Chicago - A humble, 19th-century brick house nestled within a modern university campus just west of downtown Chicago stands as the only physical legacy of social activist Jane Addams' work with the immigrant communities that gave the city its ethnic flavour.

Buenos Aires, Nov 6 : The Argentinean Football Association (AFA) last evening officially appointed veteran football great Diego Maradona as the next coach of the national side.

AFA president Julio Grondona formally announced Maradona’s name for the post, saying he was “extra special”.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's population crisis is likely to worsen as a survey showed Thursday that nearly four in 10 women want only one child or no children at all.

The study by the Hong Kong Family Planning Association found a growing trend toward childlessness in the wealthy city, which already has one of the world's lowest birth rates.

Twenty-six per cent of 1,500 women interviewed said they wanted only one child compared with 10 per cent in 1992, and 13 per cent said they wanted no children, compared with 5 per cent in 1992.

San Francisco - Six months after the California Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex marriages in California, voters in the usually liberal state narrowly voted for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

But defenders of same-sex marriage immediately filed three lawsuits, claiming the voter initiative improperly attempted "to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group - lesbian and gay Californians."

London/Frankfurt - Europe's two leading central banks are expected to announce Thursday big rate cut, as monetary authorities around the world step up efforts to head off a looming recession.

Analysts are predicting that the Bank of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank (ECB) will each announce hefty reductions in borrowing costs which are likely to be followed up with more cuts in the coming months.

Miami - A tropical depression forming near the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras could develop into a tropical storm within the next day,

According to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center, the storm started moving north and was expected to cross Cuba Thursday or Friday, having reached tropical storm strength. The island has been hit by two strong hurricanes already this hurricane season, suffering heavy damage.