aryna sabalenka is into the semi—finals of the us open. history made as sri lanka's women beat england in a t20 series for the first time in their history. thanks forjoining us on sportsday. we're going to start at flushing meadows. it's the us open, where heat and humidity provided for a grueling battle between lifelong friends daniil medvedev and andrey rublev in their men's quarter—final. before the meeting of the muscovites, the pair had talked about a friendship dating back to when rublev was just six years old. but all of that put aside and everything centred around the conditions, with medvedev particularly vocal about the brutality of it all.

cannot imagine. one player gonna die and they're going to see. nevertheless, it was the 2021 us open winner who took the match 6—4, 6—3, 6—4 to reach the last four of a major for the seventh time. on the women's side, second seed aryna sabalenka is into the semi—finals for the third successive year with a dominant win over china's zheng qinwen. the australian open champion has reached the last four of all four majors in 2023, becoming the first woman since serena williams in 2016 to achieve the feat. in contrast, her 20—year—old opponent was appearing in herfirst grand slam quarter—final after knocking out last year's runner—up ons jabeur in the previous round. but she was unable to lay a glove on sabalenka, who took the opener 6—1. the number 23 seed made more of a fight of the second, but sabalenka showing her big—stage experience to take the set and the match, 6-1, 6-4. when you get to these last

stages of the tournament, anyway you're going to think about, what if, what i want, what i would like, and you're like dreaming. and yeah, i'm not trying to block these thoughts, you know, because when you're trying to block something, like, it's going to keep getting in your head and it can get really annoying. and when you're not trying to block it, it actually goes away. now, the 30—man shortlist for the 2023 ballon d'or has been announced. no surprise, as argentina legend lionel messi is the overwhelming favourite to extend his record to eight ballons d'or, after of course guiding his country to world cup glory. but it might be worth a flutter on norwegian striker erling haaland. the manchester city star scored 52 goals in 53 matches in city's treble—winning season. worth mentioning a notable omission — five—time winner cristiano ronaldo, who plays for al—nasr in saudi arabia, he isn't nominated for the first time since 2003.

on the women's side, spain and barcelona midfielder aitana bonmati is nominated — can she add to her trophies this season, having been named uefa women's player of the year and winning the world cup, of course, with her country. bonmati's compatriot alexia putellas, who won the award in each of the last two years, last two editions, misses out after only recently returning from a long—term injury. england quartet millie bright, rachel daly, mary earps and georgia stanway are also among the nominees. all four players helping the lionesses reach the 2023 women's world cup final. now, spanish footballer jenni hermoso has filed a legal complaint over the kiss by the president of spain's football federation, luis rubiales. hermoso was kissed on the lips by rubiales after spain's 1—0 win over england at the world cup final in sydney, and has since said it wasn't consensual. rubiales denies that and has refused to resign,

despite being provisionally suspended by football's world governing body, fifa. the complaint means he could face criminal charges. an investigation into the helicopter crash five years ago at leicester city's stadium has found there was nothing the pilot could have done to stop it happening. five people were killed in the crash outside the king power stadium, including the club's billionaire owner. the aviation accident investigation bureau blames catastrophic mechanical failure and rules out pilot error. phil mackey has more. this was the aftermath of the accident in october 2018 and the start of an investigation into what led to the loss of five people's lives. we now know what caused the crash. the leonardo aw169 was leaving the king power stadium when the rear rotor blade failed. it caused the helicopter to spin out of control. it crashed and caught fire. everyone on board was killed. leicester's billionaire chairman vichai srivaddhanaprabha, employees nursara suknamai

and kaveporn punpare, as well as the experienced pilot and instructor eric swaffer, and his partner, izabela lechowicz. investigators say all safety checks had been properly carried out and mr swaffer couldn't have done anything to prevent the accident. it was a very serious failure, and what happened was the tail retracted, drove the tail rotor blades to their full negative pitch, and that spun the aircraft around very rapidly. it was spinning once every two seconds, and that made the helicopter impossible to control. so there's little more he could have done. the crash led to an outpouring of grief from football fans in leicester and around the world. this is where the helicopter crashed, and players and staff did their best to pull people out of the wreckage. a year later, it was opened as this beautiful memorial garden, so there's a permanent reminder for the club and its supporters of what happened. the aaib has made a number of recommendations because of what it called weaknesses in safety regulations. in a statement, mr

srivaddhanaprabha's son said: along with those of the pilot and his co—pilot, his family are now considering legal action. phil mackey, bbc news, leicester. manchester united say they are taking allegations made against winger antony seriously after he was accused of abusing his former girlfriend. on monday, a brazilian news outlet published allegations made by antony�*s former partner — allegations which the player denies. police in both sao paulo and greater manchester are investigating. the 23—year—old was withdrawn from the brazil squad after the allegations emerged. and on wednesday, united said:

to cricket, and sri lanka have cruised to victory over england's women in the final t20 international in derby in the east midlands, with the series finishing 2—i to the visitors, really a record breaking day. sri lanka's first series win over england in their history and it's the first home t20 series that england have lost to anyone but australia since 2010. pretty poor performance all round from the hosts. danni wyatt out first ball of the match, really setting the tone for a sub—par total of 116 all out. sri lanka in response, setting the platform through their star all rounder chamari athapaththu with a knock of 44, with the visitors taking the win with three overs to spare. sometimes it's big pressure for me. sometimes i have to score more runs and wickets. but now, my team is really good. so young talent, a few youngsters come to the side. the energy is very high. they are batting really good and the senior bowlers doing really good. that's really good for the team. as a captain, i'm really happy

about my team performance. i'm proud of my girls. always disappointing to lose series, to be completely honest with you. obviously, we had such an incredible ashes and i don't think that takes away from what a good team we are. louie said that to us after chelmsford. a couple of losses don't make you a bad team and we're still learning. we're still working towards that bangladesh world cup next year. so we've still got 12 months of really planning and prepping, and hopefully we'll see more polished performances by the time we get to that. to golf, and rory mcilroy says he's optimistic about europe's chances of winning back the ryder cup when they take on the united states in rome later this month. mcilroy is not concerned about the absence of liv golf players in the team, insisting new players like swedish youngster ludwig aberg add considerable strength to luke donald's team. from people that have watched him play in the states, he turned pro injune. people who saw him play over there, a few of us were saying it was a no—brainer but people hadn't seen him play over here, and then he comes and finishes

fourth in czech and then wins in switzerland. i think people here that were maybe a little bit sceptical of it all realised what the hype was all about, and he's an unbelievable player. probably one of my favourite swings in the world. finally, the new nfl season gets under way on thursday as the defending champions kansas city chiefs begin their title defence against detroit. two—time super bowl—winning quarterback patrick mahomes says the chiefs will have to be on their game from the get—go. a lot of young guys playing last year. you could see even throughout the season how they grew and got better and better, and then they added talent. i mean, they added sutton from the steelers. they had gardnerjohnson, obviously, i played him a couple of times, great football player. and so they've added talent with young guys and veterans and they play hard and they got better even last year. so we know it's going to be it's going to be a heck of a football game. and if we don't play our best football, we're not going to go out there and win.

and that's all the time we've got left. and you can, of course, get all the latest sports news on our website, bbc.com/sports. but from me, mark edwards, and the rest of the team here at the bbc sports centre, we'll see you very soon. bye— bye. hello there. i've got a couple of interesting sunsets to show you. the first of these shows, well, rather subdued colors rather subdued colours in the skies in norfolk. and that was because we've got thick layers of saharan dust in the sky and all saharan dust is good for is well blocking out some of the sun's light. whereas in the much cleaner skies and cleaner air that we've had in scotland, some really spectacular sunsets as all of the sun's light can come flooding across the sky. now, looking at the weather pattern at the moment, we've got more of our september heat—wave to come thanks heatwave to come thanks

to this blocked weather pattern in the jet stream, a ridge of high pressure in north—west europe is bringing us hot and sunny weather. but in contrast to that, this trough in the eastern mediterranean is what is responsible for storm daniel. and of course, that's been bringing some catastrophic floods to parts of south—east europe over recent days. now, looking at the weather picture as we go through the next few hours, for the vast majority, we're looking at dry conditions with just a bit of low cloud, and mist and fog patches forming primarily around some of the north sea coast in east scotland, eastern areas of england. and so that's how we start the day on thursday. some of that will be quite slow to clear away, but eventually most of us will see sunshine. there'll be a bit more high cloud across the north and west of the uk, so that will make the sunshine a little bit on the hazy side here. but it's another hot and sunny day. temperatures in scotland and northern ireland widely around 2a to 27. but for england, wales we're looking at quite widely the high 20s to low 30s. so we're going to be quite close again to seeing the highest temperature of the year, 32 degrees

recorded on wednesday, probably similar for thursday. now for friday, it's another dry day. probably a little bit more in the way of mist and fog patches around both the north sea coast and also through some of our irish sea coasts. but for the bulk, it's hot and it's sunny once again. and it's sunny once again. we've got more of this to come as well as we get into the weekend. although there's a tendency for the weather to start turning a little bit cloudier and breezier across the north—west of scotland with some showers moving in here. and this really is the first sign of a breakdown in the weather patterns, with that slightly cooler air working into parts of western scotland. but for most, saturday is another september scorcher, with highs up to 32. 32.2 is the highest temperature we've seen so far this year. so we're not far away from that. the change in the weather patterns, though, will come through next week. temperatures getting closer to normal and there'll be a bit of rain around as well.

live from washington. this is bbc news. after years of protests and legal steps, mexico's supreme court decriminalises abortion across the country. a russian missile strike kills 17 people in eastern ukraine, as the us secretary of state commits more funds to kyiv�*s war effort. plus, a medicalfirst. scientists grow a model of an embryo without using sperm, eggs or a womb. hello, i'm carl nasman. we begin in mexico, where the country's supreme court has issued a sweeping decision, decriminalising abortion nationwide. in a statement posted on social media, the court said the previous law making

abortion a crime was