Diego Maradona ‘hand of God’ shirt sold for record £7.1m at auction

Blue Argentina No 10 jersey kept by England player Steve Hodge beats mark set by 1892 Olympic manifesto

The shirt worn by Diego Maradona when he scored twice – including the “hand of God” goal – to knock England out of the 1986 World Cup has sold for a record-breaking £7.1m at auction.

The late Argentinian player described his opening goal in the quarter-final as “a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God”. He and the England goalkeeper Peter Shilton leapt to reach the ball, which touched Maradona’s left hand and bounced into the net. The referee did not have a clear view and allowed the goal to stand.

The last violin played on the Titanic was sold at auction for $1.7m in less than 10 minutes in 2013. The instrument belonged to Wallace Hartley, an English musician whose eight-piece band played as the ship sank into the frozen waters of the Atlantic in April 1912. According to reports, Hartley’s body was pulled from the water days afterwards with his violin case still strapped to his back.

John Lennon’s flowered porcelain toilet sold for almost $15,000 (£9,500) – about 10 times the estimate – in 2010. The toilet came from Tittenhurst Park, an English estate owned by Lennon and Yoko Ono, where the former Beatle recorded his Imagine album and film. When Lennon had the toilet replaced, he told builders to “put some flowers on it or something”. Sale organisers called it the most unusual item they had ever handled.

An oak chair that JK Rowling used while writing the first two books of the Harry Potter series sold for $394,000 (£278,000) in 2016. The 1930s chair was one of four mismatched chairs given free to the then little-known writer for her council flat in Edinburgh. Before she donated it for auction in aid of the NSPCC in 2002, Rowling painted on the chair: “You may not/find me pretty/but don’t judge/on what you see.”

Marilyn Monroe’s white halter dress that she wore in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch sold for $4.6m in 2011. “Oh, do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn’t it delicious?” Monroe famously says in the film as the dress is blown up by air from a New York subway grate. That image become one of the most memorable in film history. The dress was designed by William Travilla and made from rayon-acetate to give it sharp pleats.

A copy of the Bible used by Elvis Presley sold for £59,000 in 2012. A pair of Presley’s unwashed and soiled underpants worn underneath his famous white jumpsuit during a 1977 concert performance went unsold after bids failed to meet the £7,000 reserve price.

False teeth belonging to Winston Churchill were sold for £15,200 in 2010. The upper dentures, one of several sets made for the wartime prime minister, were specially constructed to preserve his natural lisp and were so important to him that he carried two pairs at all times. They were designed to be loose-fitting so that Churchill could preserve the diction famous from his radio broadcasts during the second world war.

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Erosion of abortion rights gathers pace around the world as US signals new era

A leaked supreme court draft ruling shows the US is set to end 50 years of a woman’s right to choose. Elsewhere, the battle still rages

In 2022, abortion remains one of the most controversial and bitterly contested ethical and political battlegrounds. It is illegal for women to terminate their pregnancies in any circumstance in 24 countries, with a further 37 restricting access in any case except when the mother’s life is in danger.

As a leaked document signals that the US supreme court is poised to strike down the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v Wade, millions of American women face losing their access to legal abortions, joining millions more living in those countries rejecting a woman’s right to choose.

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Maradona’s shirt from ‘hand of God’ England match expected to sell for £4m

Former England midfielder Steve Hodge has owned Maradona’s no 10 shirt since the 1986 match

Diego Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal made footballing history and cemented the legendary status of the Argentinian superstar. Now the shirt he wore when he scored that goal at the 1986 World Cup is estimated to sell for at least £4m.

Maradona’s no 10 shirt has been owned for the past 35 years by the former England midfielder Steve Hodge. The two players swapped shirts at the end of the quarter-final between Argentina and England.

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Argentina criticises UK refusal to talk about future of Falklands

Argentine foreign minister calls for improvement in bilateral relations with Britain 40 years after conflict

British-Argentine relations will be stifled so long as the UK refuses to engage in discussions about the future sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, or if both sides continue to act as if the war happened only yesterday, the Argentine foreign minister has said.

Writing in the Guardian on the 40th anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the islands in April 1982, Santiago Cafiero called for an improvement in bilateral relations.

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Rosario v Newell’s Old Boys delayed after ‘number of grenades’ damage pitch

  • Fierce football derby in Argentina forced to kick off late
  • Explosives had been thrown on to the field by fans

The derby game in Argentina’s top flight between Rosario Central and Newell’s Old Boys kicked off late on Sunday after “a number of grenades”, which had been thrown on to the field by fans, blew holes in the playing surface.

The fixture, a local derby between two fierce rivals in the Santa Fe province, is one of the major dates in the country’s football calendar.

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Argentinian bishop sentenced to prison for sexual abuse despite pope’s defense

Gustavo Zanchetta convicted by court in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop

A court in Argentina has sentenced a Roman Catholic bishop to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.

Gustavo Zanchetta, 57, was convicted on Friday of “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse”, with his offense aggravated by his role as a religious minster.

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Argentina scientists unearth dinosaur with ‘puny arms’ and hard head

Dinosaur probably belongs to carnivorous group called abelisaurs and may have used its head to ram its prey

Scientists in Argentina have unearthed the remains of a previously unknown species of meat-eating dinosaur that lived about 70m years ago that had puny arms and may have used its powerful head to ram its prey.

The fossil skull of the Cretaceous period dinosaur, named Guemesia ochoai, was discovered in Argentina’s north-western Salta province. The researchers said it likely belongs to a carnivorous group of dinosaurs called abelisaurs, which walked on two legs and possessed only stub-like arms, even shorter than those of North America’s Tyrannosaurus rex.

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Truss says Falklands part of ‘British family’ after China backs Argentina

Accord signed by Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping at Winter Olympics also supports Chinese claim to Taiwan

Liz Truss has defended the Falklands as “part of the British family” after China backed Argentina’s claim over the South American islands.

The foreign secretary tweeted that “China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty” after the Argentinian president, Alberto Fernández, met China’s President Xi on the fringes of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

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Argentinians urged to throw out cocaine after tainted batches kill at least 23

Officials fear death toll from adulterated cocaine could increase, with 84 people currently in intensive care

Authorities in Argentina are advising drug consumers to throw away any cocaine they may have purchased in the last two days after at least 23 people died after ingesting adulterated cocaine in the Greater Buenos Aires area.

Eighty-four others are are currently under intensive care, of which 20 have been intubated, but authorities fear the death toll could increase as further victims are found to have died alone at home.

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‘Another hellish day’: South America sizzles in record summer temperatures

Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay are reeling from a historic heatwave with temperatures as high as 113F

Cities and towns across southern South America have been setting record high temperatures as the region swelters during a historic heatwave.

“Practically all of Argentina and also neighboring countries such as Uruguay, southern Brazil and Paraguay are experiencing the hottest days in history,” said Cindy Fernández, meteorologist at the official National Meteorological Service.

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Omicron dims optimism as South America enters pandemic’s third year

Signs of an incipient return to normality have been dashed as case numbers soar but high vaccination rates offer reason for hope

As the pandemic’s second, gruelling year drew to a close and Covid rates in Rio de Janeiro plunged to levels unseen since it began, the Brazilian city’s health secretary, Daniel Soranz, celebrated a desperately needed respite.

“We’ve been through such painful, difficult months … this is now a moment of hope,” the 42-year-old doctor said last November as carioca life regained some semblance of normality, hospitals emptied and the city’s effervescent cultural scene was reborn.

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Marianela Núñez: ‘What lockdown taught me, one more time, is that dance is my true passion’

The Royal Ballet’s phenomenal principal dancer was the fixed star at the heart of an extraordinary year for the company

It’s been an oddly fractured year for dance. Repeated lockdowns stifled talent, thwarted new ideas. Online and outdoor offerings provided some release but when theatres reopened in May, dancers emerged as if from hibernation, full of life, anxious to get on with their notoriously short careers.

None more so than Marianela Núñez. The Royal Ballet has excelled as a company this year, but she is the fixed star gleaming at its heart, never disappointing, always moving towards her aim of perfection. Her smile irradiates the stage, but it is the purity of her classical technique, the sense that you are watching someone at the absolute peak of their abilities.

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No school, no hair cut: one girl’s journey through one of the world’s longest Covid lockdowns

Antonella Bordon’s hair was her family’s pride and joy. But as the pandemic kept her out of school for 18 months, the 12-year-old Argentinian vowed to lop it all off as soon as she could return to class

When she finally cut her hair, Antonella Bordon had trouble sleeping. At the age of 12, her first haircut meant more to her than a simple change of style.

For most of her childhood, Bordon’s silky hair ran all the way down her back to her calves, such a deep brown it looked like a black mane. Her mother and sister would comb it every day, rubbing the locks with rosemary oil, and helping her style it in a way to keep her cool during the hot Argentinian summer.

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Argentina’s far right and far left make big gains in congressional elections

Ruling Peronist party lost majority as Javier Milei turned notoriety into votes and a Trotskyist party got third largest vote share

Argentina’s political system is braced for an earthquake after parties on the extreme left and right made big gains in weekend midterm congressional elections, putting an end to decades in which the country’s populists and conservatives wrestled for power.

Sunday’s vote saw the Peronist Front for Everyone coalition of President Alberto Fernández lose its majority in Congress for the first time in almost 40 years and lose its stronghold of Buenos Aires province to the center-right coalition Together for Change.

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Azor review – eerie conspiracy thriller about the complacency of the super-rich

Andreas Fontana’s debut feature is an unnervingly subtle drama about a Swiss private banker visiting clients in Argentina during the period of the military junta and ‘disappearances’

Pure evil is all around in this unnervingly subtle, sophisticated movie; an eerie oppression in the air. Andreas Fontana is a Swiss director making his feature debut with this conspiracy drama-thriller, shot with a kind of desiccated blankness, about the occult world of super-wealth and things not to be talked about. The title is a Swiss banker’s code-word in conversation for “Be silent”.

It is set in 1980 in Argentina, at the time of the junta’s dirty war against leftists and dissidents, and you could set it alongside recent movies including Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (2018) and Francisco Márquez’s A Common Crime (2020), which intuited the almost supernatural fear among those left behind when people they knew had vanished and joined los desaparecidos, the disappeared ones. But Azor gives a queasy new perspective on the horror of those times, and there is even a nauseous echo of the Swiss banks’ attitude to their German neighbours in the second world war.

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Global climate strike: thousands join coordinated action across world

Rally to demand government action on climate crisis is first worldwide since start of pandemic

Hundreds of thousands of people in 99 countries have taken part in a coordinated global climate strike demanding urgent action to tackle the ecological crisis.

The strike on Friday, the first worldwide climate action since the coronavirus pandemic hit, is taking place weeks before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, UK.

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Argentina to lift almost all Covid restrictions as cases and deaths fall

Masks will no longer be required outdoors as government says country could be at ‘end of pandemic’

Masks will no longer be required outdoors in Argentina as the country’s government announced the lifting of almost all Covid restrictions following a dramatic fall in Covid cases and deaths in recent months.

“If the numbers of coronavirus infections continue like this, we could say we are experiencing the end of the pandemic,” said presidential cabinet chief Juan Manzur amid a flurry of measures including the return of football matches with stadiums at 50% capacity starting next month – just in time for the 3 October classic super-match between Argentina’s two longtime rivals Boca and River Plate teams.

“Today for us the Covid pandemic ends to a large extent,” government Covid adviser Luis Camera said in a radio interview. “The pandemic ends but the virus continues,” he said.

The announcements were met with cautious optimism by doctors on the frontline. “We’re at a very good place: at the hospital where I work we have not admitted a single Covid patient to intensive care for three weeks now – but I would not dare say the pandemic is over,” said intensive care doctor Arnaldo Dubin, a researcher and professor at La Plata University.

Related: ‘People die in less than a week’: Covid wave catches Argentina off-guard

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Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists

Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US

The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.

Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.

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Chaos as Brazil v Argentina match abandoned after officials storm pitch in Covid-19 row – video

Brazil’s World Cup qualifier with Argentina in São Paulo was suspended after just seven minutes as health authorities entered the field of play amid farcical scenes at Neo Química Arena. Three Premier League players - the Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso - were on the pitch while a fourth, Aston Villa’s Emiliano Buendía, was in the stands. The quartet had apparently violated Brazilian regulations stating that travellers who have been in the UK, South Africa or India during the previous 14 days are forbidden from entering the country. The bizarre scenes saw officials, accompanied by police officers, march on to the pitch and bring proceedings to a halt.

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Brazil v Argentina abandoned as health authorities invade pitch

  • Argentinian quartet accused of lying when entering Brazil
  • Match abandoned after 10 minutes by Brazilian health officials

A World Cup qualifier between Argentina and Brazil was abandoned amid farcical, confused scenes after four Premier League players apparently violated Brazilian regulations designed to contain a Covid outbreak that has killed more than 580,000 Brazilians.

The Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez and Tottenham’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso were all on the pitch at São Paulo’s Neo Química Arena on Sunday afternoon when federal police and officials from Brazil’s health agency, Anvisa, took to the field to halt play after just seven minutes.

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