Wedding Bells

Helmut Kohl, 78, plans to marry his 43-year-old partner, Maike Richter. The former chancellor's office manager, Ulrich Pohlmann, confirmed the news on Tuesday, April 15. Pohlmann would not say whether a date had been set for the wedding.

"With this step, he's tackling plans that the two already announced to friends last year," the mass-market Bild daily quoted a close friend as saying. "The fact that he's doing it now, shows how optimistic the former chancellor is about his state of health."

Kohl has been in the hospital for weeks, recuperating from a fall in his Ludwigshafen home in which he badly injured his head.

"He's doing better day by day," a spokesman said.

Kohl made his relationship to Richter public in 2005. His wife of 41 years, Hannelore, died in 2001.

Richter is an economist at Germany's Economy Ministry.