Officers raided 33-year-old’s home and allegedly seized statue along with 24 suspected stolen drivers’ licences and prescription medication

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

A man who handed himself in to police has been charged over the alleged theft of a gorilla statue from a retirement village in Melbourne’s north.

The gorilla, a 1.5-metre garden ornament named Garry, disappeared from Leith Park retirement village at St Helena on 6 June.

• Quarter-final: Argentina 1-1 Ecuador (4-2 pens)
• Lionel Messi missed Panenka at start of shootout

The holders Argentina advanced to the Copa América semi-finals, beating Ecuador 4-2 on penalty kicks following a 1-1 draw in Texas.

Lionel Messi missed Argentina’s first penalty but was reprieved by goalkeeper Emi Martínez, who saved Ecuador’s first two efforts. Lisandro Martínez had given Argentina the lead 10 minutes before half-time, but Kevin Rodríguez equalised with a superb header in injury time at the end of the second half. Ecuador’s captain Enner Valencia had earlier hit the post from the penalty spot after a handball by Rodrigo De Paul.

With Argentina going first in the shootout, Messi tried a Panenka and hit the crossbar. Martínez, the goalkeeper in Argentina’s shootout win over France in the 2022 World Cup final, then saved kicks from Ángel Mena and Alan Minda. Julián Álvarez and Alexis Mac Allister converted to put Argentina ahead 2-0, and after John Yeboah, Gonzalo Montiel and Jordy Caicedo all scored, Nicolas Otamendi struck the winning penalty.

Convicted financier Raffaele Mincione is seeking to clear his name over Vatican’s €350m London investment

Pope Francis’s chief of staff has become one of the highest-ranking Holy See officials to testify in a foreign court, giving a British tribunal a detailed explanation of the negotiations at the heart of the Vatican’s “trial of the century”.

Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra was called to testify on Thursday on behalf of the Vatican secretariat of state in a British civil proceeding brought against the Vatican by an Italian-British financier who was involved in the transactions over a London property.

• Liam Wright is Australia’s seventh skipper in past year
• Tom Lynagh follows father’s footsteps in first Test

The Wallabies have named a first-time captain and seven debutants in the squad to take on Wales in the first Test in Sydney as a new era begins under head coach Joe Schmidt. The raft of changes mean that only five Australians – as well as three Welsh starters – remain from the last time the sides met, when Wales thrashed the Wallabies 40-6 during last year’s Rugby World Cup.

The new-look Australian squad will have their seventh captain in the past year with Liam Wright named to lead Schmidt’s first Test team since replacing Eddie Jones as coach. The blindside flanker has captained the Queensland Reds since 2020 and will lead his country for the first time in the Wallabies’ opening Test of the year on Saturday night.

Court of appeal reduces sentences of Finnegan Lee Elder, 24, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 23 over killing of Mario Cerciello Rega

An Italian court of appeal has upheld the murder convictions of two American men over the death of an Italian plainclothes police officer during a botched sting operation but reduced their sentences. The new trial was ordered after Italy’s highest court threw out their original convictions.

The court convicted Finnegan Lee Elder and sentenced him to 15 years and two months in prison and gave a sentence of 11 years to Gabriele Natale-Hjorth.

Suspect to plead not guilty after Mette Frederiksen assaulted in a Copenhagen square last month

A Polish man has been charged with assault over last month’s attack on the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, in a Copenhagen square.

A man walked up to Frederiksen in a square in central Copenhagen in the late afternoon on 7 June and punched her on her right upper arm. The prime minister suffered minor whiplash but was otherwise unharmed.

Department of Homeland Security says it plans more such ‘large charter flights’, sparking concerns for safety of migrants escaping poverty or repression

The US has sent back 116 Chinese migrants in the first such “large charter flight” in five years, the Department of Homeland Security has said.

“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

Agreement would have shortened prison term but exposed alleged attacker to a federal terrorism-related charge

The man charged with stabbing author Salman Rushdie in 2022 rejected a plea deal on Tuesday that would have shortened his state prison term but exposed him to a federal terrorism-related charge, the suspect’s lawyer said.

Hadi Matar, 26, has been held without bail since Rushdie’s attack, in which he is accused of stabbing the acclaimed author more than a dozen times and blinding him as he was onstage, about to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.

Hot sea temperatures are fueling storm’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper

Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in – and the kind of season ahead, experts said.

Beryl smashed multiple records even before its major-hurricane-level winds approached land. The powerful storm is acting more like monsters that form in the peak of hurricane season thanks mostly to water temperatures as hot or hotter than the region normally gets in September, five hurricane experts told the Associated Press.

Artist behind controversial piece in Linz cathedral says vandalism shows there are still ‘people who question women’s right to their own bodies’

Vandals have beheaded a sculpture of the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus on display in the cathedral in the Austrian city of Linz. The work had drawn criticism from some Catholics, who said it was blasphemous.

The sculpture had been on view at the St Mary Cathedral, Austria’s largest, as part of an art installation about women’s roles, family images and gender equality, the Linz diocese said in a statement. It said the vandalism, which occurred on Monday, had been reported to police.