On Politics: Pete Buttigieg’s Big 2nd Quarter

Good Tuesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

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Mayor Pete Buttigieg raised $24.8 million over the past three months. That total — likely to surpass the fund-raising figures of most of his rivals — is the latest evidence that he has gone from a long shot to a serious contender in a matter of months.

Members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, visited two border detention facilities in Texas on Monday and emerged describing living conditions unfit to hold adults and children, a jail-like atmosphere, and women ranging from grandmothers to a young pregnant woman in her 20s packed into cells.

The sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha has a large membership and a multimillion-dollar budget. It’s a potential secret weapon in the campaign arsenal of Senator Kamala Harris, who joined while she was an undergraduate at Howard University.

Iranian state media said the country had exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect the agreement.

After President Trump’s stroll in North Korea, he now faces a choice on whether to grant concessions in return for a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program or to insist on full denuclearization.

At one point during his eventful swing through Asia, Mr. Trump took time out to slam Jimmy Carter, dismissively calling him “the forgotten president.” Forgotten is the one thing Mr. Trump, who emblazoned his name on buildings, golf courses, airplanes and even bathrobes, seems most determined not to be.

The United States’ economic expansion hit a record length on Monday, a decade after the recession. Latinas have emerged as the biggest winners in the job market, but they are far from the expansion’s biggest winners by other measures, like earnings.

American consumers keep buying stuff, driving solid growth through the first half of the year. But American businesses are sounding a more pessimistic note, pointing to softer growth ahead, or even contraction. Who is right about where the economy is headed?

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