A growing number of anti-Trump Republicans are giving up — giving into the belief that nothing will stop him, Axios' Sophia Cai reports.

• Why it matters: Despite former President Trump's increasingly violent rhetoric and four felony indictments, many anti-Trump Republicans quietly are stepping back from pushing for an alternative — concluding that nothing will sway the party's base to quit Trump.

State of play: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp — who clashed with Trump when he refused to go along with the former president's claim that the 2020 election was stolen — said last week that he'll support Trump if he gets the GOP nomination.

• Win It Back, a PAC affiliated with the conservative group Club for Growth, burned through $6 million creating 40 anti-Trump messages — none of them effective, the N.Y. Times reported.
• Republican Accountability PAC — a group of former Trump voters dedicated to moving beyond the former president — is giving up on the primary after spending $1 million on ads in Iowa, per Reuters.

🐊 What's happening: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, once seen as the best prospect to take down Trump, has been in a downward spiral.

• Hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow, the biggest individual donor to the DeSantis-aligned Never Back Down PAC, won't donate more money for now.
• Citadel CEO Ken Griffin — a billionaire who previously said "our country would be well-served by [DeSantis] as president" — now isn't supporting DeSantis.

🔎 Between the lines: In a sign of DeSantis' struggles, Trump — obsessed with blasting the Florida governor for much of this year — is now taking aim at former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has done well in the two GOP debates and is outpolling DeSantis in New Hampshire.

• Trump yesterday complained on Truth Social that Fox News "has been pushing Nikki 'Birdbrain' Haley" after having "totally given up on Ron DeSanctimonious."

Republican U.S. Senate candidates increasingly are aligning themselves with Trump — and casting their opponents as anti-Trump.

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Just after midnight, former President Trump endorsed House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a longtime ally, to succeed ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

• Why it matters: Trump's blessing heats up a chaotic race where it's unclear whether either of the two announced candidates — Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) — will be able to seal the deal when Republicans meet next week.

"Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio's 4th Congressional District," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

• "He is STRONG on Crime, Borders, our Military/Vets, & 2nd Amendment," Trump added. "He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!"

State of play: Jordan, a founding chair of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, has won endorsements from both McCarthy allies and GOP hardliners.

• Moderates concerned with Jordan's closeness to Trump are reluctant to back him. And some conservatives want a fresh face in leadership, Axios' Juliegrace Brufke reports.

🕶️ What we're watching: Trump is considering going to the Capitol on Tuesday for his first visit since the Jan. 6 riot.

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As Ozempic and similar weight-loss drugs become more popular, Americans might start buying less food, particularly high-calorie snacks and fast food, Emily Peck writes for Axios Markets.

• Why it matters: That could radically reshape the food industry, and investors and food industry executives are starting to pay attention.

Walmart's U.S. CEO, John Furner, told Bloomberg that customers taking Ozempic buy less food, based on anonymized pharmacy and grocery data.

Morgan Stanley analysts laid out in a note this summer how obesity medicine could dampen demand for food and reshape the "food ecosystem."

• People on the drugs will likely consume 20% fewer calories, the report said.

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Party affiliation remains the strongest predictor of whether someone will seek out a COVID vaccine, health care editor Jason Millman writes from Ipsos polling provided to Axios.

• Why it matters: There aren't "a lot of Americans who are in the middle," Ipsos' Mallory Newall says.

🧮 By the numbers: 70% of Democrats indicate they'll get the latest COVID shot, including 8% who say they already have. That compares to 28% of Republicans who plan to get vaccinated (4% have already received it).

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A hit-and-run that left a pedestrian gravely injured in San Francisco this week is raising questions about whether autonomous vehicles can handle the unexpected, Axios' Joann Muller reports.

• Why it matters: The promise that driverless cars will be safer than human drivers is almost the entire selling point of the technology.

But as the cars roll out in a growing number of cities, a string of incidents, including in San Francisco and Austin, has hurt public trust.

• This week's accident involved both a human-driven car (which initially collided with the pedestrian) and a Cruise AV (which then also hit her).

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The White House is making plans for a November meeting in San Francisco between President Biden and China's Xi Jinping during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima scoops.

• "It's pretty firm," a Biden administration official said, while not yet confirmed.
• A U.S. official said the Chinese "want to do it."

Why it matters: The meeting would be a strong indicator that the U.S.-China relationship is back on steadier ground after the Chinese spy balloon fracas early this year cast a deep chill over the relationship, Axios China author Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian writes.

• Xi's attendance at APEC, especially since it's being hosted in the U.S., would suggest he's not abandoning multilateral summits in favor of China-centric ones — as some observers speculated after he skipped last month's G20 in India and UN General Assembly in New York.

Humans trod North America's landscape thousands of years earlier than once thought, Reuters reports from research confirming the antiquity of 61 fossilized footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico.

• The footprints, found at what was a lakeshore, date to 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, according to the study in the journal Science.

Why it matters: That shows our species, Homo sapiens, already had a foothold in North America during the inhospitable conditions of the Ice Age.

Previous archaeological evidence suggested that human occupation of North America started roughly 16,000 years ago.

• "Indigenous peoples were there earlier than thought — before the great ice barrier at the height of the last glacial maximum closed the way south from Alaska," said study co-author Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University in England.

How it worked: The researchers used radiocarbon dating on conifer pollen grains found in sediment with the footprints — obviating a controversy about a 2021 study's use of seeds from an aquatic plant, spiral ditchgrass.

• The pollen age statistically matched the seed age.

As saltwater intrusion threatens New Orleans' drinking water, bartenders at Commander's Palace are shaking up a sense of humor with a new cocktail they're calling The Salty Wedge, Axios New Orleans' Chelsea Brasted writes.

• Why it matters: Sometimes ya just have to laugh about New Orleans' regular tangle with existential crises.

"We might as well have a drink while we wait for the locusts, right?" says Commander's Palace co-proprietor Ti Adelaide Martin.

• "New Orleans experienced saltwater intrusion in the late '80s and we made it through, like we always do. We are confident that with a little bit of preparation and tequila, we can do the same this time around."

The recipe calls for 1.5 ounces of Milagro Reposado tequila, 0.75 ounces of Aperol, 1 ounce of grapefruit juice and 0.25 ounces of lime juice.

• Garnish with a lime wedge dipped in chamoy — a sweet, savory and sour sauce spiced with chilis — and rolled in kosher salt.

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