decisions

Tottenham midfielder James Maddison has suggested referees are “petrified” to make decisions because of the video assistant referee, after being denied a stoppage-time penalty against Leeds on Monday.

Substitute Maddison went down under Lukas Nmecha’s challenge, but referee Jarred Gillett and the VAR dismissed his appeal for a spot-kick.

The match finished 1-1, leaving Spurs two points above the Premier League relegation zone with two games to play.

Maddison, 29, who was making his first appearance of the season after his return from an anterior cruciate ligament injury, wrote on his Instagram account: “For clarity… The small, tiny touch on the ball to change direction came from the outside of my right foot, not Nmecha, and I told the ref that.

“But the check was over in about 20 seconds. Officials are petrified to make decisions on pitch now because of VAR. We keep fighting. COYS.”

Champions League analysts Nedum Onuoha, Guillem Balague and Stephen Warnock look at two contentious handball decisions that weren’t awarded against Paris St-Germain, including a potential red card for Nuno Mendes and a possible penalty for Bayern Munich.

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Before all that though, there needs to be a decision about Carrick.

Many feel delivering a return to the Champions League – it was predicted after his first two games against Manchester City and Chelsea that his side would be in the bottom half of the table – should be enough to secure him a full-time contract.

Getting rid of Carrick, the argument goes, would be the most risky option.

But there are two schools of thought.

The first is that Carrick gets the job because he deserves the chance, it goes wrong next season and the United hierarchy are derided for following the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer model – even though that downplays the Norwegian’s achievement of delivering successive top-four finishes, something no coach has done since Sir Alex Ferguson quit in 2013.

The other is that Carrick is replaced by a more experienced manager, who struggles to adapt and then the hierarchy are accused of trying to fix something that wasn’t broken.

This decision is not made easier by the knowledge that Paris St-Germain are confident the standout candidate, Luis Enrique, will sign a new deal with them, and even if he does not, will want wages among the highest in the world to change clubs.

The practicalities of trying to bring in someone like Julian Nagelsman – whose contract with Germany does not expire until 2028 and could be involved in the World Cup final a day after Manchester United’s first pre-season game against Wrexham in Helsinki – make it an unviable option.

Andoni Iraola is well liked but, as Thomas Frank, who spoke to United in 2024, discovered at Tottenham, managing a progressive, smaller Premier League club is a whole different world to dealing with the biggest.

No-one knew what results Carrick would deliver when he was asked to take over until the end of the season. However, one thing United’s powerbrokers were certain about was that he would not be swamped by the sheer scale of what he was taking on.

Carrick met Sir Jim Ratcliffe for a cup of tea and a casual chat last week. Time will tell how important that brew was.

Barring an unimaginable sequence of results, Old Trafford will host Champions League football again next season.

But one senses for those running the club, their most significant work is about to begin.

April 16 (UPI) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Thursday testified before seven congressional committees, often clashing with Democrats about decisions he has made about vaccines and department priorities.

The testimony is Kennedy’s first trip to the Capitol this year and the first time that he has appeared before Congress in more than seven months, The Washington Post reported.

In addition to unilaterally remaking the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and the agency’s recommended childhood vaccine schedule — which were blocked by a federal judge in March — he has changed the Food and Drug Administration‘s recommendations on diet and shepherded medications through federal approval processes while allegedly ignoring data on them.

Kennedy also was asked by members of Congress about the Trump administration’s 12.5% budget request decrease, which amounts to about $16 billion that it sought for its fiscal year 2027 budget proposal, NPR reported.

“Our children are the sickest generation in modern history — decades of failed policy, captured agencies and profit-driven systems have caused it,” Kennedy said during a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee.

“Parents across this country demanded change — and we are delivering it,” he said.

Kennedy said that the measles vaccine “certainly” could have saved the life of a child who died in Texas last year during an outbreak in the state.

More than 1,700 measles cases have been reported through the first 3 1/2 months of 2026, compared to more than 2,200 reported in all of 2025.

He also was asked by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., about ending an influenza vaccine public awareness campaign while investing money in marketing efforts for his remade food pyramid.

“You suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign, but somehow you’re spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk, shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock?” Sanchez asked.

Kennedy also was accused of “diminishing science” by Rep. Bradley Scott, D-Ill., with his support for $5.7 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health meant for drug development.

“Nobody wants to make the cuts,” Kennedy said in response to several questions about reducing the HHS budget, but said the nation needs “to tighten our belt” because of the national debt, which he blamed on Congress.