The Southeast is a startup hotbed — home to nine of the top 10 metro areas with the most new-business applications per capita last year, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj report.

Why it matters: This shows the country spreading out to new influence frontiers, with economic and cultural power surging from the coasts.

• The hottest startup locations also have booming populations.

Miami (40.9), Atlanta (31.3) and Orlando (28.7) were the top metros, as ranked by new-business applications per 1,000 residents last year.

• The only metro outside the Southeast making the top 10: Provo, Utah, at 23.2.
• Parts of the Mountain West, including Denver, also had strong showings.

🧮 By the numbers: 5 million new-business applications were filed nationwide in 2022 — 15.1 for every 1,000 residents.

• That's down 7% from 2021, when 5.4 million applications were filed — 16.2 for every 1,000 people.

Interactive version of this map, showing county-by-county data.

Ron DeSantis has a problem: Polls suggest that the more voters know about him, the less they like him.

• So the Florida governor is blitzing Iowa six months before the Republican caucuses, trying to boost his flagging challenge to former President Trump, Axios' Sophia Cai reports.

Why it matters: DeSantis' push comes amid reports that Rupert Murdoch — an early DeSantis fan whose media properties would make him a game-changing supporter — is losing faith.

• Murdoch privately is telling people he'd like to see Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin enter the race, the N.Y. Times reports.

What's happening: DeSantis' struggles — even as Trump has been indicted twice — make Iowa's caucuses on Jan. 15 especially vital.

Trump is focusing on big events where he's the star. DeSantis' ground game — starting in Iowa — is designed to emphasize his conservative credentials and counter his reputation as an awkward campaigner.

• Team DeSantis is betting that Trump's ongoing spat with Iowa's popular governor, Kim Reynolds, will help. Reynolds hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate, but has praised DeSantis and appeared with him.

DeSantis and nearly every other major GOP contender besides Trump will be in Iowa during the next few days for a rush of conservative campaign events.

• The headline event will be tomorrow's Family Leadership Summit, hosted by evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats.
• Tucker Carlson will hold one-on-one conversations with DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), former Vice President Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump's absence reflects his campaign's thinking that he'd have little to gain by sharing a stage with his challengers.

• Trump's campaign offered to send a surrogate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to Vander Plaats' event. But Vander Plaats, who has criticized Trump's campaign as a revenge tour, turned down the offer.

Instead, Trump will appear at a town hall with Sean Hannity on Fox News in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday.

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Cassidy Hutchinson — the former Trump aide who was a pivotal witness at the House's Jan. 6 hearings — will be out Sept. 26 with a memoir, "Enough."

• Why it matters: The book is billed as the "saga of a woman whose fierce determination helped her ... get her dream job" — only to face a crisis of conscience after being privy to West Wing meetings and conversations amid the Capitol attack.

As special assistant to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Hutchinson worked steps from the Oval Office.

• The hearings featured an animated West Wing map that labeled Hutchinson's desk as a key feature.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, says that at 24, Hutchinson "found herself in the middle of one of the most extraordinary and unprecedented calamities in modern political history."

Former House member Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the Jan. 6 committee's vice chair, previously said: "Little girls all across this great nation are seeing ... what it really means to be a patriot."

• Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that Hutchinson "showed a lot more guts than the men of that White House."
• Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post called her "John Dean in a white blazer and diamond necklace."

Hutchinson, 26, will narrate the audiobook. She was represented by Robert Barnett and Emily Alden of Williams & Connolly.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reaches past President Biden to shake hands with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda yesterday at the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

• Zelensky slammed NATO members' unwillingness to offer Ukraine a timetable for membership as "unprecedented and absurd." But Western countries pledged more weapons and ammunition for the war.

Above: Zelensky at the NATO summit yesterday.

• Biden said in a major speech at Vilnius University: "Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes."

Biden finishes his five-day Europe swing today in Finland, NATO's newest member.

Stocks posted their best day of the month after encouraging inflation data yesterday, Matt Phillips writes for Axios Markets.

• Why it matters: The slowdown raises the prospect that the interest rate surge — which hammered stocks last year — is nearly over.

If so, the rally that started last fall may indeed be a new bull market.

The key U.S. gauge of consumer prices showed the lowest level of inflation (3%) since March 2021.

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Editor's note: This item has been updated with a chart showing the annual change in the consumer price index, instead of one showing the change in the CPI for shelter.

After years of public 5G networks rolling out nationwide, the biggest mobile network action is now in private 5G networks, Axios' Ryan Heath reports.

• More than 5,000 private 5G networks are running in China, leaving the U.S. in catchup mode.

Why it matters: America's huge appetite for connected experiences is exceeding what sometimes patchy, insecure public 5G networks deliver.

That’s led to a surge of private 5G innovation, including the arrival of pop-up 5G networks at festivals, sporting events and construction sites.

• Sports uses range from the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Miami in May, where private 5G helped keep 250,000 fans moving and purchasing, to the Phoenix Suns' new practice facility, which uses 150 wall and ceiling cameras to capture players' every movement.

Case in point: The Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday opened a new hospital in Mentor, Ohio — one of the first in the nation built with private 5G in mind.

• The facility uses Verizon 5G for robot check-in kiosks, high-res cameras in every patient room, assisted surgery and imaging and patient infotainment.

Mobile networks are no longer the exclusive domain of big telecoms. Tech companies including Amazon, Cisco and HP have become significant players in 5G, spurring new partnerships and surprising results.

• An Amazon Web Services product called Snowcone combined drones with a mobile 5G network in a van to help recovery from typhoons in the Philippines and landslides in Brazil.

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Elon Musk launched his long-promised AI startup, xAI, Axios' Hope King writes.

• Why it matters: His announcement — on Twitter, of course (with no warning) — comes amid a heated race to launch generative AI products.

"Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality," Musk tweeted.

• The company, according to its website, is aided by research engineers who have previously worked for Google Research, DeepMind, OpenAI, Microsoft Research and Tesla.

Members of the all-male team, according to their websites and profiles, have focused on large language models, deep learning, and neural networks.

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Hard Rock Cafe has a Messi Chicken Sandwich — made the Argentine way, with thinly pounded chicken cutlets. A huge sketch of the soccer star's smiling face is on a restaurant wall. A beer features Messi's No. 10, with a pink label matching the color of the Inter Miami jersey he will wear.

• Wherever you turn in Miami, you're reminded of this week's arrival of the Argentine soccer legend to play for the city's Major League Soccer team, AP reports.
• Messi, 36, is beginning the MLS phase of his career in one of the most Latino cities in the U.S.

Why it matters: Messi, one of the world's best and most famous athletes, is expected to turbocharge soccer in the U.S. and South Florida.

• 100,000+ Argentines live in Miami, which hosts World Cup matches in 2026.

What's happening: Messi and his family landed Tuesday in a private jet near Inter Miami’s Fort Lauderdale training facility, the Miami Herald reports.

• He met with teammates and briefly appeared at a practice yesterday, with team co-owner David Beckham on hand.

🔮 What's next: Messi will appear at "The Unveil" ceremony Sunday evening at DRV PNK Stadium. Social media is buzzing with rumors that Shakira, Bad Bunny and Maluma are among the stars who may show, The Herald says.

• Messi is expected to make his Inter Miami debut at home against Mexican team Cruz Azul on July 21 — a week from tomorrow.

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