Vladimir Putin, Greece, Facebook: Your Wednesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/briefing/vladimir-putin-greece-facebook.html

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Good morning.

Vladimir Putin courts Europe, Greece beckons skeptics and Facebook shares data with China. Here’s the latest:

• Vladimir Putin arrived in Austria, looking to capitalize on the E.U.’s fury with President Trump over America’s withdrawal from the Iran deal, as well as for imposing tariffs on the bloc. Above, Mr. Putin with Austria’s president, Alexander Van der Bellen, in Vienna.

His goals of shedding European sanctions and regaining respectability suddenly seem within reach, highlighted by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, who outlined his new populist government’s vision for overhauling the country’s migration system, renegotiating its relationship with Europe and moving closer to Russia.

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• After a decade of economic pain, Greece finally appears to be turning a corner as it prepares to exit financial bailouts. But Greeks who left the country are skeptical.

Nearly half a million Greeks have become economic migrants since the debt crisis began, and many have resisted the prime minister’s call for them to return and help rebuild the country.

“The bailout may be ending, but the problems that drove people away aren’t,” said a Greek engineer in Germany. Above, a cafe popular with the Greek community in Düsseldorf.

Meanwhile, Greece’s long feud with neighboring Macedonia over its name, which it shares with a northern Greek region, is inching toward a conclusion. But opposition to a deal is running high.

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• The venue is booked for the June 12 meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wrote on Twitter that it would be held at Singapore’s Capella Hotel, above, a five-star establishment on a resort island.

Our Beijing bureau chief visited the China-North Korea border and found excitement growing over the prospect of a deal between the U.S. and the North. The lifting of sanctions could hand China a new realm of dominance.

And back in the U.S., an American veteran who once worked as an intelligence analyst for the Pentagon was charged with spying for China. Ron Rockwell Hansen of Syracuse, Utah, was arrested in an F.B.I. sting operation at the airport in Seattle, after a yearslong investigation.

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• In Washington, President Trump substituted a “celebrate America” event for the long-planned honors for the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles.

Nearly all of the team’s players and coaches had planned to boycott the visit, in part because of Mr. Trump’s repeated demands that N.F.L. players stop kneeling during the national anthem at games, a gesture meant to protest racism and police violence.

Separately, a Times correspondent looks at Mr. Trump’s aggressive moves to assert control over federal law enforcement.

And a secret memo we obtained includes his lawyers’ stark private acknowledgment of something his team publicly and repeatedly denied: that Mr. Trump had dictated a misleading statement about his son’s meeting with a Russian lawyer.

• Facebook has given at least four Chinese companies access to user data, including one with close ties to the Chinese government that has been flagged by U.S. intelligence as a security threat.

• Britain will allow 21st Century Fox to bid for the satellite broadcaster Sky — in some ways setting up a bigger battle: one between Comcast and Walt Disney over control of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

• Tesla repelled a rare challenge from shareholders who sought to shake up the board and force its chief executive to give up one of his two top positions.

• Apple’s not sorry. At the company’s annual conference for developers, executives danced around the recent tech backlash, our columnist writes. Here’s a rundown of some of the software features that have been announced.

• The so-called Faang tech stocks (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google/Alphabet) surged. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• Eight U.S. states held primary elections on Tuesday, as voters chose the candidates who will face off for congressional seats (and a handful of governorships) in November. [The New York Times]

• Europe’s highest court ruled that all E.U. countries must recognize the residency rights of same-sex spouses. [The New York Times]

• Iran announced the completion of a new centrifuge assembly center, a first step to increasing its nuclear enrichment capacity. [The New York Times]

• Kate Spade, the American designer, was found dead in her New York apartment in what the police said was a suicide. [The New York Times]

• The Miss America Organization is scrapping the swimsuit portion of its annual pageant as it tries to find a foothold in the #MeToo era. [The New York Times]

• Britain’s opposition Labour Party said it would try to force the government to negotiate full access to the E.U.’s single market, raising pressure on Prime Minister Theresa May. [BBC]

• Dutch education officials are moving to halt the spread of courses taught in English over fears that the Dutch language is under threat from a surge in foreign students. [Deutsche Welle]

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

• Recipe of the day: Everyone at the table will love a bowl of one-ingredient banana ice cream.

• How to clean your stinky workout clothing.

• Mulling over a tough decision? Avoid F.O.B.O. — Fear of Better Options.

• The LeBron James one-man show: Rarely has an N.B.A. star chased a championship with less help and more athleticism. Will his thrilling performances prove futile?

• In his memoir, “Reporter,” the veteran journalist Seymour Hersh revisits his coverage of Vietnam, Nixon and Osama bin Laden. “I will happily permit history to be the judge of my recent work,” he said.

• Fifty years after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, his friends and aides told us of his buoyancy and optimism, and what he meant to American voters.

The invasion of Europe from the west has begun.

That was how The Times introduced “the most pivotal battle of all time,” which took place on this day in 1944. We’re of course speaking of D-Day, when more than 150,000 Allied troops landed in Normandy to begin liberating Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II.

Code-named “Operation Overlord,” D-Day saw airborne forces parachute across northern France as ground troops landed on five beaches. By day’s end, it was the largest air, naval and land operation in history.

But it was not the first D-Day.

D-Day is a general term used for the start of any military campaign, and is used when the exact date of an operation is secret or not yet known. Similarly, H-Hour is a term used to describe a yet-to-be-determined time. These alliterative phrases go back at least as far as World War I, and helped keep actual mission dates out of enemy hands.

The generic phrases also allowed for advance planning, and for scenes like this to come to fruition:

“The relatively calm water was churned by wave after wave of ships,” according to one Times account from Normandy, “some large enough to cast their eerie shadows in the early morning glow and others darting through like so many water-bugs.”

Remy Tumin wrote today’s Back Story.

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