Germany

Emergency services across northern Europe counted the cost on Friday of a devastating storm that killed at least 38 people and left widespread damage and disruption. Winds of up to 200kph swept off the Atlantic and cut a path across Britain, northern France, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

A severe storm front battered the British Isles and Germany on Thursday, causing havoc with shipping and leaving one man dead in England, with forecasters predicting worse weather to come. In the English Channel, French and British helicopters began winching to safety the 26 crew who abandoned a sinking cargo ship off the coast of Cornwall.

A 46-year-old German motorist driving along a busy road suddenly veered to the left and ended up stuck on a railway track — because his satellite navigation system told him to, police said on Sunday. The motorist was heading into the north German city of Bremen ”when the friendly voice from his satnav told him to turn left,” a spokesperson said.

Former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich said on Saturday he was determined to make a cycling comeback despite the cloud of doping suspicion hanging over him. ”I know very well that returning to professional sport will be difficult but I’m determined to fight and to succeed,” said Ullrich on his website.

”Cinnamon hotline, guten Tag. How can I help you?” Amid a health scare over traditional cinnamon cookies, Germans are racing to get the facts on the sugar and spice they consume by the truckload at Christmastime. The culprit is coumarin, a toxic chemical compound smelling of newly mown hay that naturally occurs in cinnamon grown in China.

A German passenger train was brought to a shuddering halt when a soccer ball flew from a nearby pitch and hit a brake pipe, triggering an automatic braking system, police said on Tuesday. ”The ball hit the brake pipe between the locomotive and the first carriage and undid it, leading to a loss of pressure,” said a police spokesperson in the western city of Muenster.

German traffic police were shocked to see a California highway patrol car cruising along the motorway, driven by a man dressed as an authentic United States cop, authorities said on Thursday. But they recovered sufficiently to book the 35-year-old Goettingen resident, whose uniform badge read ”TJ Lazer”.

English football fans rioted in the German city of Cologne overnight on Wednesday ahead of Tottenham’s Uefa Cup match against Bayer Leverkusen, police said. A group of about 80 fans smashed up the interior of a pub, causing damage costing  450 and a car was damaged. One English supporter was hurt in the incident.

Germany’s seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher has, for the first time, ruled out a return to Formula One, saying the sport is so fast-moving that it is impossible to jump back suddenly into the cockpit. ”Once you are out, you are out for good,” Schumacher said in an interview.

Some things never change. At least not at the Merkels’s breakfast table. Despite becoming Chancellor of Europe’s most populous country a year ago, Angela Merkel still prepares breakfast for her scientist husband, Joachim Sauer, she told Germany’s mass-circulation Bild newspaper on Wednesday.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter once again dismissed fears that the next World Cup could be moved from South Africa and said the 2010 hosts were further along at this point than Germany were four years ago. ”They’ll get it done,” Blatter was quoted as telling German magazine Sport Bild on Tuesday. ”It can and will take place in South Africa — I’m convinced of that.”