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National

America in 2019: 13 days after El Paso, Latinos are increasingly vocalizing their fear of attacks motivated by their race, ethnicity and culture.

What they're saying: “It’s really hard to be alive as an immigrant right now and to not be sick and exhausted,” Karla Cornejo Villavicencio told the N.Y. Times. “It feels like being hunted.”

Why it matters: This political climate is egged on by President Trump's rhetoric against Mexicans and others.

Trump tweeted in January: "More troops being sent to the Southern Border to stop the attempted Invasion of Illegals, through large Caravans, into our Country."

And last June: "We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country."

Trump in 2015: "The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”

The El Paso shooter wrote in his manifesto: "This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

The result: Latinos, most of whom are U.S.-born, are afraid, as a powerful USA Today story shows.

“As we saw, it didn’t really matter if you were a citizen or not when people were getting shot up ... It was primarily that hatred against Latinos, specifically Mexican Americans, and that was very clear in the manifesto written by the shooter.”— Angélica Cesar, Arizona

"Parents, even kids, get scared because they don't know how it's going to be when they go back to school." — Luis Espinoza, Mississippi

“I’m definitely angry. I’m angry … because this is the manifestation of the hate speech that was unleashed in our political arena and has just been poisoning our community from the top down." — La Lisa Hernandez, Texas

The bottom line: “I don’t think you could ever imagine something like this happening,” Mario Carrillo of Austin told the Washington Post. “But I feel like you’d be hard-pressed to say it’s surprising, given the rhetoric.”

Fear in America

Latinos are increasingly vocalizing fear of attacks motivated by their race, ethnicity and culture.

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Xiara Mercado stands at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Photo: Xiara Mercado via AP

Politics

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Latin America and Latinos

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

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Carmageddon is upon us: Before we know it, robo-cars will be ubiquitous and crowd out human-driven cars. 

What they're saying: After all, Elon Musk has said that buying anything other than a Tesla that can drive itself will be as financially insane as owning a horse. But horses survived, and driving will too.

Reality check: Automated vehicles will change our lives and our cities — hopefully for the better — by reducing traffic fatalities and making it easier to move from A to B.

But it'll be decades before they arrive in significant numbers, and when they do, they'll be confined to cities, catering to commuters, tourists and urban dwellers.

What's happening: Taking a realistic look at the industry, most experts say...

The first automated semi-trucks on highways could arrive in the next few years.

Urban delivery vehicles, and then robotaxis, could arrive next. But, they will be confined to certain neighborhoods and limited to good driving conditions.

Widespread deployment is many years away. 

Meantime, the rest of us will still be driving — though our cars will make it easier with highway-assistance features like Tesla Autopilot or Cadillac Super Cruise.

Key stat: Americans spend nearly an hour each day behind the wheel, traveling 220 miles per week in 2017, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

If it feels like you're driving more, it's true: compared to 2014, U.S. drivers spend an additional 20 minutes driving each week.

As many of us know, commuting can be a nightmare.

But "commuting is not driving," argues McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty, which insures collector cars and boats and who will forever be a driver. "It's almost a different act." 

"Never Stop Driving," a book for which Hagerty wrote the epilogue, is an antidote for the autonomous era.

It celebrates cars and culture — everything from collecting and restoring old cars to racing and car clubs.

"It's fun to put away the phone, clear your head, and enjoy a 'whole person' experience rather than being digitally distracted," Hagerty tells Axios.

Cars have their own social network, after all, as this week's Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance reminds us.

Between the lines: Digital music didn't kill vinyl records, and automation won't kill driving, Hagerty says.

"Cars have been around for 120 years, and they didn’t make horses go extinct. They just took them out of city centers."

Speaking of "Never Stop Driving," the book's stunning photos alone will stir your desire to go out for a ride.

Details: One of my favorite chapters is called "My Last Drive."

It's loosely modeled after a chef's parlor game called "The Last Meal," in which cooks discuss the ideal menu for their final dining experiences.

The authors asked some notable car enthusiasts including Jay Leno, Mario Andretti and Patrick Dempsey to describe their perfect final time behind the wheel — where would they go, in what vehicle and with whom? It's a fun thought exercise.

My thought bubble: My final drive would be in a red Mazda Miata, with the top down, and my husband by my side. It would have to be along the water somewhere — perhaps M-22 along the gorgeous coast of Lake Michigan or California's Pacific Coast Highway. 

Better yet, I'd rather go somewhere I've never been. Just press the accelerator and go. Final destination? Who cares?

Don't expect Carmageddon to kill driving anytime soon

Automated vehicles will change our lives and our cities — hopefully for the better.

Photo of a red Porsche on a winding road overlooking the ocean

Photo: Kian Eriksen/Total 911 Magazine/Future via Getty Images

Transportation

Autonomous vehicles

Cities

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.

Technology

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that an earlier injunction on the Trump administration's third-country asylum rule, which barred migrants from asylum in the U.S. if they did not first apply for protection in a country they travelled through, can only be applied within the Ninth Circuit.

Why it matters: The Ninth Circuit is located along the West Coast and includes the U.S.-Mexico border states of California and Arizona. That means that this decision will effectively block — at least for now — most Central Americans who cross into the U.S., legally or illegally, in New Mexico or Texas from asylum.

The big picture: The Trump administration has been limiting how many migrants can come through legal ports of entry on any given day. There are around 19,000 migrants at he U.S.-Mexico border who are waiting — sometimes weeks or months — to legally enter the U.S. through a port of entry and make an initial claim of asylum, the AP reported earlier this month.  

Many of those waiting — and who have followed the administration's directives by attempting to legally enter the U.S. at a point of entry — will now be disqualified from asylum, as Propublica's Dara Lind reported when the third-country rule was first announced in July.

Tens of thousands more are being forced to wait in Mexico for their immigration court hearings due to the administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy. 

By the numbers: 80% of the hundreds of thousands migrant family members and 76% of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors arrested for illegally crossing the southwest border this year were arrested in Texas, according to DHS data. 

More than half of families and almost a third of unaccompanied minors who were turned away or applied for asylum at legal ports of entry did so in Texas. 

Worth noting: Many but not all of these migrants who cross into the U.S. illegally apply for asylum.   

Court ruling allows Trump asylum restrictions in Texas and New Mexico

Most Central Americans who cross into the U.S. in those states would not be able to claim asylum.

An art exhibiton next to a section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence. Photo: Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

Immigration

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Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

The deteriorating political situation in Hong Kong threatens to severely muddy the financial gateway between East and West.

The state of play: If the protesters succeed in maintaining, or even furthering, "one country, two systems" governance, then it likely would keep global capital flowing through Hong Kong. But it's unclear how China can possibly allow that to happen without eroding its authoritarian bonafides on the mainland, and almost any crackdown would be viewed as ripping down the legal fabric that made Hong Kong a financial powerhouse in the first place.

Alibaba Group, which listed in New York five years ago, may delay a planned Hong Kong float that was set to raise upwards of $20 billion as early as this month.

Per Reuters: "The listing was always expected to be a complex affair because of China’s tight control of cross-border share trading, but Hong Kong’s unrest has taken the complexity several notches higher."

The Hang Seng Index fell more than 10% between the beginning of August through this past Wednesday. It has since recovered slightly, bringing the monthly loss to 8.6%, but is now the only major developed market index in the red for 2019.

Go deeper ... Pro Rata Podcast: Democracy vs. dictatorship in Hong Kong

Hong Kong standoff threatens its status as a global financial gateway

It's long been a connection between East and West.

Business

Hong Kong

World

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

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said Friday that she will not enter Israel due to the "oppressive conditions" placed upon her visit, despite the Israeli government's permission to enter Israel on humanitarian grounds to visit her family in the occupied West Bank, including her 90-year-old grandmother.

The big picture: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reversed course yesterday after pressure from President Trump and barred Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from a planned visit to Israel and the West Bank, saying the trip was meant "to strengthen the boycott and delegitimize Israel." In a letter requesting the visit to her family, Tlaib said she would "respect [her] restrictions" and would not "promote boycotts against Israel."

"When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions. I can't allow the State of Israel to take away that light by humiliating me & use my love for my sity to bow down to their oppressive & racist policies. ...

Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice."

The other side: Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who approved Tlaib's trip to visit her family, blasted her decision in a tweet: "I authorized this humanitarian trip, but it turns out that it was a provocation to embarrass Israel. Her hatred for Israel overcomes her love for her grandmother."

Go deeper: Israel bars Reps. Omar and Tlaib from entering after pressure from Trump

Tlaib says she won't visit Israel despite permission to visit family

"I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in."

Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Israel

There was joy in toyland this week — albeit muted — after the Trump administration said it would postpone tariffs on toys made in China until after the holiday rush.

Why it matters: The industry, still recovering from the demise of Toys “R” Us, had feared a 10% tariff would force it to raise prices, hurting consumers and killing profits. But a sudden reprieve will let toy companies focus instead — for now — on big holiday trends, like unicorns, collectible dolls, scented slime and electronic finger-puppets.

The big picture: While toy sales have slumped, the second half of 2019 is expected to bring “a complete reversal of the negative trends,” according to Juli Lennett of the NPD Group, who tracks the sector.

Several “license-friendly” movies are being released, most notably “Frozen 2” in November.

Popular video games like Fortnite are spinning off toys.

Hot products like L.O.L. Surprise! dolls, which children must “unbox” to see what they're getting, are driving sales.

Grown-ups are pushing children toward playthings instead of screens. “We have this generation of parents on our side,” Steve Pasierb, head of the Toy Association, a trade group, tells Axios.

Walmart, Amazon and Target have picked up some slack from the liquidation of Toys “R” Us last year, which cost 33,000 retail jobs.

Target has expanded floor space for toys and baby goods.

Kohl’s, Wegmans, Meijer and other retailers have pitched in, too.

Amazon published a big holiday toy catalog last year.

But: While 75% of sales volume from Toys “R” Us has migrated to other channels, 25% “has been lost,” Pasierb says.

Sales in the U.S. toy industry dropped 9%, to $7.4 billion, in the first half of 2019 compared with 2018, according to NPD.

What’s next: The Trump administration’s tariff reprieve is set to expire Dec. 15, after which all bets are off.

"Toymakers are already looking ahead to next year’s holiday season, and fretting about the crippling uncertainty that the president’s on-again, off-again trade policy has created for them," according to the NYT.

Toymakers say Trump's China tariff delay "saved the holiday season"

The industry is still recovering from the demise of Toys “R” Us.

Axios

Friday's top stories

Fear in America

Don't expect Carmageddon to kill driving anytime soon

Court ruling allows Trump asylum restrictions in Texas and New Mexico

Hong Kong standoff threatens its status as a global financial gateway

Tlaib says she won't visit Israel despite permission to visit family

Toymakers say Trump's China tariff delay "saved the holiday season"

Central banking's brave new world

As wind and solar energy grow, so do their challenges

Tech regulators put to the test

Employees revolt over immigration

The growing employer health care crisis