Maddison's dream return helps Spurs to long-awaited Premier League win

LONDON (AP) — Tottenham beat Coventry City 3-1 at home for its first win of the season and climbed off the bottom of the Premier League table on Friday.

James Maddison's sublime strike against his boyhood club 14 minutes into the game put Spurs in the driving seat. Coventry equalized early in the second half but Omar Marmoush’s curling shot put the home side ahead again and Ben Davies sealed all three points in stoppage time.

Spurs had lost three and drawn three coming into the match and there was a real worry that the London club might face a relegation battle like last season, when it escaped on the final day.

This long-awaited win will not allay those fears but the grit involved against a plucky Coventry will give Spurs fans hope the season can now kick on.

Maddison missed all of last season with an anterior cruciate ligament injury and his return for a first start in 536 days was key, the former Coventry player sending a curving strike into the top corner early on.

“I can’t really describe the feeling when the ball hit the net," he said. “Those are the ones that are a bit blurry. They are the ones you dream of during those dark days with the ACL.

“I just wanted to show my quality and show what the team's missed in the last 18 months since my last start.”

The goal put Spurs in the driving seat but their inability to add to the tally looked like it might haunt them after Jack Rudoni drew Coventry level four minutes into the second half.

Goalkeeper Antonín Kinský got a hand on his close-range shot but could not stop it squirming into the net.

However, Marmoush’s lovely strike — his first Spurs goal since signing from Manchester City in the summer — calmed nerves at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Davies' low drive in the sixth minute of injury time relieved all tension in north London.

Spurs rose four places to 16th. Coventry was one place behind.

“I’m very disappointed," Coventry boss Frank Lampard said. “I thought we were really good in our performance, which is hard to say after a 3-1 defeat. The third goal is a mistake, but it distorts the picture of the game. The players showed a belief and we were a threat until the end.”

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Coventry City's Brandon Thomas-Asante shoots the ball during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Coventry City in London, Monday Oct. 19, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Coventry City's Taiwo Awoniyi, left, and Tottenham Hotspur's Micky van de Ven in action during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Coventry City in London, Monday Oct. 19, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Tottenham Hotspur's Omar Marmoush celebrates scoring during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Coventry City in London, Monday Oct. 19, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

Tottenham Hotspur's James Maddison, left, celebrates scoring during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Coventry City in London, Monday Oct. 19, 2026. (John Walton/PA via AP)

MIAMI (AP) — More than 100,000 people from Ukraine and Sudan can stay in the United States without immediate risk of deportation, the Department of Homeland Security said, in what amounts to a temporary reprieve after their right to stay in the country was set to expire Monday.

Temporary Protected Status was set to end Oct. 19 for about 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese. But DHS said an announcement “will be made at the appropriate time.” Until then, the department said in a written statement, Ukrainians and Sudanese in the U.S. covered by those temporary measures “retain protection.” The Department did not indicate how long they could stay or when a final announcement would be made on their status.

DHS did not respond to a question about whether they can keep their work permits, but TPS generally allows people to work while their protections remain in effect.

The decision Monday marks another incident where the Trump administration, which has previously sought to end these temporary protections from deportation and send people back to their home countries, has allowed people covered by the temporary status to stay in the country but without giving any guidance as to how long.

Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope For Ukraine, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian aid in Ukraine and helps resettle newcomers in the U.S., described the government’s announcement as “last-minute patches.”

It is a “bandage that has been placed on a wound that does not solve the real issue,” he said. “It’s time for U.S. to come up with some normal path to permanent residency for all these people,” Boyechko noted. He emphasized that they cannot safely return to Ukraine.

Andrew Arthur, a national-security and immigration expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that favors lower immigration, said the government will eventually decide but faces no deadline. Until then, nothing changes, he said.

“It’s simply going to be an extension until it is a termination,” he said. “It’s beyond cavil that both Sudan and Ukraine are experiencing ongoing armed conflict, and therefore the secretary is well within his authority to continue TPS for each of them."

The Trump administration has already terminated TPS for more than 1 million people from 13 countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Syria.

But in a change in practice roughly a month ago, the administration kept protections in place for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans whose TPS was set to expire Sept. 9. In that case they also said that they were going to make a decision at the appropriate time and that in the meantime, people from El Salvador could continue to work and live in the U.S.

Activists and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been raising the alarm over the upcoming deadline for TPS to expire for Ukrainians, arguing that conditions remain unsafe for them to return home amid the war with Russia.

Ukraine was first designated for TPS in April 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion two months earlier. The Biden administration subsequently extended the designation, most recently in January 2025, when DHS authorized an additional 18 months of protection through October 2026.

The TPS program for Sudan was established in 1997, and since then, successive U.S. administrations have extended it due to the armed conflict and political instability that have plagued the African nation.

The decision Monday comes two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when Trump’s hard line immigration policies will face a test at the ballot box.

The U.S. Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.

It allows people already in the country to remain and work, for renewable periods if the homeland security secretary determines conditions are unsafe for their return. But it doesn't give them a pathway to permanent residency.

Supporters say that using this tool protects people from being returned to dangerous situations and that uprooting people covered by TPS after years of living in the U.S. is cruel. Critics, especially in the Trump administration, say successive administrations have extended these protections for years regardless of what has happened in the home countries.

Federal rules say TPS is automatically extended for six months if the secretary doesn’t make a determination at least 60 days before the designation expires.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, noted Ukraine and Sudan meet the legal conditions for TPS to be extended.

“It is not safe for these families to go home,” Vignarajah said.

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Associated Press reporter Rebecca Santana contributed from Washington.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security sign, is seen during a news conference at ICE Headquarters, Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)