Axios Houston

November 25, 2024
🎤 Is this thing on? Here's Monday.
🌤️ Today's weather: Warmer with a high near 80.
🎂 Happy birthday to our Axios Houston member Cynthia Tang!
🔥 Sounds like: "Take a Bow" by Muse.
Today's newsletter is 671 words — a 2.5-minute read.
1 big thing: Dystopian book sales climb
President-elect Trump's pending return to the White House sent books about totalitarianism, tyranny and dystopia soaring off the shelves, with titles by Margaret Atwood and George Orwell climbing Amazon's rankings.
Why it matters: The same phenomenon occurred after Trump was elected president in 2016, as the prospect of his presidency sparked fears of authoritarian rule and anti-abortion policies.
State of play: Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale" was the No. 2 book on Amazon's bestsellers list three days after the election.
- That's up from No. 209 ahead of the election.
Flashback: Atwood's publicist told NPR in February 2017 that "The Handmaid's Tale" had seen a more than 200% increase in sales after Trump's election months prior.
- "1984" was also in Amazon's top 10 bestsellers list in January 2017, after then-Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway went viral after discussing "alternative facts," The Guardian reported.
Yes, but: Amazon's top seller was Melania Trump's memoir. Vice President-elect JD Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" was No. 6, while Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s book "Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health" was No. 9.
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2. 🦃 Buckle up: Thanksgiving travel will be busy
About 5.7 million Texans are expected to travel this week for Thanksgiving, per AAA.
Why it matters: Nationwide travel is projected to be the busiest on record for the holiday, with nearly 80 million Americans expected to travel more than 50 miles from home to eat turkey.
- The projection surpasses last year's record.
The big picture: The vast majority of people traveling for the holiday will drive.
- In Texas, about 5.3 million people will hit the road this week.
Zoom in: Austin, the Hill Country and San Antonio are the top in-state destinations for Texans.
- The Caribbean is the top cruise destination for Texans. Orlando, the home of Disney World, is the top domestic flight destination.
- Texans who want to escape the country are likely headed to Rome, per AAA.
⛽️ Context: Average gas prices in Texas are the lowest they've been around Thanksgiving since 2020.
- An average gallon of regular gasoline in Texas is $2.67, below the national average of $3.06.
3. Bayou Buzz
🏈 The Texans lost to the Tennessee Titans yesterday 32-27. Houston is now 7-5 and still leads the AFC South. (ESPN)
🕯️ With the election over, a Houston mother pushed into the national spotlight following her daughter's death is fighting to keep her memory alive. (Houston Landing)
Houston police say they withheld video in "error" showing an officer hitting and killing a woman crossing a street and will release the footage publicly in the coming days after Axios inquired about its whereabouts. (Axios Houston)
4. Thanksgiving will be a little cheaper this year


A typical Thanksgiving dinner for 10 will cost about $58 this year, a new report finds — down around 5% from last year but up nearly 20% in unadjusted dollars from 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why it matters: Grocery prices are a key way Americans experience inflation, and Thanksgiving puts food costs front and center.
Driving the news: Those figures come from the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual survey, released last week and based on observed nationwide prices for a hypothetical basket of Thanksgiving staples.
- That includes turkey — obviously! — plus cranberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie mix, and more.
- ☝️ Axios created an expanded menu, which includes two other Thanksgiving favorites: ham and potatoes.
Between the lines: Adjusting for inflation back to 1982, as the group always does, this year's Farm Bureau basket is one of the cheapest in decades.
Yes, but: That's not how everyday people think about prices, and grocery costs have been a major worry for many since the pandemic and through the recent election.
- Indeed, 44% of Thanksgiving hosts surveyed are concerned about the cost of having folks over for dinner this year, per a separate Deloitte report
- 3 in 10 hosts surveyed are inviting fewer people, Deloitte found, while some are also expecting guests to bring dishes to reduce costs.
The bottom line: Thanksgiving may be yet another example of how economists and everyday people think about prices and inflation in very different ways.
Thanks to Chloe Gonzales for editing this newsletter.
😎 Shafaq is living for this weather.
❤️ Jay is thankful for so much this week.
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