Maybe, just maybe, Scotland will end their painful wait. If the nature of this win over Greece counts, someone is smiling favourably on Steve Clarke’s bid to lead his country to a first World Cup since 1998. Greece were superior to the Scots in so many departments here yet still lost. Lewis Ferguson’s first strike for his country and Lyndon Dykes, who scored in stoppage time, have Clarke daring to dream. It was victory that mattered here, not how it was achieved, which is just as well.

Assessment of this Scotland team is not particularly easy. Euphoria swept the country as Clarke led his men to the last European Championship. Epic disappointment was not only the theme in Germany but again as the Scots returned for Nations League action. Scotland rallied impressively in that group before a comprehensive defeat by Greece in a playoff.

A ‘more mature’ player after two seasons on loan, the winger is glad to be back and may be ready to live up to his potential

The Stadio Olimpico was not a happy place just after 3pm on Saturday afternoon. Lazio were losing at home to Torino, who had been outscored by their previous five league opponents by a combined 10 goals to two. Ultras from the Curva Nord were wrapping up the latest protest in their never-ending feud with the club’s owner, Claudio Lotito.

Was Lazio’s season coming unstitched, or had there never been a thread holding it together in the first place? They reappointed Maurizio Sarri as manager this summer, only for him to later acknowledge that the club had not mentioned the transfer ban they were about to receive for financial irregularities. Rumours that he might quit were unfounded, but he did say Lotito had “swindled” him.

Brendan Carr earlier said ‘we can do this the easy way or the hard way’ as he urged networks to take action on Kimmel

Brendan Carr, the tough-talking, pro-Trump chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), claimed on Tuesday that Democrats and the media had “misrepresented” critical comments he made about Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow.

Television conglomerates including Nexstar and Sinclair opted to pull the show for “business” reasons, Carr argued, not because of anything he said.

When it began, Blue Lights was a thrilling saga that could only be set in Northern Ireland. Now, it feels like any other generic crime show. The spark that ignited it has gone

Beloved dramas create safe spaces within themselves and, for fans of BBC police saga Blue Lights, home is the inside of the squad car driven by Stevie (Martin McCann), when he and partner Grace (Siân Brooke) are parked up and their radios are quiet. Stevie reaching into the back seat and bringing out a plastic box full of sweet treats he has lovingly baked is a sign that all is well.

The opening credits are yet to roll when we get the reassuring sight of Grace and Stevie biting through frosting. But this isn’t just a moment of calm before all hell breaks loose again on their Belfast beat. At the end of season two, the “will-they-won’t-they” between the two main characters became a “yes they definitely will”, and with some time now having passed – Stevie’s got a beard – the couple are browsing for houses together online.

Energy minister says platform’s owner Elon Musk is a ‘dangerous man’ who is part of a ‘global network of right’

It’s “possible” the government should come off X, Ed Miliband has said, because Elon Musk is a “dangerous man”.

The energy minister said Musk was part of a “global network of the far right” that includes Nigel Farage.

Packed with Agatha Christie-meets-Lost shenanigans, this ludicrous crime drama from Anthony Horowitz is a most perfect piece of televisual trash. Treasure it!

We open, bright red Pulp Fiction-y letters tell us, on “Day Nine”. Not “Day One”! Intrigued? You betcha! We are in Los Tríos, Mexico – watching a woman watch the Mexican military police await delivery of nine bodies, to store in an isolated facility’s morgue. Which is fortuitous, because this is the beginning of a new thriller by Anthony Horowitz, called Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue (the title fits brilliantly). The series was originally developed for the short-form platform Quibi; but I thank whoever realised that this perfect piece of trash deserved a larger canvas and broader distribution, and gave it 45 minutes per episode (and, ultimately, to the BBC).

I don’t know that anything has given me greater or purer joy this year. Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue is unabashed nonsense, without a trace of cynicism or guile in a world stuffed to bursting with both. I offer my undying allegiance to its Agatha Christie-meets-Lost shenanigans.

Prosecutors allege Rubin and his ex-assistant Jennifer Powers trafficked and assaulted dozens of women for years

Retired US financier Howard Rubin was arrested Friday on sex-trafficking charges for allegedly trafficking dozens of women, including former Playboy models, to be sexually and physically assaulted during encounters in his New York City penthouse in a soundproofed room described in court papers as “The Dungeon”.

Authorities announced the arrest of Rubin and his former personal assistant, Jennifer Powers, on charges in an indictment unsealed in Brooklyn federal court.

The late-night host’s return after his brief suspension has found more than 15m views in less than 24 hours

So much for low viewership: Jimmy Kimmel’s comeback monologue is now his most-viewed one on YouTube.

The nearly 30-minute segment, in which Kimmel acknowledged his suspension by ABC owner Disney under pressure from the Trump administration, clarified his remarks on the killing of Charlie Kirk and passionately defended free speech, racked up more than 15m views in 16 hours.

Alexander Isak, the man who extinguished Liverpool’s hopes in the Carabao Cup final last season, opened his account for Arne Slot’s side as they produced yet another victory with another late show. It was far from a comfortable night’s work for the Premier League leaders, however, as Will Still’s Southampton refused to be intimidated at Anfield and almost took the tie to penalties.

Liverpool needed an 85th-minute winner from Hugo Ekitiké to see off tenacious opposition from the Championship and maintain their quest to reach a fourth League Cup final in five seasons. Ekitiké received a second yellow card for removing his shirt in celebration and will now miss Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace through suspension. His dismissal added to Slot’s concerns after Giovanni Leoni’s impressive debut came to an abrupt halt through injury.

Fulham showed their teeth under the floodlights here and, given these are footballers we are talking about, the results were decidedly gleaming. Goals from Alex Iwobi and Harry Wilson plus an Ethan Pinnock own goal enabled Marco Silva’s men to bounce back from an early concession to take three points with something to spare. In claiming the spoils once again in this west London derby, Fulham also took some of the shine off Keith Andrews’ start as Brentford manager in the process.

Silva had used his programme notes to remind supporters of the atmosphere created at the corresponding fixture last season – a 2-1 Fulham win secured by two Wilson goals in second-half added time. “Matches under the lights at the Cottage can be special,” he wrote, adding: “In both our matches against Brentford last season, the players needed to show a lot of character.” It duly came to pass that every pre-match observation made by the canny Silva was manifest again here.

Pep Guardiola said of drawing Napoli and having Kevin De Bruyne return: “It was always going to happen, right?”

But he might have spoken of his No 9’s ruthlessness, as Erling Haaland broke this game open with Champions League goal No 50 in a record 49 matches, a feat that handsomely beats Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 62-appearance mark.

• Hull KR 28-20 Warrington

• Second leg of possible domestic treble completed

Hull KR confirmed top spot in Super League and a first League Leaders’ Shield with a nerve-shredding victory over Warrington Wolves to complete the second leg of a possible domestic treble.

Willie Peters’ side have been the standout force in the competition this year but they have begun to stutter in recent weeks with the play-offs approaching. That was evident last week when they were well beaten by Wakefield, but they still knew a result of any kind here would be enough to secure first at the expense of Wigan Warriors.

Ange Postecoglou, hands rooted in pockets, was stewing as he walked on the pitch at the final whistle, as What a Beautiful Day, an unofficial Swansea anthem, blared over the speakers. Swansea had just completed an utterly unthinkable, remarkable comeback to advance to the Carabao Cup fourth round at Nottingham Forest’s expense, the hosts scoring twice in six minutes of second-half stoppage time.

Igor Jesus scored his first Forest goals to earn Postecoglou’s side a two-goal lead but the Australian will have to wait a little longer for his first win in charge.

Claims that brothers were sexually abused didn’t supersede ‘premeditation and deliberation’ of killings, says judge

A California judge has rejected a request for a new trial for Erik and Lyle Menendez, saying the allegations that the brothers were sexually abused did not supersede their “premeditation and deliberation” when they killed their parents more than 35 years ago.

The ruling Monday by Los Angeles superior court judge William C Ryan comes just weeks after the brothers were denied parole and shuts down another possible path to freedom for the two who have served nearly 30 years in prison. Ryan denied a May 2023 petition seeking a review of their convictions based on new evidence supporting their claims of sexual abuse by their father.

The Walking Dead star plays a total berk who stumbles into a terrifying confrontation in the woods. It’s like Deliverance in the Highlands

Andrew Lincoln has been Rick Grimes – the leader of a group of survivors of a zombie plague in Frank Darabont’s at first mesmeric and then mesmerically dull post-apocalyptic series The Walking Dead – for 15 years. Off and on (and in a spin-off) but mostly on. Now, at last, he is free. He’s had a shower, a haircut and – thank God – cleared his throat after a decade and a half of rattling phlegmily through increasingly ropey scripts and pretending to care about his son Carl, and is appearing on stage in The Lady from the Sea at the Bridge theatre, London and on our screens in the fairly bananas thriller Coldwater.

You can see what attracted Lincoln to the part. John is the anti-Grimes. We meet him (once the obligatory opening scene of the character covered in blood and running through some woods is over and we’ve flashed back to “Two months earlier”) fleeing the sight of a man in the playground beating up a woman, so panic-stricken that he leaves one of his two children there and has to go back for her. The family then moves to Scotland for a fresh start, although his high-flyer wife, Fiona (Indira Varma), seems far too intelligent for us to believe that she would countenance this as the answer to his post-playground PTSD and/or be married to a berk.

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This 80s-set Australian show about rival newscasters is the best kind of period drama. It’s soapy, highly dramatic and wonderfully camp

The Newsreader is the best kind of period piece in that it makes you reflect not only on the past but on the present. The first two seasons of this Australian drama about rival newscasters managed to cram in some of the biggest events of the 80s: the Challenger disaster; the Aids crisis; rumours of the end of Charles and Diana’s marriage.

As well as seeing the impact those stories had on the world, the series hinged on some perennial themes, too – women being sidelined in the workplace; homophobia; mental illness; and what drives people to stay in their jobs even when everything around them is dripping with toxicity. To watch The Newsreader in an age of boundaries and therapy-speak is to feel at once privileged not to be working in broadcast television in the 1980s, and acutely aware that many of the problems still persist today. As unsettling as it is, the programme has often been excellent: I have a suspicion that if this were a US series, it would be a smash hit.

Researchers studying the phenomenon found in 2024 there were between 14 to 17 coyotes on Angel island

For nearly a decade, Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay has been home to what the state parks describes as a “budding population” of coyotes. Late last month park workers got a fascinating glimpse at the animal’s journey to the island.

Angel Island staffers traveling by boat saw a coyote swimming along Raccoon Strait, and filmed it paddling across the deep waterway between the island and mainland Marin county. The coyote was about a quarter mile from shore and safely returned to the island, the park posted online.

This propulsive, gripping three-parter about a young equestrian’s death shows a duo who refused to give up on her. It’s an important attempt to do justice to a deeply dark tale

When exactly is true crime a force for good? It’s a question we should probably ask ourselves every single time we consume something in this lurid and inevitably exploitative genre. Death of a Showjumper is, in many ways, a standardly sensationalised account of a young woman’s murder: paced for maximum dramatic intensity; details judiciously withheld to spin the most compulsively watchable yarn. But its broader subject matter – the epidemic of violence against women, and the ways such abuse is silenced, minimised and weaponised against the victims themselves – is one of the few that can justify the existence of a series like this.

It’s easy to feel cynical at first. Visually stunning and thematically arresting, Death of a Showjumper’s backdrop is tailor-made for a TV crime drama. It’s set amid the equestrian community of Northern Ireland, and we are transported to a place brimming with bucolic beauty as well as “secrets and silence”. The lifestyle is familiar but subtly alien: horses are ubiquitous and the associated culture not reserved for toffs – the hunt is an adrenaline sport for skilled riders. And 21-year-old Katie Simpson was one.

Toronto film festival: the star fails to make much of an impression in a slight and unpolished project filmed in Warsaw over the Brat summer of 2024

The singer Charli xcx is, by her own admission, a workaholic – no sooner had she released Brat, the most dominant pop album and aesthetic of 2024, than she began work on its sequel, dropped just four months later. Insouciant and party-centric as her image may be, the pop star born Charlotte Aitchison is a sharp student of pop culture; she knows the audience demand for pop stars’ constant reinvention. The next career phase, it seems, is acting, with no less prodigiousness than music; the 33-year-old has seven films in the pipeline as a supporting or lead actor.

Charli is neither the full star nor the anchor of Erupcja (Eruption), directed by Pete Ohs, but she will inevitably be the reason most English speakers hear of it. Filmed over a few weeks in Warsaw, Poland, in August 2024, in the heat of Brat summer, Erupcja seems, on paper, like a sensible step for a pop star making her first foray into movies. Ohs is an unconventional, independent film-maker, who has dabbled in different genres – supernatural horror, sci-fi – and films chronologically, writing collaboratively as he goes. Charli spent the better part of a decade bridging pop music’s underground and mainstream. Slight, contained, relatively undemanding of its actors or its audience, it’s a safe trial run.

Erupcja is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released at a later date