The week at a glance...Europe

Madrid

Richest woman gives it up: One of Spain’s richest women, the Duchess of Alba, has signed over her palaces and estates to her six children in order to marry a civil servant 25 years her junior. Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 85, said she wanted to prove to her children that her longtime suitor, Alfonso Diez, loves her for herself and not her money. The duchess, who holds the Guinness World Record for number of royal titles, at 46, was worth nearly $5 billion in land, mansions, art, and jewels before divvying up her wealth; it’s unclear what she has left. “If in the end my mother decides to marry, we will go” to the wedding, her son Cayetano said, “although we still don’t agree.”

Kiev, Ukraine

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

Opposition leader imprisoned: Thousands of Ukrainians protested this week at the jailing of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and a leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, for contempt of court. While on trial last week on charges that she had exceeded her authority when she was prime minister, Tymoshenko refused to stand when the judge entered the courtroom. She accused the judge of being a puppet of President Viktor Yanukovych and was promptly tossed in jail. Yanukovych beat Tymoshenko in the presidential election last year, and since then he’s launched criminal investigations of her and dozens of her associates. Both the EU and the U.S. have expressed concerns that the cases are politically motivated.