Harris Selects Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Running Mate

Happy Wednesday! We’re not sure when or how Snoop Dogg became a fixture of NBC’s Olympics coverage, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday morning that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will join the Democratic presidential ticket as her running mate. Before being elected governor in 2018, Walz—who served 24 years in the Army National Guard and spent time as a high school teacher and football coach—represented Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives for 12 years. “One of the things that stood out to me about Tim is how his convictions on fighting for middle class families run deep,” Harris said in a statement. “It’s personal. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his own.”
• The U.S. stock market rallied on Tuesday, one day after investors experienced one of the largest single-day market drops since 2022. The three most-watched indices—the Nasdaq Composite, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P 500—all ticked up about 1 percent on Tuesday while remaining below last week’s levels. The U.S. recovery followed a substantial rebound from Japanese stocks, with the Nikkei 225—an index for the Tokyo Stock Exchange—surging more than ten percentage points on Tuesday, its largest single-day gain since 2008. The index had plunged 12 percentage points one day earlier.
• Israel launched an airstrike into southern Lebanon on Tuesday that, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, killed five people. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said a terrorist commander, Ali Jamal Aldin Jawad, was among the dead, and that the strike hit buildings used by Hezbollah—an Iranian-armed terrorist organization based in Lebanon. Later on Tuesday, 19 people were injured after Hezbollah launched explosive drones into parts of northern Israel. One civilian is in critical condition after an Israeli counter-missile—part of its Iron Dome air defense system—failed to intercept its target, falling on an Israeli highway. 
• The IDF also temporarily paused movement along a humanitarian pathway into Gaza on Tuesday after Hamas terrorists fired missiles at Israeli forces in eastern Rafah—near the humanitarian route—that injured several IDF soldiers. The route is now considered an “active combat zone” by the IDF, though other humanitarian pathways into Gaza remain open and operational. “The Kerem Shalom Crossing and the other entry routes for humanitarian aid are operating as usual,” the IDF said. “The terrorist organizations in Gaza continue to use any opportunity to carry out attacks against IDF soldiers at the expense of Gazan civilians, including abusing humanitarian routes and aid designated for the civilian population.”
• Hamas’ leadership announced that Yahya Sinwar—the key architect behind the October 7 attacks on Israel—was selected to lead the terrorist organization after its previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran last week—presumably by Israel. The 61-year-old Sinwar, who became Hamas’ leader in the Gaza Strip in 2017 after Haniyeh went into hiding, has spent the last ten months in hiding himself—likely in tunnels beneath Gaza. “We would rather die as martyrs than die out of oppression and humiliation,” Sinwar said in 2018. “We are ready to die, and tens of thousands will die with us.”
• Reza Rasaei—a 34-year-old Iranian arrested in 2022 for his participation in anti-regime protests—was executed by Iranian authorities early Tuesday morning, the first documented execution of a protester in Iran since Masoud Pezeshkian, its new president, took office late last month. An Iranian court sentenced Rasaei to death in October following court proceedings that human rights group Amnesty International called “grossly unfair” for their reliance on torture to extract confessions. The group also said that neither Rasaei, his family, nor his lawyer were notified about the execution beforehand.
• Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin tapped Muhammad Yunus—an 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist—to form and lead an interim government on Tuesday, one day after anti-government protests in the country’s capital of Dhaka forced its authoritarian prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, to resign and flee the country. The Bangladeshi president serves a largely ceremonial role—and the nation’s parliament dissolved following Hasina’s exit—so Yunus, along with other senior interim government leaders yet to be announced, will seek to bring stability to the country after months of protests and violent clampdowns. 
• ​​The Justice Department on Tuesday unveiled charges against a 46-year-old Pakistani man with ties to Iran alleged to be a hired assassin tasked with killing a United States government official or politician. The alleged hit man—currently being held in federal custody—exposed his plot to federal authorities when he tried to recruit fellow hit men who, unbeknownst to him, were undercover FBI agents. “This dangerous murder-for-hire plot exposed in today’s complaint allegedly was orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is straight out of the Iranian playbook,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. 
• FBI agents reportedly executed a search warrant last week at the home of Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee as part of an investigation into fraudulent campaign finance filings from the first-term congressman. While details of the search—and allegations of potential campaign finance fraud—have yet to be made public, Ogles’ lawyer said the warrant was primarily issued to seize Ogles’ cell phone.
• Progressive Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri lost her Democratic primary on Tuesday to Wesley Bell, a public prosecutor. Bell—who as of last night was leading with more than 51 percent of the vote—was backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group, in a race defined by Bush’s outspoken anti-Israel views. She’s now the second member of the so-called “Squad”—a group of progressive lawmakers in Congress—to be ousted in a Democratic primary this year, after Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York lost his primary in June.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pulled Dacthal—a weedkiller used on various crops, including broccoli, cabbage, and onions—from the market on Tuesday in an emergency order spurred by concerns the pesticide causes health problems in unborn babies. According to the EPA, Dacthal has been linked to instances of “low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ, and impaired motor skills later in life, some of which may be irreversible.” While Dacthal residue can affect consumers, health experts consider farmworkers in close contact with the chemical daily to be most at risk.
• A practice session for Olympic marathon swimmers—scheduled to take place in Paris’ Seine River—was canceled on Tuesday as water quality levels dropped again due to unsafe bacteria levels possibly caused by recent heavy rain. Two triathlon athletes representing Belgium and Switzerland—who had swum in the Seine River last week—dropped out of an Olympic mixed relay contest on Monday due to an illness yet to be publicly identified. “For the moment, there is no direct link between the Seine and any illness,” Pierre Rabadan, the Parisian official overseeing the Olympics, said at a press conference on Monday. As of now, both the women’s and men’s Olympic marathon swimming races are scheduled to take place in the Seine River on Thursday and Friday, respectively—though that is dependent on further water quality tests.

Not a Swing, But a Walz 

PHILADELPHIA—Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had a pretty good Tuesday. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, announced that he would be her running mate, completing the governor’s vault to the center of national politics that began only a couple of weeks ago. 

But Jeremy Green Eche—a Brooklyn trademark lawyer who purchased the website www.harriswalz.com all the way back in 2020 for $8.99—is arguably having a better day. He said he’s willing to sell the domain, along with a slew of other Harris websites, for $15,000. In 2016, the Clinton campaign refused to humor the same gambit from Eche over www.clintonkaine.com, leading the Trump campaign to ultimately acquire the site and use it to promote negative news about the Democratic nominee.

We’ll see how much harriswalz.com is worth to the Harris campaign. For now, the site simply displays the governor’s name in the now-iconic “brat” theme. 

On Tuesday evening, Harris introduced her veep pick to more than 10,000 energized supporters at Temple University’s Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, casting Walz as a …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our full 1,851-word story on the Harris campaign’s VP pick is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• On her Good on Paper podcast, Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas explained how we got the maternal mortality crisis wrong. “In 1994, the International Classification of Diseases recommended adding a ‘pregnancy checkbox’ on national death certificates to try and make sure we weren’t undercounting maternal-mortality deaths,” Demsas explained. “It succeeded, but it also ended up overcounting deaths from other causes. For instance, a study looked at Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, and Ohio—four states that had adopted the checkbox—and found that more than a fifth of the pregnancy deaths were false positives. The women hadn’t even been pregnant. Correcting the record on these statistics doesn’t change the fact that the U.S. needs to do more to promote women’s health. But when we’re using shoddy facts to inform our understanding of the world or to inform policy making, it can lead us down fruitless paths. And that’s not in pregnant women’s interests at all.” 
• We need clearer safeguards around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for military purposes, Brianna Rosen argued for War on the Rocks. “AI-enabled warfare has reached its ‘Oppenheimer moment,’” she wrote. “From the backroom to the battlefield, AI is now being integrated into the full spectrum of military operations, including in logistics, intelligence collection, wargaming, decision-making, target identification, and weapons systems, with increasing levels of autonomy. … As AI pervades the battlespace, it is time to implement policies and forge consensus around how it will be governed. And while policy debates finally have moved beyond lethal autonomous weapons systems, governance frameworks still suffer from a narrow focus on military operations and international humanitarian law, leaving critical gaps in protection for civilians. Building on the international agreement, policymakers have a rapidly closing window of opportunity to address these problems and ensure that military AI is truly safe—on and off the battlefield.” 

Presented Without Comment

Former President Donald Trump, on Truth Social:

What are the chances that Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST President in the history of the U.S., whose Presidency was Unconstitutionally STOLEN from him by Kamabla, Barrack HUSSEIN Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Shifty Adam Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and others on the Lunatic Left, CRASHES the Democrat National Convention and tries to take back the Nomination, beginning with challenging me to another DEBATE. He feels that he made a historically tragic mistake by handing over the U.S. Presidency, a COUP, to the people in the World he most hates, and he wants it back, NOW!!!

Also Presented Without Comment

New York Times: Scientists Find Arm Bone of Ancient ‘Hobbit’ Human 

Also Also Presented Without Comment

ESPN: Chicago White Sox Snap [American League] Record-Tying Losing Streak at 21 [Games]

In the (Olympic) Zeitgeist

On a massive day for the U.S. medal count, U.S. distance sprinter Cole Hocker pulled off a stunning victory in the last paces of the 1500-meter race on Tuesday, beating all of the podium favorites—including reigning Olympic gold medalist Jakob Ingebrigtsen and world champion Josh Kerr—to clinch the gold. 

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Drucker introduced readers to newly minted Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz in a special edition of Dispatch Politics, while Nick explored (🔒) what picking the Minnesota governor might tell us about Harris. 
• On the podcasts: Brookings Institution senior fellow Jonathan Rauch joins Jonah on The Remnant to discuss all things party politics.
• On the site: Charlotte spoke to Marc Fogel’s sister about why the teacher detained in Russia was not included in last week’s prisoner swap, Chris argues Harris is taking a risk with Walz, and Jonah reminds the media they should actually be asking Harris questions.