KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Former Chicago Fire coach Raphael Wicky was hired Monday as coach of Major League Soccer's Sporting Kansas City.
Wicky agreed to a 2 1/2-year contract that runs through the 2027-28 season, the first for MLS under a summer-through-spring calendar that matches most European leagues.
Peter Vermes, who had coached the team since 2009, left last March after KC lost five of its first six games. Kerry Zavagnin took over as interim coach and KC wound up last among 15 teams in the Western Conference with 28 points, finishing with seven wins, 20 losses and seven ties.
Wicky, 48, made 75 appearances for Switzerland from 1996 to 2008. He managed Basel from 2017-18, then coached the U.S. at the 2019 Under-17 World Cup, where the Americans finished last in their group.
He took over the Fire for 2020 and '21, then coached Young Boys in Switzerland from June 2022 until March 2024, winning the 2023 Swiss league title.
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Young Boys' head coach Raphael Wicky watches during the group G Champions League soccer match between RB Leipzig and Young Boys Bern at the Red Bull arena stadium in Leipzig, Germany, Dec. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday that it is withholding funding for programs that support needy families with children in five Democratic-led states over concerns about fraud.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the program, will require the states to provide extra documentation to access the funds.
“Families who rely on child care and family assistance programs deserve confidence that these resources are used lawfully and for their intended purpose,” HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill said in a statement.
The administration has not laid out details about the fraud allegations.
HHS said in a statement evening that it “identified concerns that these benefits intended for American citizens and lawful residents may have been improperly provided to individuals who are not eligible under federal law.”
Five states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York — are targeted, and the HHS said they had been notified.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said earlier in the day that New York is prepared to take the administration to court, as Democratic-led states have done scores of times now.
“We’ll fight this with every fiber of our being, because our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that Donald Trump seems to have with blue state governors,” she said.
The plan to withhold the funds was first reported by the New York Post.
The targeted programs provide lifelines to some of the neediest Americans:
— The Child Care and Development Fund subsidizes day care for low-income households, enabling parents to work or go to school.
— Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provides cash assistance and job training so parents in poverty can afford diapers and clothes and earn paychecks.
— The Social Services Block Grant, a much smaller fund, supports several different social service programs.
“These resources support families in need and help them access food and much more. If true, it would be awful to see the federal government targeting the most needy families and children this way,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis' office said in a statement.
Trump himself has not spoken on the specifics, but he proclaimed on social media Tuesday: “The Fraud Investigation of California has begun.”
Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said via email that “Donald Trump is a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago.” She also defended California’s record on stamping out fraud in government programs.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Trump’s move to halt funding aims to score political points, not to stop fraud.
“It’s our job to serve the people most in need and most at risk — no matter what state they live in or what political party their family or elected representatives belong to,” she said in a statement. “To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible.”
For months the has claimed that federally funded programs are being defrauded and used that assertion as a rationale to hold up money.
Federal child care funding has been on hold in Minnesota since late last month amid investigations into a series of alleged fraud schemes at day care centers run by people with family roots in Somalia.
In the fallout, HHS officials said no state will receive child care funds without providing more verification. Several states have told The Associated Press that they have not received any guidance on that decision.
The administration also raised fraud claims involving SNAP, the country’s main food aid program, saying it would halt administrative money to states — most Democratic-run ones — unless they provide requested details on recipients. That process could take months.
The administration has said the information provided by most GOP-controlled states shows fraud may be worse than previously believed, though it has not provided the data or detailed reports.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told Fox News on Tuesday that his agency also plans to audit Minnesota’s Medicaid bills in search of potential fraud. He did not provide any evidence of fraud that had been found.
Associated Press journalists Anthony Izaguirre, Steve Karnowski, Trân Nguyễn, Todd Richmond, Colleen Slevin, Darlene Superville and Sophie Tareen contributed.
Children watch television at ABC Learning Center in Minneapolis, Minn., on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)
FILE = The Health and Human Services seal is seen before the news conference of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium in Washington, Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
