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Europe Edition

Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Poland: Your Wednesday Briefing

Patrick Boehler and

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Evan Vucci/Associated Press

• The White House acknowledged that President Trump had a second, previously undisclosed, private conversation with President Vladimir Putin of Russia during the G-20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, this month.

The one-on-one discussion, during a dinner for world leaders, lasted as long as an hour.

Separately, Moscow said that it reserved the right to retaliate if Washington did not return two diplomatic compounds in the U.S. that were seized by the Obama administration as punishment for the Kremlin’s meddling in last year’s election.

And it emerged that an American-based employee of Russian property developers was at the meeting Donald Trump Jr. and others took last year with a Russian lawyer.

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Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

• In Washington, Republicans attempted a last-ditch measure to repeal major parts of the Affordable Care Act without a replacement. But they failed. Mr. Trump’s tweets didn’t help.

“I did not come to Washington to hurt people,” said Shelley Moore Capito, above, a Republican senator. As the party regroups on health care, it could learn from Rwanda, our columnist writes.

Few if any presidents have spent as much time as Mr. Trump has in trying to undo his predecessor’s work rather than promote his own ideas, our chief White House correspondent writes.

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Credit...Gordon Welters for The New York Times

A “culture of silence” at a prominent Catholic music school in Regensburg, Germany, abetted the abuse of at least 547 children over decades, an investigation found.

Of those cases, 67 are believed to have involved sexual abuse. The others involved various forms of corporal punishment.

The choir’s music director from 1964 to 1994 was the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, a brother of the man who would become Pope Benedict XVI. Father Ratzinger has said he had no knowledge of sexual abuse.

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Credit...Adam Chelstowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• In Poland, lawmakers today will resume debate on a controversial bill that would dismiss all members of the Supreme Court except those chosen by the justice minister.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the governing Law and Justice party, said that the judiciary was inefficient and needed an overhaul. But opposition lawmakers say the motion erodes judicial independence.

Crowds outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw last night urged President Andrzej Duda to veto the bill. Mr. Duda, who usually sides with the government, requested amendments.

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Credit...David B. Torch for The New York Times

• And in Norway, there’s a new food movement: neo-Fjordic cuisine. Why would an ambitious chef open a restaurant in western Norway, where only 3 percent of the land is arable and the growing season is a blip?

“The fjords are what make Norway different,” said the chef, Christopher Haatuft. “That’s what I want my food to be.”

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Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• As some Chinese conglomerates have risen to worldwide prominence, their opaque structures have created uncertainty about their governance, strategic motivations and financial health. We looked at the people behind HNA, Deutsche Bank’s largest shareholder.

• Daimler said it would update three million Mercedes cars in Europe to reduce their diesel emissions.

• Too many ads objectify women’s bodies or reinforce traditional roles, the British advertising regulator said, as it vowed to crack down on such messages.

Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• Wildfires continue to roar across Southern Europe, fed by strong winds, dry weather and high heat. Above, firefighters battling a blaze near Nice, France. [The New York Times]

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, condemned Turkey for the pretrial detention of a German security consultant who was arrested, along with human rights activists, at a security workshop in Istanbul. [Deutsche Welle]

• Human rights advocates fear that the possible closure of the State Department’s office in charge of combating war crimes would hamper efforts to publicize atrocities. [The New York Times]

• In Saudi Arabia, the police arrested a woman who wore a miniskirt in a widely circulated video. [The New York Times]

Ángel María Villar, the president of the Spanish soccer federation and a FIFA vice president, was arrested and charged with corruption and embezzlement. [The New York Times]

• Two mummified bodies in a Swiss glacier, dressed in well-preserved clothes from the World War II era, could solve a decades-old mystery. [The New York Times]

• Beware the fidget spinner: State-run news outlets in Russia speculated that the toy was part of an opposition plot to “zombify people.” [The New York Times]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

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Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

• Be bold. Explore all the ways to cook eggs for every meal.

• What’s one of the things you should watch out for while bike riding? Air quality.

• To get great granola, sometimes you have to make it yourself.

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Explore the newest wing of the Tate Modern in London, where experiential work encourages museumgoers to interact with the art.CreditCredit...Tate Photography. Technology by Samsung.

Londoners face difficult questions about their city’s future as luxury towers spring up across the capital. The evolving Tate Modern serves as a model for public spaces. In today’s 360 video, explore the museum’s new subterranean spaces devoted to performance art.

• At the Tour de France, Michael Matthews of Australia won stage 16. Chris Froome of Britain retains the overall lead. Here’s our review of a podcast on the race by Lance Armstrong.

• The sun goes through an 11-year cycle, during which its activity veers from subdued to tumultuous.

• With the return of “Game of Thrones,” we’ve started an email newsletter with exclusive interviews and explainers. We published the first installment; you can sign up here.

• Finally, here’s the story of a dog that saved a deer. Have a great day!

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Credit...Associated Press

The World War II evacuation of troops from the French port city of Dunkirk remains a symbol of solidarity in Europe but is perhaps less known elsewhere. That is likely to change this month with the release of Christopher Nolan’s film “Dunkirk.”

German forces had surrounded the more than 300,000 Allied troops in the city in the spring of 1940. The troops were trapped on beaches north of its port, with the English Channel at their backs.

Shallow water prevented larger navy vessels from coming to shore, but smaller private boats, affectionately called “the little ships of England,” came to the rescue.

“I wanted to do something that frightened me a bit,” Mr. Nolan told The Times about taking on a moment of history.

Days after the evacuation, Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, warned Parliament that “wars are not won by evacuations.” But Churchill ended his address with one of his most recognizable and inspiring quotes:

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Palko Karasz contributed reporting.

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This briefing was prepared for the European morning. We also have briefings timed for the Australian, Asian and American mornings. You can sign up for these and other Times newsletters here.

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at europebriefing@nytimes.com.

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