Venezuela crackdown

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Venezuela’s government is engaging in a full crackdown on any resistance to Nicolás Maduro’s self-declared victory in the contested presidential election, announcing 749 arrests and detaining prominent opposition figure Freddy Superlano on Tuesday. A video shared on social media showed Superlano, who campaigned alongside opposition leader María Corina Machado, being forced out of his car by several men in black uniforms on a Caracas street and into an unmarked SUV. The detentions followed Maduro’s threats to “severely” prosecute demonstrators alleging he stole the election. Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas decrying what they say was a fraudulent victory by Maduro, who has presided over the country’s economic implosion. “Selective violence and intimidation have usually been enough to end protests,” Teneo Managing Director Nicholas Watson wrote in a note to clients Tuesday morning about Maduro’s reaction. “A key question in the days ahead is whether the regime can bear the political costs and strains that would likely arise from a more lethal strategy of repression.” —David E. Rovella

The euro-area economy grew more than expected in the second quarter as resilient expansion in some countries made up for Germany’s surprise contraction. Gross domestic product rose 0.3% in the three months through June, sustaining the same pace as it did at the start of the year. Both France and Spain beat estimates and Italy kept growing, offsetting Germany’s 0.1% drop. A separate report in Spain showed inflation there weakened far more than expected, driven by lower energy and food prices. This mixed bag likely complicates the lives of European Central Bank policymakers as they decide whether another rate cut is warranted.

Intel, which has fired thousands of its employees in recent years, is said to plan on firing thousands more. The chipmaker’s once-dominant position has eroded of late as rivals such as Advanced Micro Devices caught up and took market share. Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger has been spending heavily on research and development to try and improve Intel’s fortunes.

Speaking of AMD, its shares rallied after it gave an upbeat revenue forecast, underscoring that its new artificial intelligence processors are bolstering growth. Revenue will be roughly $6.7 billion in the third quarter, the company said. Second-quarter results also topped projections, and AMD raised its forecast for so-called AI accelerators—chips used to develop artificial intelligence models. The outlook suggests AMD is making headway in its pursuit of industry darling Nvidia, which dominates the accelerator market.

More trouble for Microsoft. The software company said it expected an outage tied to a usage surge affecting its Azure cloud service to be resolved today. Reports of outages on Azure and Microsoft 365 began to spike shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday New York time and comprised hundreds of complaints at the incident’s peak. Microsoft 365 includes common productivity applications like Outlook, Word and Excel. The issue affected multiple Microsoft 365 services and features. Earlier this month, some 8 million computers running on the Windows operating system crashed after the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a flawed software update. In addition, Microsoft has also been grappling with the fallout from a series of cyberattacks that prompted the US government to issue a scathing report calling for company-wide changes.

Dubai has been buffeted by humidity and heat waves that have already caused temperatures to feel higher than 60C (140F) this summer. The searing temperatures come as the Middle East heats up at one of the fastest paces in the world—a world that is repeatedly breaking records for the hottest days in recorded history. Extreme weather conditions are hitting many parts of the globe with greater frequency as a consequence of climate change and rapid urbanization, with countries stretching from Canada to Greece feeling the catastrophic effects. Yet the Middle East is particularly susceptible.

US Vice President Kamala Harris has erased any lead Donald Trump may have had across seven battleground states, according to a new Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Harris, 59, was backed by 48% of voters to 47% for Trump, 78, in the swing states that will likely decide November’s election. The Democratic presidential candidate, who has yet to be formally nominated by the party, overtook the GOP nominee in Arizona and Nevada, and more than doubled the lead President Joe Biden had over Trump in Michigan.

While Trump and running mate Senator JD Vance (a self-proclaimed billionaire and venture capitalist, respectively) look to build support by attacking Wall Street, a growing number of billionaires interested in deregulation and corporate tax cuts have been lining up behind the Republican Party. First among them is financier Ken Griffin, who is spending tens of millions of dollars to back GOP primary candidates across the US. Since 2015, Griffin’s political contributions total more than $248 million. To this point in the 2024 election cycle, Griffin has poured $74 million into super political action committees to promote candidates and conservative causes he believes in. But curiously, records show the GOP uberdonor has so far resisted contributing to Trump.

An octogenarian heir to the Hermès luxury fortune who sparked controversy last year over a plan to leave his money to his gardener may not have much to give away after all. In the latest twist to the longstanding mystery surrounding Nicolas Puech’s billionaire status, a Swiss court this month threw out the 81-year-old’s allegations that his former wealth manager had a role in his fortune’s disappearance. Puech’s lawyers told the court he no longer owns the assets in question: about 6 million shares worth roughly €12 billion ($13 billion) in family-controlled Hermès International SCA. The stake would make him the single largest investor in the company. The Hermès family, Europe’s wealthiest, counts more than 100 members and has a net worth of about $155 billion.

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