hello, and thanks for joining us sportsday. it's a moment that has the entire collective french rugby public holding its breath. antoine dupont, their talismanic captain, 2021 world player of the year, and arguably the finest player currently on the planet was transported to hospital after being involved in a head—on—head collision in france's record—breaking win over namibia. the world cup hosts made it three wins out of three with an absolute demolition job on the poole minnows, their biggest—ever winning margin, 96—0. but dupont�*s injury will dominate the headlines. namibia's captain, johan deysel, red—carded for the tackle which overshadowed a ruthless performance from france, with winger damian penaud helping himself to a hattrick, as the french ran in m tries in marseill.e —— in marseilles.

from one captain to another — owen farrell returns to the england starting line—up after serving a four match ban, as his team prepare to take on chile, in lille on saturday. there are 12 changes in total for steve borthwick�*s side, as farrell takes his place at fly half, while fellow number ten marcus smith moves to full—back. george ford meanwhile drops to the bench to make way for farrell. i'm very excited, yeah. been looking forward to get to the world cup, and obviously it's been... it's tough if not playing, but it's been brilliant to see what the lads have been doing on the pitch, and i can't wait to be a part of that. ireland coach andy farrell has made one change to his side to face reigning champions south africa, at the stade de france on saturday. scrum—half jamison gibson—park returns in place of conor murray. plenty at stake, with the winner of the match likely to top the group and avoid hosts france, with a probable quarterfinal against new zealand. playing the world champions,

they are a very good team and they have come in to some great form over the last few weeks, so we will have to be on our top form to get a result. it's only when you win, that's when you get to enjoy it. if you are walking around the stadium after defeat, it's not the same. i've been able to enjoy the first two, but that's because we got some good results. georgia hall and celine boutier will renew their unbeaten partnership, when europe's solheim cup defence against america gets under way in spain on friday. out—of—form american lexi thompson will hit the opening tee shot at finca cortesin just after 8pm local time. it's alternate shot foursomes to begin with. thompson, playing with megan khang, faces swedish rookies linn grant and maja stark. england's hall and boutier of france, who won three points together in 2019, play americans danielle kang and andrea lee. our correspondentjane dougall looks ahead to the action — just to warn you, there are some flickering images coming up. come on, europe! there's something special

about solheim this year. europe are favourites. they are on home soil, they're back—to—back winners and they have a charismatic captain. i really can't wait to see our players go out there and really showcase how good european golf is at this point and stage. five of the world's top 20 are in the team, including england's charley hull. vice captain dame laura davies has played in more solheim cups than anyone. she agrees this is the strongest side europe's produced. i think, from player one to player 12, there is no... they're all superstars, but there is no standout players because they are all as good as each other. one of the highlights is the fans, with both sets equally devoted. this is our sixth and this is probably the strongest team on paper. and they're young and they are up for it. i think we're going to do all right. confidence from the usa. yes! most definitely! most definitely. five rookies have been selected by american

captain stacy lewis, who at 38 is the youngest us captain in the solheim cup history. so inexperience isn't really a concern for her, and she's had bigger issues to contend with. covid has meant the ryder cup is also in europe in the same year. lewis feels that should have been capitalised on. i thought this could have been marketed together as two weeks in europe, two cups for play. you know, i think it was a missed opportunity for the sport of golf. louis�*s counterpart suzann pettersen is known to be ruthless. in 2019 she holed the winning putt at gleneagles to take the solheim cup. now she hopes to lead this team to an historic third consecutive win. jane dougall, bbc news, andalusia. it was a historic day for brighton and hove albion — the upwardly—mobile premier league club playing in a european competition for the first time in their 122—year history.

it marks an incredible rise for the club on the south coast of england, who were once threatened with bankruptcy and played for years without their own ground. but no fairy tale start for the seagulls at home to aek athens — despite twice coming from behind, they lost 3—2 to the greek side. two champions league winners are in that group. ajax and marseille drew 3—3 in a thrilling match in amsterdam. and six—times champions league winners liverpool started their europa league with a win, coming back from conceding an early goal to beat austrian side lask 3—1 — mohammed salah with the last of them. people expect us to fly to through this competition. that does not happen. does not happen in the group stage, does not happen in other pages. we have to dig into it. that's what we do. massive learning curve tonight. the opponent suffered much less from the pitch that we did. but besides that, got

to get used to it so we can learn so much. all the scores from the europa and conference leagues are on the bbc sport website. england's women have reached an agreement with the football association over bonuses and commercial opportunities. talks have been ongoing since the end of last year, but were paused injuly so the team could concentrate on the world cup. speaking ahead of friday's nations league match with scotland, england captain, millie bright, revealed that the dispute had been settled. we've come to an agreement, and yeah, but i think it's bigger than than just the bonus. for us, it's about being world leaders on and off the pitch. as we know, the women's game is evolving quickly and a conversation like this needs to happen to make sure in all areas we are top of our game. the conversation was very positive, and as players, we feel confident with the structure we have in place. india and australia begin a three—match one day series on friday, as part of their preparations for next month's cricket world cup. the visitors have key players,

including pat cummins and steven smith, back from injury as they take on the asia cup champions, in mohali. the hosts aren't taking any chances, with two of their key men, virat kohli and rohit sharma, both to be rested. i'm feeling pretty good. i'm here pretty much 100%, so i've been running around this afternoon and hoped up tomorrow. i'm gonna play all three games. he won't play tomorrow but he'll hopefully be back on later in the series, same with maxwell. but yeah, we'll try and strike up the balance between getting plenty of game time into everyone, but also we've got an eye to the world cup in a couple weeks. i think people like those two specifically, you know, from our perspective it's really

important that we get them to that first — important that we get them to that first game of the world cup physically and mentally in the space that they want to be in. the men's game has been dominated over the last couple of years by the involvement of liv golf — one of the more high—profile attempts made by saudi arabia to claim a stake in global sport. mohammed bin salman is the country's crown prince, and he's said he doesn't care about accustaions of "sportswashing". it's notjust golf — the kingdom has staged boxing events like the world heavyweight fight between anthonyjoshua and 0leksandar usyk, not to mention the private investment fund purchase of newcastle and big money transfers in their domestic football, have all led to claims saudi arabia is using sport to improve its international reputation in the face of criticism of their human rights record. but bin salman told a us cable news channel, "if sportswashing is going to increase my gdp by 1%, then we'll continue doing sportswashing." joejoyce says he wants his title back as he prepares

for a rematch with the man who took the wbo interim heavyweight belt from him. the british fighter lost his first meeting with zhang zhilei — and his perfect record with it — and ade adedoyin has been with him this afternoon at wembley. expose a lot of problems with the team, and we need to correct those. we need to get things right, and it kind of exposed them and made me have to deal with them and really focus to get more dedicated on but i'm doing, and just really improving, to come back stronger and grab that title back. you can get all the latest sports news at from the bbc sport app, orfrom our website — that's bbc.co.uk/sport. from me and the rest of the team at the bbc sport centre, goodbye.

hello. it's been a particularly wet week for many, autumnal feeling. some of the wettest spots have seen 160mm of rain, the likes of the lake district and north wales. now, some of that moisture was wrapped around this deep area of low pressure which are the remnants of hurricane lee, so that's why we've had so much rain. but that low pressure is still influencing our weather — we've still got showers thrown up across its eastern flank here, as you can see, to southeastern parts, and then we're picking up a northerly wind as it's continuing itsjourney into the north sea, and that'll be a different feel to friday. near gale force winds in the north but a stronger

wind ushering those showers further south and east. hopefully, those across the east of england clear away fairly soon and then we've got the showers coming down from the north. no area exempt to catching a shower and temperatures similar to thursday, i think, but, with more breeze, it will feel cooler and there'll still be some lively showers with rumbles of thunder. but, actually, through the night on friday, the winds ease away, the showers also ease, the skies clear, and it really looks like a chilly night, chillier than thursday night into friday with a touch of frost potentially in the glens of scotland, which means a fine start to saturday morning. there might be just the odd pocket of mist underneath this ridge of high pressure, but it's reallyjust a brief window of drier weather because we already have this next low rolling in. this is the remnants of hurricane nigel, so more tropical air heading our way. but, for the meantime, it's going to be chilly, as i say, to start saturday morning. and as we start saturday morning, we'll see some good spells of sunshine, just patchy, fair—weather cloud. but, as the day wears on, we will find more cloud piling in across the southwest into northern ireland in particular

and western scotland. and for northern ireland, actually, the latter part of the afternoon might bring a few splashes, the first splashes of rain from the next weather front. but ahead of that with sunshine and with light winds, it should feel quite pleasant at 16—17 celsius, and we're losing that northerly breeze because we're picking up instead a milder south—westerly wind but, with it, more wet, more rain and the tightly packed isobars indicate that the wind will be strengthening once again, so the likelihood is we will see further gales, particularly around the coast, and we will have further heavy rain. again, we could see similar totals — perhaps 50mm in the wetter spots, even more over the hills. but there's some uncertainty, but it does still look as if some southern and eastern parts of england might escape and stay dry with more cloud but warmer — 20—21 again because we're switching the wind direction. we are tapping into this south—westerly and starting with that high pressure close by but, eventually, on monday, that weather front does slip through across central and eastern areas. by then, perhaps not that much rain around it, but it will freshen things up again behind with showers —

sunny spells and showers as we go through towards monday. and potentially something a little bit more unsettled looking towards the west. but look at those temperatures —19—21 celsius, feeling quite pleasant. and that's because we're still keeping this south—westerly. then there is some uncertainty as we go further ahead, then, into next week. low pressure looks more dominant, doesn't it? but there's always the chance that a ridge of high pressure mightjust start to build across southern areas, so it's more likely that we'll see the wetter and windier weather taking shape across northern and western parts but, even further south this stage, it does look set to stay very changeable but still quite warm — temperatures into the low 20s into next week here, and up into the high teens further north. as ever, there's more on the website and we'll keep you up—to—date here.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore. i'm arunoday mukharji. let's get you the headlines. joe biden pledges his continued support for ukraine as its president volodymyr zelensky meets him in the oval 0ffice. australian media tycoon rupert murdoch announces his retirement as chairman of his fox and news corp businesses, handing leadership to his son lachlan. india's parliament makes history with a constitutional amendment which would reserve a third of its seats for women. a woman tells the bbc that russell brand exposed himself

to her then laughed about it minutes later on his radio show. wind from our studio in singapore, this is bbc news. it's newsday. welcome to the programme. we begin in the us where presidentjoe biden has secured a package of assistance for ukraine valued at $325 million. it includes upgrades to air defences but not the long—range missiles that president zelensky had been requesting. the announcement came at the end of the meeting between the two presidents at the white house. volodymyr zelensky briefed the government about his plans.

for more on this, let's go to halina humphrey who