Hamburg - German Bundesliga clubs VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg and Hertha Berlin on Thursday stayed on course for a place in the knockout stage of the UEFA Cup with good results from their group games.
Wolfsburg had to come from behind to beat Dutch club Heerenveen 5-1 in the so-called Group of Death.
With AC Milan, Braga and Premier League side Portsmouth also in Group E, the German side went into the game knowing that they could not afford to lose at home.
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama made his first White House appointment on Thursday - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.
Emanuel, a close friend of Obama's, served as a senior advisor in former president Bill Clinton's White House in the 1990s and oversaw the successful Democratic effort to regain control of the House in 2006.
New York - The World Health Organization on Thursday praised a decision to completely ban smoking and sale of cigarettes inside UN headquarters in New York as well as in other cities.
A smoking ban had been in place, but government delegates attending UN meetings at headquarters in New York, Geneva and Vienna, the three major UN buildings, usually ignore the ban, citing their rights as government officials.
Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday attended the funeral of some of the victims of Tuesday's airplane crash that killed 14 people, and promised a thorough investigation into the accident.
Mexican Interior Minister Juan Camilo Mourino, 37, died in the crash, along with 13 others.
Calderon - a close friend of Mourino's - and his entire cabinet attended the burial ceremony in the Campo Marte military facility in Mexico City, not far from the site where the Lear Jet 45 crashed.
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama has made his first White House appointment - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.
Emanuel, a close friend of Obama's who served as a senior advisor in former president Bill Clinton's White House in the 1990s, accepted the job on Thursday, a Democratic Party aide confirmed to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Sacramento - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday proposed several stringent measures to curb spending and increase taxes in order to deal with a budget shortfall, this office said.
The proposals include a steep increase in state sales tax, a five cent tax on every alcoholic drink sold and an estimated 4.5 billion dollars in welfare and other budget cuts.
The moves are meant to close a projected budget shortfall of 24 billion dollars by the middle of 2010.
Hamburg - German Bundesliga clubs VfB Stuttgart, VfL Wolfsburg and Hertha Berlin on Thursday stayed on course for a place in the knockout stage of the UEFA Cup with good results from their group games.
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama made his first White House appointment on Thursday - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.
New York - The World Health Organization on Thursday praised a decision to completely ban smoking and sale of cigarettes inside UN headquarters in New York as well as in other cities.
Mexico City - Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday attended the funeral of some of the victims of Tuesday's airplane crash that killed 14 people, and promised a thorough investigation into the accident.
Washington - President-elect Barack Obama has made his first White House appointment - picking Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, and will meet with President George W Bush to discuss the transition phase on Monday.
Sacramento - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday proposed several stringent measures to curb spending and increase taxes in order to deal with a budget shortfall, this office said.
