diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index f09c2fa..321c550 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,18 @@
+Overview of changes leading to 2.8.0
+Tuesday, March 16, 2021
+====================================
+- Shape joining scripts other than Arabic/Syriac using the Universal Shaping Engine.
+  Previously these were shaped using the generalized Arabic shaper. (David Corbett)
+- Fix regression in shaping of U+0B55 ORIYA SIGN OVERLINE. (David Corbett)
+- Update language tags. (David Corbett)
+- Variations: reduce error: do not round each interpolated delta. (Just van Rossum) 
+- Documentation improvements. (Khaled Hosny, Nathan Willis)
+- Subsetter improvements: subsets most, if not all, lookup types now. (Garret Rieger, Qunxin Liu)
+- Fuzzer-found fixes and other improvements when memory failures happen. (Behdad)
+- Removed most atomic implementations now that we have C++11 atomic impl. (Behdad)
+- General codebase upkeep; using more C++11 features: constexpr constructors, etc. (Behdad)
+
+
 Overview of changes leading to 2.7.4
 Sunday, December 27, 2020
 ====================================
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 1419927..d7f1e26 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 AC_PREREQ([2.64])
 AC_INIT([HarfBuzz],
-        [2.7.4],
+        [2.8.0],
         [https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/new],
         [harfbuzz],
         [http://harfbuzz.org/])
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 2099e13..f08720f 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 project('harfbuzz', 'c', 'cpp',
   meson_version: '>= 0.47.0',
-  version: '2.7.4',
+  version: '2.8.0',
   default_options: [
     'cpp_eh=none',          # Just to support msvc, we are passing -fno-rtti also anyway
     'cpp_rtti=false',       # Just to support msvc, we are passing -fno-exceptions also anyway
diff --git a/src/hb-version.h b/src/hb-version.h
index 423339e..6db58c3 100644
--- a/src/hb-version.h
+++ b/src/hb-version.h
@@ -47,20 +47,20 @@
  *
  * The minor component of the library version available at compile-time.
  */
-#define HB_VERSION_MINOR 7
+#define HB_VERSION_MINOR 8
 /**
  * HB_VERSION_MICRO:
  *
  * The micro component of the library version available at compile-time.
  */
-#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 4
+#define HB_VERSION_MICRO 0
 
 /**
  * HB_VERSION_STRING:
  *
  * A string literal containing the library version available at compile-time.
  */
-#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.7.4"
+#define HB_VERSION_STRING "2.8.0"
 
 /**
  * HB_VERSION_ATLEAST: