Alex Ossola

I'm getting on an autonomous truck now.

That's Journal reporter Esther Feng, who was in Phoenix this past weekend to check out one of the 35 driverless trucks PepsiCo is operating in Arizona.

This makes Pepsi the first major U.S.

consumer goods company to say they're actually using autonomous trucks at a large scale on public roads.

Esther said that in her test run, the steering wheel rotated itself as the truck turned and the truck never went over the speed limit.

A Pepsi executive told Esther that the driverless trucks are more reliable than human drivers and that they arrive on time 99% of the time after you factor out variables like weather and traffic.

Pepsi employs thousands of drivers in the U.S., some represented by unions that have strongly opposed the rollout of autonomous trucks.

Pepsi anticipates retraining and redeploying some drivers to other types of work, but also hiring fewer drivers in general.

Coming up, Trump moves to contain the violence between Iran and Israel, and why people working on Wall Street may be leaving their fanciest watches at home.

That's after the break.

Today, a federal judge invalidated the Trump administration's new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas.

The H-1B program is a main pathway for foreign professionals to enter the U.S., and it's frequently used by the biggest tech companies.

Foreign students hoping to remain in the country also rely on it.

The judge said officials overreached and declared the fee unlawful.

He sided with a coalition of states that challenged the policy, who argued that it hurt their ability to staff colleges and public health care systems.

Typically, Congress sets visa fees, or proposed fees go through a formal regulatory process.

It had previously cost $215 to enter an applicant into the lottery for an H-1B and about $5,000 to file a visa application.

A White House spokeswoman indicated that the administration plans to appeal.

In the Middle East, Israel and Iran have stopped their exchange of fire after President Trump intervened.

The Journal has learned that he had a call with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning and asked for Israel to end the attacks on Iran.