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Europe Edition

Donald Trump, ‘Brexit,’ Angela Merkel: Your Thursday Briefing

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Good morning.

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Here’s what you need to know:

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Credit...Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun, via Associated Press

• Fallout from the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, continues to reverberate across the United States.

President Trump announced that he would dissolve two councils of business leaders after members left in protest over his defense of white nationalists. Top military leaders contradicted Mr. Trump, and some Republicans shunned him. (Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer defended him with secessionist rhetoric.)

Here’s how writers on the right and the left reacted to Mr. Trump’s comments. Our Upshot column looks at what survey data says about voters who first supported former President Barack Obama and then Mr. Trump.

Cities across the U.S., including most recently Baltimore in an overnight operation, above, have been removing Confederate monuments like the one at the center of the protests in Charlottesville.

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Credit...Pool photo by Ben Stansall

• Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain sharpened her initially muted response to President Trump’s remarks on far-right protests in the United States. There was “no equivalence between those who propound fascist views and those who oppose them,” she said.

Her government, in its latest position paper on the country’s departure from the European Union, has vowed to keep an open border in Ireland, but it remains vague on how to accomplish that.

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Credit...Pavel Golovkin/Associated Press

In Russia, the trial of Aleksei Ulyukayev, a former minister who stands accused of soliciting more than $2 million in bribes from Rosneft, the state oil giant, has begun.

The government has portrayed the highest-ranking corruption trial in decades as a success in its efforts to root out graft. But Mr. Ulyukayev said he had been framed by the head of Rosneft, who is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin.

Another trial begins in Moscow: Relatives of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II, demand to know how he died in Soviet captivity.

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Credit...Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times

For the first time, a witness in the hacking of the U.S. presidential election has emerged in Ukraine. The malware expert is only known by his online alias, “Profexer.” The Ukrainian police said he turned himself in this year, and he has now become a witness for the F.B.I.

There is no evidence that Profexer worked, at least knowingly, for Russia’s intelligence services, but his malware apparently did.

Above, Democratic Party offices in Washington, which U.S. officials say were a target of Russian cyberattacks.

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Credit...Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

The smiley face: That’s Chancellor Angela Merkel’s favorite emoji, she said in an interview with YouTube celebrities as she sought to sway young voters ahead of elections next month. Polls have her ahead of Martin Schulz, the candidate of the Social Democrats.

Separately, the Russian government’s nomination of Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, to Rosneft’s board has become another headache for Mr. Schulz. “I wouldn’t do that,” he said of Mr. Schröder, his party’s longtime leader.

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Microsoft is building an autonomous glider guided by artificial intelligence, part of an effort to help machines make decisions when faced with uncertainty.CreditCredit...John Brecher for The New York Times. Technology by Samsung.

• Microsoft is teaching autonomous gliders to adapt to surprises.

• An alliance between Fiat Chrysler and BMW could help them catch up in the race to make self-driving cars.

• Prosecutors in Germany filed charges against a Swiss man accused of spying on German tax collectors and even planting a mole in a local tax office.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

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Credit...Patrick Baz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Lebanon revoked a law that let rapists evade punishment by marrying their accusers. Above, an installation in Beirut in April protesting the law. [The New York Times]

• The Spanish authorities rescued over 600 migrants who attempted to cross the Mediterranean from Morocco in a 24-hour period. New arrivals have risen in Spain, but fallen in Italy. [BBC]

• Grace Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s first lady, is seeking diplomatic immunity from an assault charge in South Africa. She is accused of injuring a young model. [The New York Times]

• A homeless man who had helped some of those injured in the bombing attack in Manchester in May has been accused of stealing from two of the victims. [The New York Times]

• A third woman has come forward to accuse the film director Roman Polanski of sexual abuse, in 1973 when she was 16. [The New York Times]

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

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• Here’s how to make your house a smart home.

• Protect your online accounts with two-factor authentication.

• Recipe of the day: Our chicken adobo is a true five-star dish.

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Credit...Diksh Potter for The New York Times

Our travel writer explored the secluded beaches and verdant hills of Mauritius, the remote island in the Indian Ocean.

• The latest “Game of Thrones” episode was accidentally released in parts of Europe. We discussed dragons and Jon Snow’s ancestry with the actor Kit Harington.

• Here’s why it pays to read The New York Times: Daniel Craig confirmed that he would star in the next James Bond movie. We reported this last month.

• Sperm count in Western men is plunging with no signs of “leveling off,” in part because of stress and obesity, new research shows.

• Soccer: Real Madrid beat Barcelona in the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup and won, 5-1, on aggregate. Meanwhile, Paulo Dybala, the Juventus star, is plotting his next move.

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Credit...Associated Press

Today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Garvey, above, a founder of the black nationalist movement and a Rastafari prophet.

Born in Jamaica, Garvey throughout his life advocated that black people return to Africa and reclaim it as their own.

“He was the first man to give Negroes a sense of dignity and destiny,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1965.

But in preaching his message, Garvey unintentionally spawned a religion when he said: “Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned, for the day of deliverance is near.”

In 1930, Ras Tafari Makonnen — known thereafter as Haile Selassie — ascended to Ethiopia’s throne, which was taken as a fulfillment of Garvey’s words. Rastafarians immediately hailed Selassie as Jah, the Black Messiah.

Garvey was not a follower himself, but Rastafari spread across the globe several decades later with the help of reggae musicians, most prominently Bob Marley.

Selassie died in 1975, but Rastafarians remained convinced he was the living God. As Marley explained in an interview with The Times in 1977, “Many people, dey scoffers.”

“How can God die, mon?” Marley continued. “That’s why I wrote ‘Jah Live.’”

Evan Gershkovich contributed reporting.

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