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A brilliant deception, buying homes online, new deep-sea species: Catch up on the day’s stories

By Daniel Wine, CNN

Editor’s Note: CNN’s 5 Things newsletter is your one-stop shop for the latest headlines and fascinating stories to start and end your busy day. Sign up here.

👋 Welcome to 5 Things PM! In most US cities, buying a home now requires a six-figure salary. A new report found that you need to earn $108,000 to afford a new single-family home and pay property taxes and insurance costs — nearly double the household income needed in 2019.

Here’s what else you might have missed during your busy day:

5 things

1️⃣ Full circle: A woman managed to fool a world-famous male-only magic society into admitting her before being unceremoniously kicked out when she revealed her true identity. Now they want her back.

2️⃣ Deep discounts: Everything costs less than $20 at Amazon’s newest store. The mobile-only experience just launched and includes fashion accessories, home goods, clothes and electronics. It’s an effort to compete with Chinese marketplaces such as Shein and Temu.

3️⃣ New experiences: Comedian Ash Perez recently got his first haircut at a barbershop, bought a suit, learned to grill and asked his close friends what it means to be a man. Here’s what a trans man is learning about masculinity at the age of 35.

4️⃣ Ancient artifact: The oldest known tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments could fetch up to $2 million when it goes up for auction. The stone, which dates back about 1,500 years, was discovered during excavation for a rail line in what is now Israel.

5️⃣ Home delivery: Manufactured houses are surging in popularity — and you can order them online. But the path to ownership isn’t as simple as a “Buy Now” button.

Watch this

🌊 Deep and dark: Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California discovered a new species of sea slug living in the ocean’s “midnight zone” — the area so far below the surface that it’s untouched by sunlight.

Top headlines

Trump picks Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general
• ‘An effing nightmare’: Senior commanders react to Trump’s new cabinet picks
Republicans will retain House majority, CNN projects, completing GOP’s dominance of Washington

$1.08 million

❗That’s how much an AI robot’s painting of British scientist Alan Turing sold for, becoming the most valuable artwork by a humanoid ever to change hands at auction.

Check this out

🐋 Valuable lesson: People in Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit have been gathering around a massive beached sperm whale along the Caspian Sea. But this particular marine mammal isn’t real. Buckets of rotting fish hidden nearby add to the illusion.

What’s buzzing

Par for the course: Basketball fans are used to seeing Caitlin Clark produce fantastic feats, but a golf outing served as an important reminder that she’s human after all.

Quiz time

📱Which social media app rocketed to the No. 1 spot in US downloads on Apple’s App Store after the presidential election?
A. X
B. Bluesky
C. Threads
D. Truth Social
⬇️ Scroll down for the answer.

Good vibes

🐅 We like to wrap things up on a positive note: The last tigers in Kazakhstan disappeared more than 70 years ago. In a landmark moment for conservation, they’re about to return. Bodhana and Kuma, two tigers from a sanctuary in the Netherlands, are adjusting to their new home in hopes that their offspring will be among the first wild tigers in the country in decades.

Thanks for reading

👋 We’ll see you tomorrow.
🧠 Quiz answer: B. Bluesky said it had gained 1 million new users in the past week alone.
📧 Check out all of CNN’s newsletters.

5 Things PM is produced by CNN’s Tricia Escobedo, Chris Good, Meghan Pryce and Kimberly Richardson.

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