It is 2009 and the French and English are still on each others nerves. The latest squabble is do to the fact that Queen Elizabeth was not invited to the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. The New York Times writes:

Queen Elizabeth is not amused.

Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.

The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.

The celebration will be held on June 6th and French President Sarkozy stated:

After traces of cocaine were found in samples of Red Bull Cola, the drink may be banned in Germany. Samples of the drink were examined by German food authorities, and were found to contain 0.4 micrograms of cocaine per litre, which was said to have been caused by the method used to process cocoa leaves.

Six German states have already ordered retailers to stop selling the beverage. More are expected to follow suit this week.

Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said that the cocaine levels found were too low to pose a health risk. A more detailed report is expected tomorrow.

Red Bull is currently available in 148 countries worldwide. It is banned in Denmark, Norway, Uruguay, and now German due to health fears.

Greece's Data Protection Authority (DPA) has banned Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) from gathering detailed, street-level images within the country for a planned expansion of its panoramic Street View mapping service until additional privacy safeguards are provided. DPA would like clarification from Google on how it will store and process the original images, and safeguard them from privacy abuse.

The decision was announced earlier this week, despite assurances by Google that it would blur faces and vehicle license plates when the images are displayed online. Google also said that they would promptly respond to removal requests.

DPA is also seeking clarification on how the U.S. internet company plans to inform the public that its camera-mounted vehicles are being used to take photographs.

"Simply marking the car is not considered an adequate form of notification. The authority has reserved judgment on the legality of the service pending the submission of additional information, and until that time will not allow (Google) to start gathering photographs," said a DPA statement.

John Demjanjuk, the retired auto worker from Ohio accused of being a Nazi death camp guard during World War II and helping to kill 29,000 Jews, has arrived in Germany. Demjanjuk fought off the deportation attempts for many years, and finally decided last week that he would no longer fight it. He arrived in Germany on Tuesday to face charges during what is likely to be Germany's last major Nazi trial.

Demjanjuk's plane was surrounded by police cars and ambulances as it arrived at a Munich airport. Following a medical examination, he was taken to Stadelheim jail, the same place Hitler was held after a failed coup attempt in 1922.

Demjanjuk is at the top of the Simon Wisenthal Center's list of the 10 most wanted suspected war criminals. Prosecutors in Munich will try him for assisting in the murders at the Sobibor death camp in 1943, in what is now Poland.

Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, has long denied any role in the Holocaust. A could could still decide that he is unfit for trial. Prosecutors are planning to charge him in the next few weeks. An investigating judge is to read the 21-page warrant to Demjanjuk later today, and a medical expert has been asked to assess his fitness to stand trial.

After the a Supreme Court judge rejected his case last week (May 8, 2009), John Demjanjuk decided to finally give up on his decades-old fight to resist deportation for prosecution related to Nazi war crimes. The 89-year-old retired autoworker was picked up from his Seven Hills, OH home by U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforsement agents Monday for an expected deportation to Germany, where officials claim he was involved in the murder of 29,000 at the Sobibor Nazi death camp in Poland.

Demjanjuk was transpoted from his home by an ambulance.

The inevitable deportation will put an end to the pursuit of Demanjanjuk, which has now been dragged out over several decades. It would also set the stage for what is likely to be a very closely watched and controversial German war crimes trial.

An arrest warrant has been issued by official in Berlin, who are charging Demjanjuk with being an accessory to the death of 29,000 civilians at Sobibor in 1943 during World War II. Demjanjuk's country of origin - Ukraine - has long contended that he was a prisoner of war rather than a death camp guard.

A decades long battle to resist deportation is nearing an end. John Demjanjuk's lawyer said that he will no longer fight deportation to Germany, which will thus set the stage for him to be removed from his Seven Hills home and sent to Germany, where he will stand trial on charges that he helped to murder 29,000 Jews as a Nazi death camp guard in 1943.

On Thursday U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens rejected Demjanjuk's case, and did not ask for briefs from prosecutors. His attorney, John Broadly, may ask for another justice to review the case, however it appears as though they have decided against that.

Broadley told U.S. Justice Department officials and German reporters that the case is over, and that they will no longer fight it.

Speaking with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Broadley said:

"That wouldn't get us anywhere. We're not going to do that. ... We have done everything we could.''

It is not yet clear when federal agents will arrive at Demjanjuk's home to take him into custody and put him on a medical airplane to Germany. However, it is not expected to be very long. Demjanjuk, 89, is accused of taking part in the deaths of 29,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp during the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1943.

As sad as it was to find out that former Cleveland Indians star Manny Ramirez had tested positive for performance enhancing drugs, it wasn't shocking. So many baseball greats had been exposed as frauds before that it was just a matter of time before another superstar tested positive for a banned substance. The latest person who has been linked to cheating in sports is an outright shocker. Bloodhorse has reported that a horse in Queen Elizabeth II’s stable tested positive for using a banned substance after a race.

You'd think that the Queen's connections would be a sure fire bet to win if it was using unscrupulous measures against her rivals. Not so, the six-year-old Moonlit Path finished sixth after testing positive for tranexamic acid.

Like Manny, the trainer for the mare Nicky Henderson blames the doctor saying:

“The substance concerned was administered by my vet entirely in the interests of the horse’s welfare, which is always paramount. There was no intention to enhance performance and it is worth pointing out that we won the race in question with the odds-on Ravello Bay.”

Britain's horse racing board disagrees with that saying that the medication was given:

President Barack Obama confirmed the first death outside of Mexico from swine flu Wednesday morning. He also recommended that schools with confirmed cases of swine flu "strongly consider temporarily closing."

Obama said:

This is obviously a serious situation, serious enough to take the utmost precautions.

Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that the first American death of the disease was a 23-month old child in Texas. Besser gave no other details about the child, and Obama said that his "thoughts and prayers" were with the child's family.

Obama spoke just one day after asking Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to fight the disease. His comments reflected the deepening sense of risk that the little-understood flu strain may pose as cases continue to mount throughout the US and the world.

Some important stats on swine flu so far:

–Deaths: 159 in Mexico, seven confirmed as swine flu and rest suspected.

–Sickened: 2,498 suspected and 19 confirmed in Mexico; 13 confirmed in Canada; two confirmed in Scotland; 14 confirmed in New Zealand; three confirmed in Germany; two confirmed in Spain; two confirmed in Israel; and one confirmed in Austria.

Lawmakers in the Dominican Republic have voted to approve an amendment to their Constitution which would outlaw abortion. President Leonel Fernández initially proposed the measure, which has now passed 167 to 32.

Dominican Today reports:

"Despite the constant objections by feminist organizations, institutions and personalities who favor legalizing abortion in cases of incest, rape or when the pregnancy endangers a woman’s life, the Revisory Assembly Tuesday approved Executive Branch’s proposal 21, which states: “'The right to the life is inviolable from conception until death. The death penalty cannot be established, pronounced, nor applied, in any case'”

In addition to abolishing abortion, this law further reiterates the country's stance on the death penalty, which has been banned since 1924. The maximum penalty for a crime in the Dominican is 30 years in prison.