us open. and leading from the front: ollie pope says he can't let the england captaincy affect his batting. welcome along to the programme. french president emmanuel macron has officially declared the paralympic games open in paris during a ceremony full of colour and energy as the sun slowly set in the capital city. conditions were glorious for the first paralympics curtain—raiser to be held outside a stadium. proceedings at the place de la concorde began with a big show of blue, white and red fireworks. the patrouille de france

also painted the skies above with the french flag. a,500 athletes made up the parade from the champs—elysees to the place de la concorde. the first of 11 days of sporting action takes place on thursday as france hosts a summer paralympic games for the first time. so the opening ceremony is complete. and after tokyo had no fans due to covid, and rio was dogged by financial issues, the pressure is on the french capital to rival — or even better — london 2012. beyond the sport, however, those involved say they're mindful of a secondary purpose for the games. it is always important, we are here in elite sport. winning medals is what we're about, but we are also part of an incredible global movement, the paralympic movement, which on and off the field of play wants disabled people to be recognised wholly in society. those performances on the field can only help us in that cause.

now to the us open tennis, where the wimbledon champion barbora krejcikova is out. she was beaten in the second round by the romanian qualifier elena—gabriela ruse. ruse beating the czech player 6—4, 7—5 to reach the third round of a grand slam for the first time. krejcikova — who was knocked out of the quarterfinals at the olympics — chose not to play any hard court warm—up events going into the tournament and withdrew from the tournament in toronto with a thigh injury. to the men's draw, and the number four seed alexander zverev is through to the third round. he beat the french wildcard alexandre muller, finishing match with an ace. the two players had never met before. the german will face tomas martin etcheverry next. i am back in the top four in the world. you know, one set away from winning the french open this year. i've won a massive

event year again. i like to brag about myself, i'm in love with myself. no, i'm kidding. but, look, i have the same goals now that i had before the injury, and that was always doubt in my mind that i was ever going to be at that level again. and of course i'm extremely happy. i go into these tournaments with the top mindset to win. while the former semi—finalist grigor dimitrov is through to the third round, the bulgarian ninth seed beat australian rinky hijikata in straight sets, although it did take dimitrov six match points to get the job done. the second test between england and sri lanka starts on thursday. ollie pope's stand—in captaincy started with a 5—wicket win at old trafford in the first test, but after a poor return with the bat, he has admitted that he needs to get the balance right with being skipper and a top order batter. here's our sports correspondentjoe wilson.

sri lanka have found summer at lord's. after a tight first test, they're confident, warmed up. test cricket revolves around the ball. bowlers depend on its condition. if it goes out of shape early, it can be replaced. that happened for england in the first test. sri lanka felt it changed the game and when they were bowling they also had queries. captain, can ijust check with the ball change, you were saying. do you think the umpires responded in the same way when you brought it up to when england brought it up? they were consistent. yeah, but they had their chance with the ball, so we haven't got that chance. what do you mean by that? the seam was like, you know out shape of the ball as they said to me. but our ball hasn't changed that much. 0h, 0k. so when england were bowling with it it changed? and when you were bowling it didn't change? yeah, that's what they said. oh, is that what you think? that's what umpire said. the old trafford test was hard one for england. it needed grit from joe root. match winning knock, the rock in a changing team.

of the england players who finished the last test match of last summer, only four of them are here preparing for this match, and the stand—in captain continues to stand—in — ollie pope working on his captaincy and his batting. hopefully over the next couple of weeks i can go and put some good scores together for the team. but yeah, i think the first one was probably a bit of learning for me and to how to manage the two things separately. i don't see it as a negative on my batting. um, obviously it's two weeks, two more weeks of it. so it's not like i'm staring down the barrel of some, some long fatigue. it's something that i've really enjoyed so far. every step ollie pope takes is towards ben stokes. he'll hand over the captaincy when the series is done, but england discuss their strategy, knowing it's likely their summer is about to get harder. joe wilson, bbc news at lord's. to football, and there were seven ties in the second round of the league cup in england, with 6 of them involving premier league sides.

wolves are through after 2 goals from gonzalo guedes helped them beat burnley. ipswich are out, however, after losing to wimbledon on penalties. southampton scored twice in injury time to beat cardiff. brentford had a narrow win over colchester united of league 2. wycombe upset swansea, who are a division above them to progress. west ham scored late through jarrod bowen to beat bournemouth. and newcastle are through after their game against nottingham forest went to penalties. let's end the programme back at the paralympics. boccia champion david smith won gold at the rio games in 2016, did it again in tokyo three years ago, and so he's hoping to make it a hat—trick of golds in paris. but he's also hoping to inspire the next generation to get into the sport. he's been talking to our reporter kimberley boak. i know there's a lot of people with my sort of disability

who are smart, articulate, competitive, but without a competitive outlet. for me, it's like, why are they not playing boccia? so, david, how did it all start for you with boccia? i went to a school when i was 11 called treloar�*s. there was lots of activities going on and there was an opportunity to play boccia in the evenings. i wasn't particularly keen on the sport at the time, but it meant i got out of doing homework. so i went to the club, played regularly, and as i started playing regularly, i got better at the sport, and one year ijust got on a bit of a hot streak and i went to the british championships and i went there not expecting very much. i ended up winning it, so becoming the youngest ever british champion. so, yeah, that was kind of how it all started. so since then, you've obviously had a glittering career. you've then won individual gold in rio and tokyo. with that in mind, what are you thinking for paris? for me, i really enjoyed the paralympics in tokyo. i'm hopeful that paris

sort of takes that to another level again. the main thing for me is tv coverage. we had tv coverage in tokyo and it totally transformed my experience of the games. having the ability to showcase to a much wider audience, i think overi million people watched my match in the final in tokyo. so again, we get those sort of numbers in paris, not just for myself, but for the other competitors as well. happy days. why is it so important to have good people around you and have a good team around you? it's really important because it's the information you get back. and obviously when you're in competition, that high pressure environment, your brain is your biggest enemy. so i need people around me who know me that i can bounce ideas off, can challenge me in the right way, and get the best out of me when i'm feeling a bit uncertain or unsure, they can reassure me. to anyone who's never played boccia, what would you say to them and why should they give it a go? the great thing about boccia is it's quite...i wouldn't say low level, but it's low threat.

so you don't have to be a particularly athletic person to be good at boccia. a lot more about hand—eye coordination, posture, control, and then you can build the power as you play this sport. and a lot of it is touch and feel as well. it's notjust about raw power. for me, boccia is a great game for that. that competitiveness, being a better person, trying different things, problem solving, communication. david, we're in swansea today, where you've created a whole boccia community. why is it so important to you to pay it forward and create a springboard for the next generation? because i've been playing the sport for so long now, coming to the part of my career where i'm starting thinking about what's next, for me, it's important to get more people with my sort of disability the opportunity to play the sport, because there is no other sport that i could potentially do at the paralympics. you know, i know there's a lot of people with my sort of disability who are smart, articulate, competitive, etc, but without a competitive outlet. for me, it's like, why are they not playing boccia?

i know the reason for that and i want to make a difference. i'm sure we will be following david smith's progress at the paralympics which gets under way on thursday. from me and the team, we will see you again soon. bye— bye. hello again. wednesday brought us some big contrasts in the weather across the uk. now, for the north and west of the country, we did have a lot of cloud, and that brought some outbreaks of rain at times. you can see that on the combined satellite and radar picture. some of the heaviest rain went into western scotland, where we also had some of the lowest temperatures. for example, in harris, we only had temperatures of 14 degrees. in sharp contrast to that, skipping across these various weather fronts, we actually had plenty

of sunshine and quite hot weather across east anglia and south east england, with temperatures peaking at 30 degrees in cambridge. confirmation, then, that the weather did indeed look a lot cheerier for some. now, looking at the weather picture over the next few hours, we've got a cold front whizzing its way eastwards across the country. what that's essentially doing is it's bringing cooler and fresher air in across the uk, so it won't be so hot across eastern areas of england as we look at the forecast in detail for thursday. and for many of us, it's going to be quite a fresh start to the day. temperatures even in single figures across parts of eastern scotland. now for scotland and northern ireland, this weather front will bring a zone of thicker cloud, outbreaks of rain for a time, followed by some showers into the afternoon. there could be a few showers at times across the northwest of england, maybe across parts of wales, but these few and far between, i think across the midlands, east anglia, southern england, it's a largely dry day. still warm in the sunshine, 23 degrees. not bad, but it's not going to be as hot as it was. we're not going to see temperatures of 30, for example.

then for friday and the weekend, this area of high pressure is set to move across the uk. the other thing we've got to watch out for is the risk of a few showers coming up from france, but for the time being, it looks like they'll stay away. so friday, plenty of sunshine, just a few showers for orkney and shetland, where it will continue to be quite breezy. otherwise, temperatures generally in the high teens to low 20s for scotland and northern ireland, and about 20 to 23 widely across england and wales. it then starts to get a bit warmer for scotland and northern ireland as we start to get a southerly drift, so temperatures more widely will reach the 20s as we go through the weekend. there'll still be a lot of dry and sunny weather for england and wales. just an outside chance of a shower working in to the coast of southern england. our temperatures, well, coming up to about 22 in glasgow, so feeling quite a bit warmer here. and a fine weekend, sunday looks good as well. could see 25 across parts of eastern england, but then some showers around next week.

live from washington. this is bbc news. israel launches one of the largest assaults on militants in the occupied west bank in more than 20 years, leaving at least 10 people dead. the fbi says there appears to be no motive for the gunman in the assassination attempt of former president trump. opposition protest against venezuelan president nicolas maduro have re emerged in the capital of caracas.

hello i'm caitriona perry. at least 10 people have died in the biggest israeli military operation in the occupied west bank for 20 years. authorities at least ten people have been killed so far. violence has been increasing in the west bank since the hamas attacks on october 7 with the un saying more than 650 palestinians have been killed, and that there's been violence against israelis. this latest massive operation involved israeli forces simultaneously entering the cities ofjenin, tulkarm, nablus and tubas, in what the israel defence forces called a counter—terrorism strike. last month, the international court ofjustice ruled that israel's continued occupation of palestinian territories is a breach of international law.

from jenin, lucy williamson sent this report.