Smaller metro areas — known as micropolitans — are finding they can thrive in treacherous times by mixing outdoor fun with manufacturing work.

• F00d production — an essential service — can be a smart hedge against future national disasters, according to a new report from Heartland Forward, an economic-renewal institute in Bentonville, Ark.

Why it matters: COVID has shown, more than ever, that a diversified economy is the best hedge against the unknown, writes Worth Sparkman of Axios Northwest Arkansas.

💡 What's happening: Notice how many of the towns in the report's top 25 (graphic above) are outdoor-centric.

• "Areas offering a mix of broadband connectivity and access to the outdoors became a respite from the difficulties of pandemic-era city life," the report says.

🧠 How it works: Heartland Forward's study — "Most Dynamic Micropolitans" — ranks 536 U.S. towns with 10,000 to 50,000 people.

• The ranking uses both historical and forward-looking data — including entrepreneurship — to show where growth is likely.
• Researchers used growth in average annual pay, employment numbers, GDP, level of per capita income, young-firm employment share and share of degreed workers employed at young firms.

💼 Case in point: Spirit Lake, Iowa, and Albertville, Ala., benefited from nearby lakes. Each climbed 50+ spots from a Heartland Forward report in 2020, because their outdoor economies are thriving amid the pandemic.

• Dodge City, Kan., leaped 336 spots because National Beef Packing Company has kept the area's workforce stable during COVID.

🏘️ Get Axios Local, with morning newsletters in 24 cities + more soon.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis said Elon Musk will provide 120 Starlink satellites to “help bridge some of the communication issues," as Florida struggles with limited cellphone service and lack of electricity and internet, AP reports.

• Starlink — SpaceX's satellite-based internet system — will provide high-speed connectivity, as Musk has done in Ukraine and plans in Iran.

"We are working with Elon Musk and Starlink," DeSantis told reporters. "They are positioning those Starlink satellites to provide good coverage in Southwest Florida and other affected areas."

The storm has killed 47 people in Florida, four in North Carolina and three in Cuba.

• The weakened storm is expected to dump rain today on parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and southern Pennsylvania.

⚡ Power outages today:

• Florida: 838,882 customers.
• Puerto Rico: 151,743.
• North Carolina: 23,560.
• Virginia: 9,629.

Florida peaked at 2.67 million homes and businesses without power — nearly a quarter of utility customers.

• Get the latest.

Dogs are strapped to an external cargo platform on a helicopter by Medic Corps, a nonprofit response group based in Springdale, Ark.

• Above: Helen Koch, a dog breeder, blows a kiss to her husband as she's evacuated from Pine Island, Fla., yesterday with some of her 17 dogs.

The only bridge to Pine Island is badly damaged. So the island can be reached only by boat or air.

Another set of lucky dogs gets a lift as Paul Koch is evacuated.

Fallout from the demise of Roe v. Wade is forcing college administrators to weigh how campus reproductive health services might conflict with state abortion bans — and whether employees could face prosecution, Axios' Oriana Gonzalez reports.

The University of Idaho said last week it could stop offering birth control, citing a section of the Idaho penal code dating to 1972.

• The potential for other colleges to consider cutbacks is something "we are very concerned about," said Rachel Mack, director of marketing and communications for the American College Health Association.

Other universities are trying to ensure students can access reproductive health care:

• University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman said: "I will do everything in my power as president to ensure we continue to provide this critically important care."
• In Ohio, where a ban took effect shortly after Roe's fall, Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar, said the university "will continue to support the reproductive health needs of our students, faculty, and staff, even as the state and federal climate has made this more difficult."

Keep reading.

Members of Congress in both parties are experiencing a surge in threats and confrontations as violent political speech is increasingly crossing into in-person intimidation, The New York Times reports (subscription).

• Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had a storm window smashed at her home, told The Times: "I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed ... What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence."

Many fear the chilling trend — which includes stalking, vandalism and armed visits to homes — will only intensify as lawmakers campaign ahead of next month's midterms, The Times adds.

🧮 By the numbers: Threats against members of Congress investigated by U.S. Capitol Police increased by 144% between the first year of former President Trump's term and the first year of President Biden's, Axios reported in June.

• In the first three months of this year alone, Capitol Police opened investigations into more than 1,800 threats.

An AP tracker shows these sentences so far in Jan. 6 prosecutions (most defendants received more than one type of punishment).

• Restitution: 277
• Probation/supervised release: 239
• Imprisonment: 144
• Community service: 141
• Fine: 85
• Home confinement: 78

Go deeper: First 1/6 sedition trial.

Thank you, Axios AM readers, for helping give our first book, "Smart Brevity," rocket fuel for Week 1:

• The Wall Street Journal bestseller list, out yesterday (based on NPD BookScan data), has "Smart Brevity" at No. 2 for hardcover business … No. 5 for nonfiction e-books and No. 6 for all hardcover nonfiction.

💡 Smart Brevity can help bridge differences in background and abilities, since the form is direct and stripped down — accessible and non-divisive by design.

• Why it matters: If you’re not communicating inclusively, you’re not communicating effectively

In a chapter called "Communicate Inclusively," we show Smart Brevity's power for people with dyslexia, through the story of Roy Schwartz, co-founder of Axios and co-author of "Smart Brevity," with Jim and me:

• His teachers in Essex, England, thought Roy was a problem child. His spelling was often atrocious. His grades sagged.
• In a seventh-grade English class, he got back a paper with a lackluster grade, and covered with red corrections. "Short and not very sweet," the teacher scribbled. "Do you not own a dictionary?"

"Dyslexia caused great pain in my life, but it gave me a gift," Roy writes. "I had to problem-solve, work harder, create systems to thrive.

• After getting his MBA, Roy learned to simplify presentations because of his dyslexia — and because that made them easier for people to follow and understand.

Give the gift of "Smart Brevity."

I snapped this 1949 Chevy Deluxe in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Friday evening as it rumbled over Stearns Wharf, which was finished in 1872.

• A 150th "grand birthday bash" will be held next Saturday.