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The beautiful pink ‘Princie’ diamond just fetched a record haul at Christie's. The only problem: a squabbling clan of Italians who claim the gem is theirs. Barbie Latza Nadeau reports.

If you’ve just spent $40 million on a diamond, you probably want to know where the rock has been.Unfortunately in the case of the 34-carat pink “Princie” diamond, which fetched a record $39,323,750 at a Christie’s auction in New York on Tuesday, the story is nowhere near as clear as the gem itself. So while its anonymous buyer enjoys his new gem, an Italian court is combing through claims of secret sons, a hidden polyandrous marriage, and a mysterious Swiss sale in an effort to find out if the rightful owner has been robbed.

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The Afghan insurgents have been warning Al Qaeda against attacking the West, and now fear the Boston bombings will hurt their cause. Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau exclusively talk to the group’s leaders.

As counterintuitive as it sounds, there was no celebrating among the Afghan Taliban leadership when they heard the news of the Boston Marathon terrorist bombings. On the contrary, senior Taliban officials say such attacks on the West are counterproductive and they fear that such actions can only hurt the Taliban’s efforts at shedding its image in the West that it is a terrorist organization that shelters Al Qaeda and condones Al Qaeda-inspired attacks.

Pool photo by Christopher Furlong

Despite the controversy that raged down to the final moments of the preparations, the former prime minister’s funeral went off with a feeling of sober calm.

They arrived early on an overcast London morning to bid Margaret Hilda Thatcher farewell in a choreographed ceremonial funeral that has proved as controversial as the Iron Lady’s years in office as Britain’s first—and as yet, only—female prime minister. As befitting a funeral that Lady Thatcher herself helped plan, the ceremony went off with crisp British military precision, and on time.She would have been proud, and would have enjoyed the rousing British hymns by Henry Purcell and Vaughan Williams and the patriotic anthem “I Vow to Thee, My Country,” whose Victorian lyrics closed the funeral service.

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They fought wars, thrived in a male-dominated political world, and faced controversy at home. Bruce Riedel on the kinship between Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.

Americans are making much of the partnership between President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher following her death last week, but the baroness's real soul mate was another Iron Lady, Prime Minister Indira Nehru Gandhi.The two prime ministers were both polarizing figures in their own countries who left behind very controversial legacies. They first meet in September 1976 when Thatcher visited India as head of the Conservative Party.

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In the wake of the Boston bombings, British authorities are reassessing security arrangements for this weekend’s race.

The London Marathon will go ahead this Sunday despite the devastating bomb blasts in Boston that left three dead, including an 8-year-old boy, and injured 140 others, but organizers of the British run, who expressed shock at the terrorist violence and sympathy with the city of Boston, say they are reviewing security arrangements.Within hours of the bombing they insisted they would not cancel the London event, which attracts about 36,000 runners from around the world, arguing that to hold the run, one of the world’s foremost marathons, is the best way to show solidarity with Boston and to send a defiant message to those responsible for the bombing.

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A pianist in Turkey has been convicted of insulting Islam because of statements he made on Twitter. Mike Giglio on the country’s changing limitations on freedom of expression.

In Turkey, the sensitive subject of freedom of expression has an unlikely new face: Fazil Say, a world-renowned pianist who was convicted of insulting Islam on Monday.Say, who has performed with the New York Philharmonic and is currently touring in Germany, received a 10-month suspended sentence, meaning he won’t go to jail unless he re-offends. But his case has provided a stark reminder of how far-reaching Turkey’s laws governing speech and expression can be.

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Once again, the media slobbered over the latest Julian Assange “revelation” of already-public documents, while another much more important investigation based on true reporting was largely ignored. Michael Moynihan on how the WikiLeaks founder keeps journalists dancing to his tune—and why it demonstrates a worrisome trend.

Last week an organization run by a crusading Australian journalist, working in concert with mainstream media outlets like The Guardian and The Washington Post, facilitated a series of blockbuster stories based on 2 million leaked documents—an astonishing 200 gigabytes of data—detailing the secret offshore holdings of the ultra-rich.The revelations were presented with minimal drama: no impassioned press conferences, no suggestions of dark conspiracies, and not a bottle-blonde megalomaniac in sight.

Tomas Bravo/Reuters, via Landov

Hugo Chávez lives! Well, sort of. Chávez’s handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, eked out the Venezuelan presidential election by 235,000 votes. Mac Margolis on why the opposition suspects foul play.

For its high drama and nerve-shattering political suspense, it was an election Hugo Chávez himself might have appreciated. After a bitterly fought campaign in a deeply divided country, the race to replace the late leader of Venezuela’s so-called Bolívarian revolution came down to a vote-by-vote tally that stretched into the small hours of this morning—ending in a decision that is likely to be talked about for years to come.Only the result—a razor-thin 50.

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Fifty years ago, summer 1963. London is swinging, and the old guard is barely holding on. And then the Profumo affair begins ...

She sits astride a knockoff copy of a plywood Arne Jacobsen chair, the chair reversed so that its kidney-shaped back provides just enough modesty to the axis of her nakedness. Her elbows rest on the chair back; her forearms cover her breasts, her chin in her cupped hands. She stares with impudence at the camera. She is young, but there is a little coarseness to her as she plays the vamp; she has been groomed in a hurry for the role.“Lucky chair,” says someone.