The timing couldn't be worse: A powerful winter storm is expected to slam the heart of the country this week during the holiday season's busiest travel days.

• Why it matters: The storm is expected to interfere with both passenger travel and cargo transport across a vast stretch of the U.S., Axios' Joann Muller and Andrew Freedman report.

🌨️ What's happening: Heavy snow and blizzard conditions could occur Thursday through Saturday (Christmas Eve) across the Midwest and Ohio Valley.

• It's increasingly likely that heavy snow — along with damaging winds — could cause poor visibility and power outages in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and elsewhere.

🧊 The storm will be accompanied by dangerously cold air — wind chills around -30°F in Chicago by Friday night, for example. It will be part of a nationwide Arctic blast.

• The National Weather Service is telling residents in Chicago, and parts of Indiana and Ohio, to reconsider travel Thursday or Friday.

✈️ Airlines are likely to cancel flights preemptively as the forecast becomes clearer.

• Delays at big hub airports — including Denver, Chicago and Detroit — can ripple across the system.

📦 Cargo hubs — Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville and Memphis — could also get hit.

🧠 What you can do: United, American and Delta are already offering to waive change fees and fare differences for customers who rebook around some threatened destinations.

• But move fast: Once cancellations start rolling in, it'll be harder to rebook, say the experts at The Points Guy, a travel advisory website.
• "If you have a flight booked for Thursday, you should be trying to get a flight Tuesday or Wednesday to get ahead of the storm," managing editor Clint Henderson tells Axios.

📱 Install your airline's app on your phone for fast rebooking.

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The House Jan. 6 committee, wrapping up before going out of business, accused former President Trump of "a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election."

• The committee tomorrow is expected to issue its full report, including interview transcripts and legislative recommendations.

Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said: "We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice."

The committee referred Trump to the Justice Department for possible prosecution on four crimes:

1. Obstruction of an official proceeding.
2. Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
3. Conspiracy to make a false statement.
4. "Incite," "assist" or "aid and comfort" an insurrection.

Go deeper: Details on each law ... Yesterday's revelations ... 154-page intro to final report.

N.Y. Times Quote of the Day ... Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee (via NPR):

Every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority — except one. January 6th, 2021, was the first time one American president refused his constitutional duty to transfer power peacefully to the next.

It's not just you! This sign was spotted Sunday at a CVS in Greenlawn (Suffolk County), N.Y., amid a nationwide shortage of Children's Tylenol and other kids' medicine.

• A friend of ours went to three stores in D.C. on Saturday looking for children's Motrin — none was to be found. All the fever medication was sold out.

What's happening: An unusually fast start to the flu season — plus a spike in other respiratory illnesses — created a surge in demand for fever relievers and other meds you can buy without a prescription, AP reports.

• It's like "toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic," said Dr. Shannon Dillon, a pediatrician at Riley Children's Health in Indianapolis. "There are more sick kids at this time of year than we have seen in the past couple years."

💊 Johnson & Johnson says it's not experiencing widespread shortages of Children's Tylenol, but the product may be "less readily available." The company said it is running its production lines around the clock.

Earning six figures — or buying a $1 million house — isn't quite the same in a high-inflation era, Emily Peck writes for Axios Markets.

• Why it matters: Fast-rising prices have turned a lot of adults into versions of their grandparents — bowled over by the high cost of {waves hands} everything.

💡 What's happening: The average lowest wage that American workers with a college degree expect for a salary is $92,000, per a New York Fed survey released yesterday.

• That's the highest level since the Fed started tracking the number in 2014, when it was $70,000.
• For those with less than a college degree, it's $60,000. That's equivalent to $30 an hour — or twice the $15 hourly minimum wage that's been on activists' agendas for more than a decade.

🏠 The Federal Housing Administration recently announced it would back mortgages of as high as $1 million in high-cost areas.

• Critics called this a "McMansion" subsidy. But it's more a reflection of soaring home prices, particularly in these expensive areas.

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Epic Games — maker of Fortnite — was fined more than half a billion dollars by the FTC yesterday to settle allegations of privacy violations and unwanted charges, Axios' Ashley Gold and Stephen Totilo write.

• The $520 million in fines amount to "the largest penalty ever obtained for violating an FTC rule," the commission said.

What's happening: The FTC says Epic knew kids were playing Fortnite, collected their data without parental consent — and used design tricks to "dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases."

🕹️ Between the lines: Games like Fortnite woo players with free basics, then tempt them to pay to have a better time.

• The FTC settlement might make some game makers think twice about abusing that financial model.

🥊 Reality check: For Epic, which makes billions, this was an expensive embarrassment the company can afford.

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Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting an actress in his second criminal trial, Axios' Shawna Chen writes.

• The 70-year-old former film producer is two years into a 23-year sentence for a separate rape and sexual assault conviction from a trial in New York.

Keep reading.

This is "faux gras" — a vegan alternative to foie gras at the restaurant 42 Degres in Paris.

• Vegan and animal-friendly alternatives to foie gras are taking off in France, Reuters reports.

What's happening: Foie gras is part of France's culinary heritage. But the practice of force-feeding ducks or geese to enlarge their livers is condemned by animal activists.

• French chef Fabien Borgel, who manages 42 Degres, created "faux gras" two years ago

His veggie dish contains cashew nuts, sunflower and coconut oil. It looks like foie gras, but is creamier.