National

Cory Booker's presidential campaign had its 3 biggest days in post-launch online fundraising after the Democratic debate last Wednesday, according to a senior campaign official.

Why it matters: The Miami debates were an opportunity for lesser-known candidates like Booker to have breakout moments. The surge in donations means it might be easier for him to reach the tougher threshold to qualify for the September debate.

Details: Since the debate, Booker's campaign has added nearly 20,000 new donors.

For comparison, Kamala Harris' campaign said they added 36,000 new donors since their debate and Julián Castro received contributions from 16,000 new donors.

A senior official from Castro’s campaign said they had their three biggest fundraising days after Wednesday’s debate, too. 

The campaign official says they've raised $1 million in the past week with an average online donation of less than $20. 

As of today, the aide added, Booker's campaign has received nearly 110,000 donors. Candidates have to get 130,000 unique contributions to qualify for the debates in September. 

On July 15 candidates are filing their Q2 fundraising totals to the Federal Election Committee, so we'll know then who's had the most post-debate momentum.

The campaign is using part of the money to staff up in key primary states. They're hiring 19 new organizers to run Booker's field operations in South Carolina and Nevada.

Go deeper: Debates highlight the space between 2020 Democrats.

Cory Booker gets a fundraising bump off the first debate

The surge in donations means it might be easier for some to qualify for the September debates.

Cory Booker talks to reporters in the spin room after the debates. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Politics

Cory Booker

A look at global generational growth

The rise in wealth has correlated with better living around the globe.

World

Economic mobility

In a dramatic video posted by AP, a 12-year-old girl says she slept on the floor and kids weren't allowed playtime or baths during her stay at the Texas facility that's dominated headlines over the past week.

Details: “There are some children, like the age of my sister, they cried for their mother or their father. They cried for their aunt. They missed them," the girl told a lawyer in the video. “They cried and they were locked up.”

Why it matters: The Border Patrol station in Clint at one point had 700 kids in a facility designed for 100 adults.

That number has declined to just more than 100, AP notes.

Per AP: "On Friday, a federal judge ordered that an independent monitor appointed last year move 'post haste' to improve conditions at Border Patrol stations, where children are supposed to be held just 72 hours."

"In the Clint station, some had been held almost a month."

Between the lines: This girl and her 6-year-old sister crossed the border with their aunt to reunite with their mother who came to the U.S. to seek asylum 4 years ago. The girls were separated from their aunt at the border. 

The Florida facility visited by Democratic politicians in recent days holds unaccompanied minors and is overseen by HHS, rather than Border Patrol.

The bottom line: The government is struggling to hold the surge of migrant children and families who have been crossing the border over the past year, Axios' Stef Kight notes.

That surge is drawing critical attention to a system of government, private and non-profit detention centers and migrant child housing that is failing to provide proper care — and often times hurting — children in its custody.

Migrant child speaks on border detention camps

"There are some children, like the age of my sister, they cried for their mother or their father..They missed them."

Tents stand at the U.S. Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Migrants

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Customs and Border Protection announced Monday it will launch an inspector general investigation into a private Facebook page for 9,500 current and former Border Patrol agents, following a ProPublica report revealing that members of the group joked about migrant deaths and posted racist and sexually explicit memes about Latinx members of Congress.

What we know: The group, created in August 2016 and titled "I'm 10-15" in reference to the Border Patrol code for "aliens in custody," describes itself as a space for "funny" and "serious" conversation on members' work policing the nation's borders. 

In one post, members exchanged quips over a May story on the death of a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who passed away while being held at a facility in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Sesame Street's Elmo saying, "Oh well," while another wrote, "If he dies, he dies."

In another post on the planned visit of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Veronica Escobar, to a Clint, Texas, border facility, members encouraged agents to throw a "burrito at one of these b**ches" and referred to them as "hoes" and "scum buckets."

Two other posts showed false, grotesque depictions of Ocasio-Cortez being forced to perform sexual acts.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost: "These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see — and expect — from our agents day in and day out. Any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable."

Ocasio-Cortez: "9,500 CBP officers sharing memes about dead migrants and discussing violence and sexual misconduct towards members of Congress. How on earth can CBP’s culture be trusted to care for refugees humanely?"

The big picture: CBP has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks as reports of inhumane living conditions for migrant children in border facilities have elevated the issue. Last month, acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders resigned.

Members of Congress visited border facilities in El Paso, Texas, on Monday. Ocasio-Cortez said that she found migrant women being forced to drink water out of toilets at one of the facilities. She plans to visit another facility in Clint, Texas, where lawyers last month found migrant children being kept in dangerous and unsanitary.

"I see why CBP officers were being so physically & sexually threatening towards me," the New York congresswoman wrote on Twitter. "Officers were keeping women in cells w/ no water & had told them to drink out of the toilets. This was them on their GOOD behavior in front of members of Congress."

CBP launches probe into secret Facebook page that joked about migrant deaths

The page, which has 9,500 members, also posted racist and sexually explicit memes about Latina members of Congress.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

A wave of recent scandals has focused on things that tech companies did that were legal, but nonetheless icky.

Why it matters: Companies are under constant business pressures to grow at all costs and squeeze revenue and profits wherever they can, but what seem like clever legal loopholes can backfire when customers find out. 

There are tons of examples of tech companies big and small doing things that were legal but looked bad. Here are a few...

DoorDash: The company's pay model since 2017 includes customer tips as part of the minimum amount guaranteed to its delivery workers (similarly to tipped employees such as waiters, although DoorDash's workers are not classified as employees).

Customers, though, were upset to learn their tips weren't always treated as additional earnings for the delivery workers. The company says it's trying to provide earnings in line with the work delivered while also providing a guaranteed level of pay.

Instacart previously used a similar model, as does Amazon's Flex program. 

Grubhub: Last week, a report showed that the company had been purchasing website domains with names similar to its marketplace restaurants and only including phone numbers and links that would route food orders through its service. (Meaning it would take a cut from all orders generated from the sites.)

The company told Axios that it had "created microsites for [restaurants] as another source of orders and to increase their online brand presence" as part of their contracts and "it has always been our practice to transfer the domain to the restaurant as soon as they request it." It no longer offers this.

OrderAhead was caught doing something similar in 2015. 

Facebook: Earlier this year, it emerged that Facebook had been paying users aged 13 to 35 to install a separate app that gave the social network deep access to their smartphones so the company could collect data about their activities. The news came as Facebook was already under fire for its treatment of user data. 

Apple promptly booted Facebook's app from its Enterprise Developer Program, meant for companies to internally test apps, for violating its rules. (Google had been doing something similar and was also briefly suspended from Apple's program).

Facebook pulled a similar Android app as well, but recently launched a new, similar program for Android users.

The bottom line: Following the law is important, of course. But it's not the only standard to which companies are and should be held.

Go deeper: What Apple, Facebook and Google each mean by "privacy"

Tech companies push ethical boundaries to maximize profit

The moves were legal, but nonetheless icky.

Illustration of lady justice but as a robot

Technology

Big Tech backlash

Big Tech

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Private equity now owns Taylor Swift's back catalog — and she isn't happy about it.

The state of play: Ithaca, a media holding company led by Scooter Braun, announced that it has acquired Big Machine Label Group, which has released each of her albums thus far. Under terms of the deal, which was partially financed by The Carlyle Group and is said to be valued north of $300 million, Big Machine founder Scott Borchetta will continue to run the label, hold a minority stake in Ithaca, and join its board.

Big Machine was not one of the labels in which Ithaca already had a stake, per a source familiar with the situation.

2017: Carlyle invests in Ithaca, best known for managing such artists as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Kanye West. It also quietly held minority stakes in many of the country's largest music management companies.

2018: Swift decides to leave Big Machine, whose other artists include Florida Georgia Line and Rascal Flatts, to sign with Universal Music Group. Big Machine's final offer to keep her apparently included a reversion of Swift's master recordings to her.

After news of the deal broke, Swift put everyone involved on blast.

She wrote on Tumblr that she learned of the deal via the public announcement, and that she believed Braun has "bullied" her in the past.

"When I left my masters in Scott's hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words 'Scooter Braun' escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them."

The other side: Braun didn't return a request for comment, and thus far has kept quiet outside of retweeting someone (unrelated) who wrote that "context is everything." Braun's wife, however, did reply via Instagram. So did Bieber. Both of them claim Swift has some of her facts wrong.

Borchetta writes that he texted Swift about the deal on Saturday night as a heads-up, and that her father should — or at least could — have been aware weeks earlier as a Big Machine shareholder. He also disputed Swift's depiction of the masters reversion proposal and negotiations, including some document photos and email conversations.

The bottom line: Yesterday morning, this was an interesting music industry deal, furthering the power and influence of a PE-backed holding company that most music-lovers have never heard of. Today, it's a PR debacle and, in music management, relationships are everything. In other words, don't be surprised to eventually see an amicable resolution.

Go deeper: Taylor Swift inks Universal Music Group mega-deal

Taylor Swift unloads on Scooter Braun's Big Machine deal

"Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter."

Illustration of multiple musical notes merging into one.

Business

Music

Generate

Axios Generate

Adapted from a Resources for the Future report; Chart: Axios Visuals 

A new online tool offers an interactive, apples-to-apples comparison of long-term global energy outlooks issued by intergovernmental bodies, major oil companies and others.

Why it matters: These detailed projections and scenarios inform policymakers, analysts, activists and really anyone trying to grapple with where the world might be headed.

But, but, but: A big challenge is that it's tough to compare big reports on the future of various fuels, and global or regional demand from parties like the International Energy Agency and Royal Dutch Shell.

They differ on metrics used for energy consumption, such as how they report carbon emissions, economic assumptions and data presentation.

Enter the interactive tool and accompanying report from scholars with the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future, which harmonizes these huge and distinct long-term analyses.

The big picture: The tool cleanly compares how these reports project the future based on current and planned national policies, and climate-friendly scenarios offered by some of the analyses.

Here are some high-level takeaways from the comparison:

The studies agree that absent strong climate efforts, consumption grows "20–30% or more through 2040 and beyond, led largely by fossil fuels," notes RFF president Richard Newell and colleagues Daniel Raimi and Gloria Aldana.

That's driven largely in the global "east" — that is, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East — while consumption in the global "west" is largely flat.

Renewables surge, but without more ambition on climate, they "primarily add to, rather than displace, fossil fuels."

The intrigue: "Under ambitious climate scenarios, the global economy becomes much more energy efficient, global coal consumption declines by more than half relative to current levels, oil use falls by up to 20%, natural gas increases modestly, nuclear energy grows by more than 50%, renewables more than double, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are deployed at scale by 2040."

Where it stands: Beneath high-level areas of agreement, the analysis shows that modelers with different companies and organizations can diverge a lot. For instance...

IEA's "current policies" case sees coal use growing 38% in the global "east" by 2040, while the U.S. Energy Information Administration sees a 6% rise there.

BP, Equinor, and IEA diverge sharply in how much carbon capture and storage comes online by 2040

In scenarios that would keep temperature rise below 2°C, Shell's "Sky" scenario is notable for assuming widespread deployment of carbon dioxide removal tech.

Visualizing the varied world energy projections

A new online tool offers an interactive comparison of their outlooks.

Energy

Carbon emissions

Climate change

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says his country's stockpile of low enriched uranium has crossed 300 kilograms — the maximum amount it is allowed to hold under the 2015 nuclear deal. 

Why it matters: This is the first time Iran has deliberately violated the 2015 deal.  

The breach of the limitations of the low enriched uranium stockpile is the most significant step so far Iran took to retaliate for the U.S. decision to leave the nuclear deal and to the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency confirms Iran's stock of low enriched uranium has exceeded the maximum amount allowed by the nuclear deal

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano informed the organization's board of governors that UN inspectors verified on July 1st that Iran has exceeded the limit of low enriched uranium.

The big picture: The Iranian announcement came as European countries are trying to salvage the deal by finding a mechanism that will facilitate Iranian trade with Europe, give some relief to the Iranian economy and convince Iran to uphold the nuclear deal.

The spokesman of the Iranian foreign ministry said today that the Iranian steps regarding the uranium stockpile are reversible and called on European countries to salvage the nuclear deal.

Iran breaches uranium limits of 2015 nuclear deal

This will be the first time Iran has deliberately violated the 2015 deal.

Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif and president Hassan Rouhani

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani. Photo:  Iranian Presidency/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Iran deal

Iran

Conflicts, policies and powers are intersecting and shaping the world. Breaking news and analysis of national security, foreign policy and global crises.

As the U.S. has abandoned its role as a champion of global free trade, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has quietly been cutting deals around the globe, bolstering free trade pacts and international cooperation many feared (or hoped) were dying in the age of Trump.

What's happening: At this weekend's G20 summit all eyes were on Trump and Xi's agreement to relax further trade war escalation. But perhaps lost in the shuffle was the official announcement of two major trade deals by the EU, with Vietnam and the Mercosur alliance, a bloc that includes Brazil and Argentina, South America's largest economies.

Details: The agreements with Vietnam and Mercosur follow recent accords the EU has signed with Canada, Japan, Mexico and Singapore.

The deals cover trade of goods and services valued at nearly $600 billion a year, which is about half the value of trade between the EU and U.S.

"This deal is a real message in support of open, fair, sustainable and rule-based trade," Juncker said of the Mercosur agreement during a news conference on the sidelines of the G20.

The EU had been in negotiations with Mercosur over this agreement for 20 years.

New deals with Vietnam and Singapore will give Europe a major footprint in Asia and serve as a stepping stone for a regional agreement, Juncker said.

What's next? There is a good chance for the EU to ink an agreement with the Pacific Alliance, Latin America's other major trading coalition that includes Mexico (with whom the EU has a separate deal) as well as Peru, Colombia and Chile.

Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance account for 93% of Latin America's GDP.

The big picture: The EU also is in prime position to supplant the U.S. in the abandoned Trans-Pacific Partnership, having now secured trade deals with the agreement's major players. TPP was picked up by Canada and Japan, re-labeled TPP-11 (or TPP-minus-the-United States), and signed in December, but lacks a major world power.

The deal was intended to strengthen ties between Pacific countries from Asia to Latin America with the U.S. to curtail China's growing dominance.

The bottom line: With the world's two largest economies weakening each other through a potentially protracted trade war, Juncker's dealmaking has put the EU in position to take the reins on the future of global trade, and given fresh legs to hopes for globalization and liberalized international trade.

Europe's Jean-Claude Juncker is saving free trade

The EU made two major trade deals at the G20.

International trade

2020 Democratic contender Mayor Pete Buttigieg's campaign said Monday that it raised $24.8 million during the second quarter of 2019 — with more than 400,000 total donors.

Why it matters: The total, which was the first second-quarter fundraising result released by a 2020 Democrat, is staggering for a candidate who was barely known at the beginning of the cycle.

By the numbers: Sen. Bernie Sanders — with a prebuilt list of donors from his 2016 presidential run — topped the field of 24 Democrats with $18.2 million in donations during the first quarter.

To highlight how times have changed, at this point during the 2008 cycle, Barack Obama pulled in $32.5 million — then a staggering number — against Hillary Clinton's $27 million in a head-to head race, per CNN.

What to watch: Expect similarly confident 2020 Democrats to release their second-quarter numbers as the FEC's July 15 deadline to disclose fundraising approaches.

Go deeper: 2020 presidential election: Track every candidate's Q1 fundraising totals

Pete Buttigieg's campaign says it raised $24.8 million in Q2

It's a staggering total for a candidate who was barely known at the beginning of the cycle.

Pete Buttigieg

Macro

Axios Macro

Data: The National Bureau of Economic Research; Chart: Harry Stevens/Axios. Note: Current expansion is ongoing.

This month marks the longest period of time the U.S. economy has gone without a recession, just edging past the economic cycle that ended when the dot com bubble burst.

Why it matters: This milestone comes at one of the more pessimistic moments in the last decade as economists are warning that a significant slowdown in growth, and maybe a recession,is coming thanks to the impact of trade tensions and slumping growth in other economies across the globe. 

Behind the numbers: The pace of growth has been significantly slower than its predecessors, making the length of the cycle the defining factor of this period.

"Signs of over-exuberance" have ended the past 3 economic cycles, Michael Pearce, an economist at Capital Economics, tells Axios. "The interesting thing about this expansion is that it's been very slow and we've really not seen a big buildup of excesses."

Inflation has also been notably muted in the face of a near-50-year low unemployment rate and strong job creation. And low interest rates that's helped prop up the economy in the past decade may be even lower in coming months.

The bottom line: Economic cycles don't die of old age (cliché, but true). Still, as people worry that a recession is around the corner simply because there hasn’t been a recession in a while, that could weigh on consumer and business confidence — and the fear of a recession could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Go deeper: The yield curve and what it says about the economy

The never-ending boom

The U.S. economy has never gone this long without a recession.

Economy

NorthBay Healthcare, a not-for-profit hospital system in California, recently gave a candid look into how it operates, telling investors it has used its negotiating clout to extract "very lucrative contracts" from health insurance companies.

Why it matters: This is a living example of the economic theories and research that suggests hospitals will charge whatever they want if they have no or minimal competition.

Details: NorthBay owns two hospitals and several clinics in California's Solano County. Kaiser Permanente owns the only other full-service hospital in the county, and Sutter Health operates some medical offices. (A NorthBay spokesperson argued the system is "more akin to the David among two Goliaths.")

Three health insurers — Kaiser, Blue Shield of California and Anthem — have terminated their contracts with NorthBay over the past couple years. During a June 19 call with bondholders, executives explained why this has happened.

"We've been able to maintain very lucrative contracts without the competition. And what the payers are saying is, they would like us to be like 90% of the rest of the United States in terms of contract structure."

Jim Strong, interim CFO, NorthBay Healthcare

Between the lines: NorthBay's revenue has increased by 50% over the past few years, from $400 million in 2013 to $600 million in 2018, due in large part to its natural monopoly and oligopoly over hospital services. This is exactly what we should expect to happen when sellers have the upper hand over buyers, economists say.

"As hospitals gain market power and as hospitals become the only game in town, they have an enormous amount of leverage against the insurers," said Sunita Desai, a health economist at NYU.

NorthBay also serves as a cautionary tale for price transparency, the latest health policy de jour.

"If the health care system is consolidated, consumers don't have anywhere else to go," Desai said. "Even if they see the prices of a given hospital, they're limited in terms of how much they can 'shop' across providers."

Flashback: "We find that nonprofit hospitals set higher prices when they have more market power all else being equal," federal antitrust regulators wrote in a 1996 study.

When a hospital wields monopoly power

Rare candor on market power from NorthBay Healthcare.

Illustration of a giant health plus on top of a pile of cash, the ground underneath is cracking. 

Health Care

Hospitals

The U.S. health system faces critical questions about cost, access and equity. Technological advances and new discoveries about diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s are transforming patient care and reshaping public health.

Health

South Korea’s military detected an "unidentified object" flying near its border with North Korea Monday, AP reports, as North Korean state media hailed the "amazing" historic meeting between President Trump and its leader Kim Jong-un a day earlier.

Why it matters: While South Korea's military was unable to immediately identify the object at the Demilitarized Zone that separates the 2 Koreas, the incident is a reminder of the tensions at the DMZ. Hours earlier, North Korea's state-run KCNA news agency said Trump and Kim had agreed to proceed with talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"The top leaders of the two countries agreed to keep in close touch in the future, too, and resume and push forward productive dialogues for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in the bilateral relations."

The big picture: Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step inside North Korea, where he shook hands with Kim. The meeting occurred after Trump tweeted an invitation to Kim some 36 hours earlier. South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended a meeting with Trump and Kim on South Korea's side of the border.

Though the meeting occurred at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, Trump said he'd "feel very comfortable" crossing the border to meet with Kim.

 Trump's Vietnam summit with Kim earlier this year ended without any tangible progress on denuclearization. 

Go deeper: In photos: Trump and Kim hold historic meeting

South Korea detects "unidentified object" flying over DMZ

The incident comes a day after Trump's historic talks with Kim.

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