Initially those three links were on the right hand side. They got rid of them in favor of thier NLP way of deciding which one of the three you wanted.

Here's how it used to look for those of you who have the new design and can't remember the old way.
http://www.cjmillisock.com/images/linksonright.jpg

nice touch to the search box

I can't see it on local here (ca)

No no new design for me.(that looks like the Yahoo search bar to me)

I may have already seen this and thought it was a permanent change. Then I didn't notice when it changed back :)

Local is out! Maps is in!
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2006/04/google-changes-name-from-local-back-to.html

Works at my site fine. Nice are the Maps-links:
http://maps.google.de/maps?q=stachus+in+münchen

greetings, Thomas