John Koethe reflects on what it’s like to be alive with existential, thoughtful poetry reflecting on his life’s work in philosophy and academics.
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Children at The Playing Field, a Madison child care center that participates in the federal Head Start program. (Courtesy of The Playing Field)
Head Start child care providers in Wisconsin and five other Midwestern states were stunned Tuesday to learn that the federal agency’s Chicago regional office was closed and their administrators were placed on leave — throwing new uncertainty into the operation of the 60-year-old child care and early education program.
“The Regional Office is a critical link to maintaining program services and safety for children and families,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, in a statement distributed to news organizations Tuesday afternoon.
The surprise shutdown of the federal agency’s Chicago office — and four others across the country — left Head Start program directors uncertain about where to turn, Mauer said.
“We have received calls throughout the day from panicked Head Start programs worried about impacts to approving their current grants, fiscal issues, and applications to make their programs more responsive to their local communities,” Mauer said.
The regional offices are part of the Office of Head Start in the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
In an interview, Mauer said there had been no official word to Head Start providers about the Chicago office closing. Some program leaders learned of the closing from private contacts with people in the office.
“We have not seen official information come out” to local Head Start directors, who operate on the federal grants that fund the program, Mayer said. “It’s just really alarming. For an agency that is about serving families, I don’t understand how this can be.”
The National Head Start Association issued a press release Tuesday expressing “deep concern” about the regional office closings.
“In order to avoid disrupting services for children and families, we urge the administration to reconsider these actions until a plan has been created and shared widely,” the association stated.
Katie Hamm, the deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at HHS during the Biden administration, posted on LinkedIn shortly before 12 noon Tuesday that she had learned of reduction-in-force (RIF) notices to employees in the Administration for Children and Families earlier in the day.
RIF notices appear to have gone to all employees of the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care in five regional offices, Hamm wrote, in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle in addition to Chicago.
“Staff are on paid leave effective immediately and no longer have access to their files,” Hamm wrote. “There does not appear to be a transition plan so that Head Start grantees, States, and Tribes are assigned to a new office. For Head Start, it is unclear who will administer grants going forward.”
Hamm left HHS at the end of the Biden administration in January, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Mauer said regional office employees “are our key partners and colleagues,” and their departure has left Head Start operators “incredibly saddened and deeply concerned.”
Regional employees work with providers “to ensure the safety and quality of services and to meet the mission of providing care for the most vulnerable families in the country,” Mauer said.
The regional offices provide grant oversight, distribute funds, monitor Head Start programs and advise centers on complying with regulations, including for child safety, she said. They also provide training and technical assistance for local Head Start programs.
“The Regional Office is a critical link to maintaining program services and safety for children and families,” Mauer said. “These cuts will have a direct impact on programs, children, and families.”
In addition to Wisconsin, the Chicago regional office oversees programs in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.
Head Start supervises about 284 grants across the six states in programs that enroll about 115,000 children, according to Mauer. There are 39 Head Start providers in Wisconsin enrolling about 16,000 children and employing about 4,000 staff.
The federal government created Head Start in the mid-1960s to provide early education for children living in low-income households. Head Start operators report that the vast majority of the families they serve rely on the program to provide child care so they can hold jobs.
The regional office closings came two months after a sudden halt in Head Start funding. Head Start operators get a federal reimbursement after they incur expenses, and program directors have been accustomed to being able to submit their expenses and receive reimbursement payments through an online portal.
Over about two weeks in late January and early February, program leaders in Wisconsin and across the country reported that they were unable to log into the system or post their payment requests. The glitches persisted for some programs for several days, but were ultimately resolved by Feb. 10.
Mauer told the Wisconsin Examiner on Tuesday that so far, there have not been new payment delays. But there has also been no communication with Head Start operators about what happens now with the unexpected regional office closings, she said.
“No plan for who will provide support has been shared, and the still-existing regional offices are already understaffed,” Mauer said. “I’m very nervous to see what happens. With no transition plan this will be a disaster.”
In her statement, Mauer said the regional office closing was “another example of the Federal Administration’s continuing assault on Head Start” following the earlier funding freeze and stalled reimbursements.
She said closing regional offices was undermining the program’s ability to function.
“We call on Congress to immediately investigate this blatant effort to hamper Head Start’s ability to provide services,” Mauer stated, “and to hold the Administration accountable for their actions.”
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Well, it was inevitable. The first crashed 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona, or at least the first one we know about since customers started getting their hands on them, has made its appearance online. And because the universe has a sense of humor, it’s already up for sale. If you’re one of those people who loves a good gamble and prefers your vehicles with a touch of “character,” this is your lucky day.
More: Someone Already Crashed A 2026 Tesla Model Y Juniper After Only 197 Miles
This particular wreck is a 2024 Charger Daytona R/T, which is the base model starting at $59,595, before you start adding options like the $595 Demonic Red seats this one comes with, or deducting the sweet discounts running up to $21,000 some dealers are offering just to move these things off the lot.
Being an R/T, it features a 93.9-kWh nickel-cobalt-aluminum battery powering front and rear motors, delivering up to 496 horsepower and a solid 0-60 mph (96 km/h) time of 4.7 seconds.
What Happened to This Daytona?
Now, onto the important stuff—the damage. This one didn’t make it past its first 682 miles (just under 1,100 km) before finding its match. From what we can gather, it either had a mild run-in with another car or maybe just collided with a stationary object. Who can really say?
While the front-end damage doesn’t seem catastrophic at first glance, it was enough to trigger the driver’s airbag, which we all know is usually the kiss of death for a car’s viability in the eyes of an insurance company. So, the insurance folks did what they do best and decided to write it off and call it a day.
More: Dodge Charger Rumored To Get Hemi V8 Power In 2026
On the outside, the damage on the electric Dodge seems pretty concentrated at the front: bumper, LED lights, and hood all took a hit. What lies beneath the sheet metal? Well, your guess is as good as ours. It’s entirely possible there’s more hidden damage under the surface, but for the right price, a skilled repair shop or even someone with some mechanical know-how might be able to bring this Charger Daytona back to life.
Feeling Lucky?
If you’re feeling adventurous and willing to take the risk the insurance company wasn’t, this Charger Daytona R/T is now up for auction at IAAI’s Texas division. You can check out the listing here before it hits the block in a few days. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be the one to take on this crashed Daytona and give it a second chance for a price that won’t make you cry.
Oneida Community Health Center in Hobart, Wisconsin. | Photo by Jason Kerzinski for Wisconsin Examiner
As Congress mulls potentially massive cuts to federal Medicaid funding, health centers that serve Native American communities, such as the Oneida Community Health Center near Green Bay, Wisconsin, are bracing for catastrophe.
That’s because more than 40% of the about 15,000 patients the center serves are enrolled in Medicaid. Cuts to the program would be detrimental to those patients and the facility, said Debra Danforth, the director of the Oneida Comprehensive Health Division and a citizen of the Oneida Nation.
“It would be a tremendous hit,” she said.
The facility provides a range of services to most of the Oneida Nation’s 17,000 people, including ambulatory care, internal medicine, family practice, and obstetrics. The tribe is one of two in Wisconsin that have an “open-door policy,” Danforth said, which means that the facility is open to members of any federally recognized tribe.
But Danforth and many other tribal health officials say Medicaid cuts would cause service reductions at health facilities that serve Native Americans.
Indian Country has a unique relationship to Medicaid, because the program helps tribes cover chronic funding shortfalls from the Indian Health Service, the federal agency responsible for providing health care to Native Americans.
Medicaid has accounted for about two-thirds of third-party revenue for tribal health providers, creating financial stability and helping facilities pay operational costs. More than a million Native Americans enrolled in Medicaid or the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program also rely on the insurance to pay for care outside of tribal health facilities without going into significant medical debt. Tribal leaders are calling on Congress to exempt tribes from cuts and are preparing to fight to preserve their access.
“Medicaid is one of the ways in which the federal government meets its trust and treaty obligations to provide health care to us,” said Liz Malerba, director of policy and legislative affairs for the United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, a nonprofit policy advocacy organization for 33 tribes spanning from Texas to Maine. Malerba is a citizen of the Mohegan Tribe.
“So we view any disruption or cut to Medicaid as an abrogation of that responsibility,” she said.
Tribes face an arduous task in providing care to a population that experiences severe health disparities, a high incidence of chronic illness, and, at least in western states, a life expectancy of 64 years — the lowest of any demographic group in the U.S. Yet, in recent years, some tribes have expanded access to care for their communities by adding health services and providers, enabled in part by Medicaid reimbursements.
During the last two fiscal years, five urban Indian organizations in Montana saw funding growth of nearly $3 million, said Lisa James, director of development for the Montana Consortium for Urban Indian Health, during a webinar in February organized by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the National Council of Urban Indian Health.
The increased revenue was “instrumental,” James said, allowing clinics in the state to add services that previously had not been available unless referred out for, including behavioral health services. Clinics were also able to expand operating hours and staffing.
Montana’s five urban Indian clinics, in Missoula, Helena, Butte, Great Falls, and Billings, serve 30,000 people, including some who are not Native American or enrolled in a tribe. The clinics provide a wide range of services, including primary care, dental care, disease prevention, health education, and substance use prevention.
James said Medicaid cuts would require Montana’s urban Indian health organizations to cut services and limit their ability to address health disparities.
American Indian and Alaska Native people under age 65 are more likely to be uninsured than white people under 65, but 30% rely on Medicaid compared with 15% of their white counterparts, according to KFF data for 2017 to 2021. More than 40% of American Indian and Alaska Native children are enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP, which provides health insurance to kids whose families are not eligible for Medicaid. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.
A Georgetown Center for Children and Families report from January found the share of residents enrolled in Medicaid was higher in counties with a significant Native American presence. The proportion on Medicaid in small-town or rural counties that are mostly within tribal statistical areas, tribal subdivisions, reservations, and other Native-designated lands was 28.7%, compared with 22.7% in other small-town or rural counties. About 50% of children in those Native areas were enrolled in Medicaid.
The federal government has already exempted tribes from some of Trump’s executive orders. In late February, Department of Health and Human Services acting general counsel Sean Keveney clarified that tribal health programs would not be affected by an executive order that diversity, equity, and inclusion government programs be terminated, but that the Indian Health Service is expected to discontinue diversity and inclusion hiring efforts established under an Obama-era rule.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also rescinded the layoffs of more than 900 IHS employees in February just hours after they’d received termination notices. During Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings, he said he would appoint a Native American as an assistant HHS secretary. The National Indian Health Board, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that advocates for tribes, in December endorsed elevating the director of the Indian Health Service to assistant secretary of HHS.
Jessica Schubel, a senior health care official in Joe Biden’s White House, said exemptions won’t be enough.
“Just because Native Americans are exempt doesn’t mean that they won’t feel the impact of cuts that are made throughout the rest of the program,” she said.
State leaders are also calling for federal Medicaid spending to be spared because cuts to the program would shift costs onto their budgets. Without sustained federal funding, which can cover more than 70% of costs, state lawmakers face decisions such as whether to change eligibility requirements to slim Medicaid rolls, which could cause some Native Americans to lose their health coverage.
Tribal leaders noted that state governments do not have the same responsibility to them as the federal government, yet they face large variations in how they interact with Medicaid depending on their state programs.
President Donald Trump has made seemingly conflicting statements about Medicaid cuts, saying in an interview on Fox News in February that Medicaid and Medicare wouldn’t be touched. In a social media post the same week, Trump expressed strong support for a House budget resolution that would likely require Medicaid cuts.
The budget proposal, which the House approved in late February, requires lawmakers to cut spending to offset tax breaks. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees spending on Medicaid and Medicare, is instructed to slash $880 billion over the next decade. The possibility of cuts to the program that, together with CHIP, provides insurance to 79 million people has drawn opposition from national and state organizations.
The federal government reimburses IHS and tribal health facilities 100% of billed costs for American Indian and Alaska Native patients, shielding state budgets from the costs.
Because Medicaid is already a stopgap fix for Native American health programs, tribal leaders said it won’t be a matter of replacing the money but operating with less.
“When you’re talking about somewhere between 30% to 60% of a facility’s budget is made up by Medicaid dollars, that’s a very difficult hole to try and backfill,” said Winn Davis, congressional relations director for the National Indian Health Board.
Congress isn’t required to consult tribes during the budget process, Davis added. Only after changes are made by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and state agencies are tribes able to engage with them on implementation.
The amount the federal government spends funding the Native American health system is a much smaller portion of its budget than Medicaid. The IHS projected billing Medicaid about $1.3 billion this fiscal year, which represents less than half of 1% of overall federal spending on Medicaid.
“We are saving more lives,” Malerba said of the additional services Medicaid covers in tribal health care. “It brings us closer to a level of 21st century care that we should all have access to but don’t always.”
This article was published with the support of the Journalism & Women Symposium (JAWS) Health Journalism Fellowship, assisted by grants from The Commonwealth Fund.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Sometimes the smartest products aren’t the most radical. They’re the ones that take an existing idea and make it better, like this new Smart #5, which makes its European debut this week, seven months after launching in China.
The third and biggest of the new Smart company’s three electric SUVs and crossovers, the #5 isn’t clever like the original ForTwo, which crammed space for two passengers into an impossibly small package. But going after the Tesla Model Y, which remains the best-selling EV in Europe and America even after a sales slowdown, is definitely a Smart move.
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At 4,695 mm (184.8 inches) long and riding on a 2,900 mm (114.2 inches) wheelbase, the #5 is almost exactly the same size as the recently facelifted Model Y. But it’s far more visually appealing to our eyes, with a strong chin and just enough rounding at the corners to give the boxy silhouette a friendly vibe. Neat design details include Rolls Royce-style floating center caps for the wheels, frameless door glass and, on the rugged Summit Edition, an electric trailer hitch, roof rack and side ladder.
Under the skin is PMA2+ architecture from China’s Geely, which now co-owns Smart with Mercedes, and is also found under other Geely products like the Zeekr 7X. This sets the #5 apart from its little brothers who rely on the smaller SEA platform and make do with 400-volt electrics, whereas the #5 features 800-volt tech for faster fills.
Up to 366 miles of range
Basic #5 Pro versions of the biggest Smart get a 76 kWh LFP battery, but pricier Pro+ trims and above upgrade to a meaty 100 kWh NCM power pack. Smart isn’t saying how far the little guy will get you on a charge, but it’s probably less than 300 miles (483 km) given that the big battery needs juicing after 366 WLTP miles (589 km).
Hooked-up to a fast enough charger, it’ll refill from 10-80 percent in 18 minutes and, like Hyundai-Kia EVs, the #5 has a vehicle-to-load power outlet to help you make the most of trips to the great outdoors.
Smart hasn’t released all the tech specs, though it does say the more expensive bi-motor Pulse and Summit Edition models can get from zero to 62 mph (100 kmh) in 4.9 seconds. We learned from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last year that AWD versions mate a 221 hp (165 kW / 224 PS) front-mounted electric motor with either a 358 hp (267 kW / 363 PS) or 416 hp (310 kW / 422 PS) rear motor.
That same China MIIT info drop revealed cheaper single-motor, rear-wheel drive #5s come with outputs of 335 hp (250 kW / 340 PS) or 358 hp (267 kW / 363 PS), though it’s not clear if both of those fairly similar power options will be offered in Europe. But it looks like you can get a single-motor setup with the 100 kWh battery, and we’re guessing that’s the one with the 366-mile range.
Three screens and slumber seats
Open the door and the cabin looks a whole lot more welcoming and less stark than the inside of a Tesla Model Y. Smart brags about the heated rear seats, electric sunshade, airplane-style LED reading lights, 256-color ambient lighting, 20-speaker Sennheiser hifi and 25.6-inch Augmented Reality head-up display.
More: We Compare The New And Old Tesla Model Y Side-By-Side
You also get a triple-display dashboard consisting of a 10.25-inch digital gauge pack and two 13-inch OLED touchscreens whose video streaming and gaming talents are boosted by an Unreal 3D engine. It’s not all about the gadgets though. The #5’s seats can be adjusted to let you and tour passengers soon during charging stops and there’s a handy 72-liter (2.54 cu-ft) frunk to handle anything you can’t fit a trunk that is smaller than a Model Y’s. The Tesla also offers a small third row of seats, something the #5 doesn’t.
When Does It Go On Sale?
Though the #5 first appeared in China a year ago, European buyers won’t be able to place their orders until Q4 2025, with prices expected to be announced closer to that time. But at least it’s coming. We can’t help but think this chunky SUV would do well in the US, but Smart has no plans to bring it or the brand to America, and Trump’s tough import tariffs mean that stance is unlikely to change any time soon.
The $5 million payments are "challenge gifts" contingent on the institutions raising matching funds on their own.
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