The Sunday Subject – August 4, 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president after winning enough delegates in a virtual roll call.

Harris raised $200m in her first week of campaigning, which is more than Biden raised in the first three months of the year. Polls show Harris running neck and neck with Donald Trump.

Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election by the country’s electoral commission.

The opposition says exit polling showed that its candidate, Edmundo González, was the clear victor of the election. The United States called for the immediate publication of the precinct-level polling, and nine countries in the region called an emergency meeting of the Organisation of American States, which said the vote was unreliable.

Russia freed more than a dozen Western citizens as part of a prisoner swap.

Among those freed was Evan Gershkovich, an American journalist, and Paul Whelan, a former marine. In return Western governments released several Russian citizens, including Vadim Krasikov, a former intelligence officer and assassin.

The Pentagon announced it would deploy more fighter jets and warships to the Middle East over concerns about Iran’s response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Israel is widely believed to have carried out the airstrike in Tehran that killed Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas. Iran’s promise to “take vengeance” has escalated fears of a regional war.