of the US and 'had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'"The US Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case, named for a slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom, has since been widely condemned.READ MORE: Scott v. Sandford"The 14th Amendment was designed to overturn this decision and define citizenship once and for all, and it was based on birthright," Rosen says. "It is really important that it's a vision of citizenship based on land rather than blood. It is an idea that anyone can be an American if they commit themselves to our Constitutional values."What does it mean to be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof?"According to Rosen, this is one of the greatest questions of citizenship. There are two clear examples of people not subject to the jurisdictions of the United States: diplomats and their children, and -- at the time of the 14th Amendment -- Native Americans, who were not recognized as part of the American populace."With those two exceptions, everyone who was physically present in the United States was thought to be under its jurisdiction," Rosen says. "There are numerous Supreme Court cases that reaffirm that understanding, and almost as importantly, there are lots of congressional statutes that assume birthright citizenship."Some scholars, like John Eastman of the Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, have argued that children of illegal immigrants are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US and thus should not be considered citizens under the Constitution.But Rosen says this is a minority view among constitutional scholars of all political backgrounds."While the Supreme Court has not explicitly ruled [on the instance of children of illegal immigrants], Congress has passed all kinds of laws presuming their citizenship," Rosen says.What is the connection between birthright citizenship and immigration?In 1898, 30 years after the 14th Amendment was adopted, the Supreme Court reached a defining decision in a case known as the United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Lee explains that Wong Kim Ark was the American-born son of Chinese immigrants."Asian immigrants were the first immigrants to the US that couldn't be considered white," Lee says. "So they are treated differently. They are taxed differently, they are stripped of many rights. In the 1880s, they are excluded from immigration and barred from citizenship."READ MORE: The United States v. Wong Kim ArkSo, the main question of the case was, could a person born in America be a citizen in a place where his parents could not be as well? The Supreme Court decided yes, and the case remains the first defining legal decision made under the banner of birthright citizenship."[The Supreme Court's decision] said that the right of citizenship is not a matter of inheritance, that it never descends from generation to generation, it is related to where you're born," Lee says. "It's about the power of place. That has been a very expansive, and at the time, a corrective measure to a more exclusionary definition both legally as well as culturally as to what an American is."Why must it be stated that the privileges of citizenship need to be protected?Before the Civil War, states didn't necessarily have to follow the provisions stated in the Bill of Rights; only Congress had to. The 14th Amendment changed that."This second sentence of the Amendment means that states have to respect the Bill of Rights as well as basic civil rights and the rights that come along with citizenship," Rosen says. "The idea was that there were rights that were so basic; so integral to citizenship that they could not be narrowed by the states."Despite the promises and protections of citizenship, Lee says it is abundantly clear that different racial groups were, and often are, seen as unable or unworthy to function as true American citizens. After all, basic rights of citizenship, like suffrage and equal treatment, were denied certain racial groups for a hundred years after the 14th Amendment."The idea of a law applying to 'all people' seems to be clear. But in reality, the debate and the laws and practices that get established are very much based on a hierarchy of, well sure, all persons, but some are more fit and some are more deserving than others," she says.Throughout history, Asian immigrants, Mexican immigrants, Muslim immigrants and their children, to name a few, have had unspoken cultural caveats applied to their ability to be Americans."For Asian immigrants, the racial argument at the time was that 'It didn't matter whether one were born in the US or not, Asians as a race, are unassimilable. They are diametrically opposite from us Americans,'" Lee says."That was the argument that was used to intern Japanese citizens. It was the denial of citizenship in favor of race: 'The ability to become American, the ability to assimilate, they just didn't have it.'"Why was it important to legalize rights for non-citizens?So far, we've covered the first clause, the Citizenship Clause, and the second, the Privileges and Immunities Clause. These both deal with American citizens.The final two clauses, the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection clause, are a little different, and deal with the rights of all people in the United States.Eagle-eyed Constitution readers will notice that the 14th Amendment contains a "due process" clause very similar to the Fifth Amendment. This, says Rosen, was a technical addition to ensure the Fifth Amendment wasn't theoretically narrowed down to protect only American citizens."The 14th Amendment distinguishes between the privileges of citizenship and the privileges of all people," Rosen says. "The framers [of the amendment] thought there were certain rights that were so important that they should be extended to all persons, and in order to specify that they needed a new 'due process' clause."What does it mean to have 'equal protection of the laws'?"At the time following the Civil War, at its core, it meant all persons had the right to be protected by the police, that the laws of the country should protect all people," Rosen says. "In the 20th century, more broader questions were litigated under the 14th Amendment, like Brown v. Board of Education -- whether segregation was constitutional. Cases involving the internment of Japanese citizens, case from the marriage equality decisions, even Roe vs. Wade have strains of equal protection language and invoke due process law."READ MORE: Brown v. Board of EducationAnother interesting case that speaks directly to the immigration side of the 14th Amendment debate is the 1982 case of Plyler v. Doe, in which the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional for the state of Texas to deny funding for undocumented immigrant children.READ MORE: Plyler v. DoeWhy are we talking about all this right now?This week,?Trump vowed to end the right to citizenship for the children of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants born on US soil.But his interest in repealing birthright citizenship isn't a new idea. Lee says for the last 30 years or so, there have been several overtures by the political right to explore "citizenship reform," a timeline that she says aligns with the ascendancy of modern American conservatism.Lee fears if the current push to end birthright citizenship is successful, it could have wider implications than most people assume. People from other countries who are here legally on work or student visas, for instance, could have children who do not legally belong to the only country they know."There have been attempts since the 1990s to break away birthright citizenship, or narrow it down, and it did not seem that they would have a chance at succeeding until now," she says."To me this not only reflects the ascendancy of an extreme right position but also a return to a very narrow and exclusionary definition of Americanness." 10356

It was America's retailer, long before Amazon. But now Sears is filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closing another 140 stores ¡ª in addition to well over 1,000 stores the past five years.While the company will remain in business, longtime customers are a bit nervous, wondering about warranties for all those appliances they bought, as well as Shop Your Way reward points and gift cards.Sears shoppers like Cleo Pennington have a lot of questions about the bankruptcy."I'm very sad. Very, very sad," she said.So we checked the fine print in the Sears announcement to get answers.Q: Are all stores closing? A: Sears says no, and insists it plans to emerge from bankruptcy a stronger, leaner company.Q: What if you have a gift card? A: They are still valid, but any time a store files for bankruptcy, you may want to use them as soon as possible, just to be safe.Q: What about Shop Your Way rewards?  A: They are still valid at remaining Sears and Kmart stores.Q: Will appliance warranties be honored? A: Sears says it will honor them as long as it remains in business. That includes extended protection plans and full home warranties. However, Business Insider says if the chain decides to liquidate next year, then warranties could become worthless.Q: Where can you still find Kenmore appliances?A: In remaining Sears stores, at Sears.com, and on Amazon. More than just an appliance storeBut Sears wasn't just where moms and dads shopped. Tens of millions of children looked forward every Christmas to The Wish Book, filled with dozens and dozens of toys.Cheryl Ayers remembers it well, "It was a big deal when that catalog would come in the mail every Christmas and we would go through it with a pen and circle what we wanted Santa to bring," she said.Back in the 1920s and 1930s, Sears even sold houses, which today are still dotting neighborhoods across the country.But the houses went away after World War II, while Amazon, Target, and Walmart took the toy business, and Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowe's took the appliance business.Sears will continue to sell Kenmore appliances in remaining stores and online, but Cheryl Ayers says it's not the same."This is the end of a dynasty and it's sad," she said.Sears will still have 600 stores remaining, and a website.But with big-name brands like Whirlpool pulling out, no one is sure how much longer remaining stores can survive. Business Insider worries some prospective customers may now be afraid to purchase a major Sears appliance, wondering about the future.________________"Don't Waste Your Money" is a registered trademark of Scripps Media, Inc. ("Scripps")."Like" John Matarese on FacebookFollow John on Twitter (@JohnMatarese)For more consumer news and money saving advice, go to www.dontwasteyourmoney.com  2838

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