Travelers will need to follow a new rule regarding juicing up their devices while flying on Southwest Airlines. The Texas-based airline will be "requiring customers to keep portable charging devices visible while in use during flight," a Southwest spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Using portable charging devices while stored in a bag or overhead bin will no longer be permitted," the spokesperson added. "Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees." A passenger's battery charger recently caught fire on a JetBlue flight from Florida to the Bahamas, Business Insider reported. Smoke and flames erupted in the cabin of the flight due to the portable charger overheating in the passenger’s carry-on luggage. Portable chargers, or power banks, are not allowed in checked bags but can be packed in carry-on bags as they have lithium-ion batteries, according to TSA. The FAA website notes that "all lithium-ion batteries are capable of overheating and experiencing a process called thermal runaway." "Thermal runaway can occur without warning as a result of various factors, including if the battery is damaged, overheated, exposed to water, overcharged, or improperly protected." The policy will begin on May 28. Customers with the Southwest app have shared that they are receiving notifications about the policy already. In the "r/SouthwestAirlines" forum on Reddit, a user shared a screenshot of the notification, titling the post, "I had no idea this was an issue." The post said, "Got this pop-up for the first time, and I'm baffled." The notification showed a battery graphic saying, "If you use a power bank during your flight, keep it out of your bag and in plain sight. Do not charge [the] device in the overhead bin."

A United Airlines flight traveling from Honolulu to Los Angeles returned safely to Hawaii Wednesday morning after a "potential security concern" was found written on a bathroom mirror. Flight 1169, which took off from Daniel K. Inouye International Airport just after 9:40 p.m. Tuesday, was bound for Los Angeles International Airport. After the "potential security concern" was found, the Boeing 777 returned to the airport, a United Airlines spokesperson wrote in a statement to Fox News Digital. "United Flight 1169 from Honolulu to Los Angeles returned safely to Honolulu after a potential security concern was found written on a lavatory mirror," the statement said. "Law enforcement met the aircraft, and a security sweep was conducted." It landed back in Hawaii just after 1:35 a.m. Law enforcement met the plane and conducted a security sweep, though the airline did not confirm what, if anything, was found on the plane. The FBI in Honolulu did not immediately confirm to Fox News Digital if there were any arrests or clarify the nature of the security concern. Honolulu police referred questions about the investigation to the FBI. "We are rebooking customers on another flight to Los Angeles that departs later this evening," the United Airlines spokesperson said. There were 339 passengers and 10 crew members on board.

Archaeologists in the City of David in Israel have struck gold twice this year – finding yet another gold ring. A gold ring set with a red gemstone dating back 2,300 years was recently discovered in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University. The ring is believed to have belonged to a boy or girl living in Jerusalem in the Second Temple period. "This jewelry discovered now was likely buried then in the context of a well-known practice of that period, which symbolized the transition from childhood to adulthood," according to a joint press release. Archaeologists were sifting through the dirt with a sieve near the excavation area when the ring was found. "We called over the archaeologists, everyone gathered around us and marveled at the special find. It was very exciting," said Rivka lengler, a City of David excavator, in the release. "We called over the archaeologists, everyone gathered around us and marveled at the special find. It was very exciting," said Rivka lengler, a City of David excavator, in the release. Both rings date back to the Early Hellenistic period. "The discovery of the golden rings from the time of the Second Temple in the City of David is tangible evidence of the wealth, beauty and importance of Jerusalem even thousands of years ago," said Eli Escusido, IAA director. Zeev Orenstein, City of David international spokesperson, told Fox News Digital the discovery "represents yet another affirmation of life in Jerusalem from thousands of years ago." "A life quite similar to our own in 2025," Orenstein added. "Children coming of age, the preciousness of jewelry, the timelessness of gold, and, most importantly, the celebration of life." He added, "A spirit which continues to be embodied in the Jerusalem of today."

Ancient "propaganda" that was used to support the Egyptian pharaoh who is believed to be a major character of the Old Testament has been spotted in Paris, according to an expert. Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier, an Egyptologist from Paris-Sorbonne University and Institut Catholique de Paris, recently spoke with Fox News Digital about his findings, which are set to be published in the coming months. The expert found the propaganda, which is supportive of Ramesses II, on the 3,300-year-old obelisk that sits in Paris' Place de la Concorde. Olette-Pelletier saw the obelisk up close in 2021 after receiving permission to climb scaffolding to conduct research. Ramesses II, who was born in 1303 B.C. and died in 1213 B.C., is considered one of the most influential and powerful Egyptian rulers of the New Kingdom. The Egyptian monarch is often cited as the most likely candidate for the pharaoh mentioned in Exodus, though an explicit name was never given in the Old Testament. The pharaoh is said to have retaliated against Moses and refused his requests in Exodus — resulting in a series of plagues. Olette-Pelletier called the pro-Ramesses hieroglyphs "propaganda." He identified seven cryptographies, or codes, which assert Ramesses II's authority from 1280 B.C. on. "It was a message from Ramesses II to the nobility," the expert said, noting the Egyptian nobility were able to read the codes. Olette-Pelletier said Ramesses II was born before his father Seti I became pharaoh – and therefore was not conceived by the gods. Not being of divine essence could have hampered his legitimacy to the throne. "The nobility, able to read cryptographies, might be tempted by an overthrow of power since Ramesses II was not born of theogamy and therefore not divine by birth," Olette-Pelletier said. The expert added, "[Ramesses II] spent the first two years of his reign emphasizing his divinity with his wife Nefertari by paying homage at Egypt's great shrines, and by buying priests." "In the process, he changed his name from Usermaatra to Usermaatra Setepenra, [which means] ‘chosen of Ra.’" The obelisk has four sides, and Olette-Pelletier noted that the side that faces the Seine (and was intended to face the Nile) shows Ramesses II "wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt." The expert also said that Ramesses II "underlined his divine knowledge" by using codes to convey the swaying messages. "The obelisk also contains hidden texts that show the nobility that he is a legitimate and divine king, thus averting a possible coup d'état," Olette-Pelletier said. "So, indeed, these are propaganda texts." The cryptographies also claim that Ramesses II was the "provider of the Nile flood and thus of the country's wealth," according to Olette-Pelletier. The discovery is one of many finds related to Ramesses II that have been uncovered in the past year. In September, an ancient sword belonging to Ramesses' military was unearthed in Housh Eissa, a city in Egypt's Beheira Governorate. In January, Egyptian officials announced they would begin to restore Ramesses II's temple in the Luxor Governorate, the Ramesseum.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurants have been around since 1969, nestled strategically off interstates to attract drivers with their convenience, southern hospitality, range of food options and affordable menu prices. But Cracker Barrel may be losing its charm amid a physical makeover, according to some. Rachel Love, a 38-year-old Tennessee resident and self-proclaimed Cracker Barrel fan, recently caught the restaurant chain's attention with her social media video. "When Cracker Barrel took away the last piece of nostalgia you had left," Love captioned in a TikTok video last month as she showed the inside of an updated location. (See the video at the top of this article.) The post has amassed thousands of comments from other Cracker Barrel lovers, many of whom disapprove of the new look and prefer the original concept. Love told Fox News Digital she was in "shock" when she first saw the white walls and giant mural on the side of the restaurant near her parents' house. "I thought they were priming it to paint it brown again," she said. The interior décor had also been altered. "There's no antiques on the wall," Love said. "The only antiques they have were on the fireplace mantle." 'Very transparent' Cracker Barrel chief marketing officer Sarah Moore said all the things that people love about the Tennessee restaurant chain aren't going away. "Over the past year, we have been very transparent about our transformation platform," Moore told Fox News Digital. "One of our strategies is really centered on that physical guest experience." Cracker Barrel has been testing "various levels of remodels," Moore told Fox News Digital. "It's all about evolution with intentionality," she said. "We've been very transparent about our goal of making our stores feel brighter and even more welcoming than they already are, while maintaining that country hospitality and charm that we're known for." That includes the brand's signature rocking chairs and peg games. "None of that is going away," Moore said. "We're just looking at ways to freshen up the experience so that we can open our door a bit wider for more guests." Love said she's been contacted by Cracker Barrel employees wishing to remain anonymous who said the souvenir store – a popular way for customers to pass the time while waiting for a table – is part of the revamp. Moore said there's no reason to worry. "The retail store is such a differentiator for us. It is such an important part of our overall experience. Things of that nature, the things that make us truly who we are — that's not changing." "Thank you for loving Cracker Barrel as much as we do!" Still, Love's video created such buzz that Cracker Barrel reached out with a peace offering that included a gift basket full of knickknacks. "Hi Rachel! Just a little something to say thank you for loving Cracker Barrel as much as we do! Your Friends, Cracker Barrel," a note on the card read. Moore said Cracker Barrel listens to its customers. "What the guests asked for are things like spaces that feel brighter, that feel less cluttered, more booth seating, more seating options, so our guests are more comfortable while they're dining with us," she said. 'Menu evolution' Love said she believes the quality of the food has declined in recent years. "I think they're trying to save on the food costs," she said. Cracker Barrel added alcohol a few years ago – something Love said wasn't necessary. "If I'm out at a nice dinner, I'll drink," she said. "I'm not going to Cracker Barrel to drink." Guests can also expect more menu changes. "Similar to our remodel strategy, menu evolution has also been a clear pillar within our transformation framework," Moore told Fox News Digital. Cracker Barrel is "doubling down on our breakfast, which is a strength for us, but also expanding our dinner offerings." The "campfire" meals, absent since 2018, recently returned to the menu, along with the all-new Campfire Shrimp Skillet, "an incredible value," Moore said. "I don't think we get enough credit for the value that we offer," Moore said. "We offer so many ways to find value in your own way when you come to Cracker Barrel. If you think about it, our average check is $14 compared to $27 for the casual dining industry. Delicious food in abundance has always been part of our value equation." Love hopes the responses to her video will lead Cracker Barrel to tamp down on the cosmetic changes and focus more on the food. "Prepare it with love like it used to be. That's where it all starts," she said. "The food has to get better. Just adding new options is not going to change how people feel about it." Cracker Barrel, however, suggested it has an eye on the future while recognizing its past. "Everything we're doing is deeply rooted in who we are," Moore said. "It's just, how do we carry forward those things that have made us so beloved for the last 55 years? How do we set up for the next 55 years?"

When Christina Ernst dreamed up the concept for a self-twirling dress, she made it and then programmed its robotic arms to lift the hem of a romantic pink smock gown and to spin it left and right. She turned fantasy into reality with a flickering, faux candle-lined corset top, too, as well as a cathedral gown with stained-glass-like panels that could be illuminated like windows seen at night. Over the past year, the 28-year-old has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers for her whimsical fashion projects that incorporate coding and circuitry. Based in Chicago, when Ernst isn’t working as a software engineer at Google’s West Loop office, she’s home experimenting with what she calls “fashioneering” projects, then documenting each one for her online audience. Through her tutorial website and social media accounts She Builds Robots, she hopes to encourage more young women to enter STEM fields. “When I was growing up, I would have loved to see some sort of tech representation (for) my own interests in fashion, art and drawing,” she told CNN during an interview at Chicago Public Library’s Maker Lab, where Ernst had a 12-week residency, demonstrating how some of her designs worked. “I loved all of these things, but never thought that they had any compatibility with the tech world…It’s really important to me to center (my tutorials) on the interests that a lot of teen girls already have, to meet them where they are.” Ernst often goes for feats of fantasy, with her first viral videos documenting her Medusa dress adorned with several undulating robotic serpents, including one programmed to make eye contact using AI facial recognition. But the “stupidest” thing she’s made with her computer engineering degree — as she declared in her most-watched video — was for one of her Halloween costumes. In it, she shows a small, motorized 3D-printed replica of a familiar foodie rat affixed to a headband, pulling two small handfuls of her hair up and down in its paws as she slices up an onion in the kitchen. To test her version of Remy from “Ratatouille,” she gave the rodent yarn first so it wouldn’t yank her hair out. After seeing the reaction online, with nearly 45 million views to date across Instagram and TikTok, she took some commenters’ advice to upgrade him further. “The first version I made just had his arms going up and down. I coded them to move randomly,” she explained. “And a bunch of people in my comments had a wonderful idea to sync it up to my movements, and I just happened to have (an) accelerometer laying around. It’s a pretty common circuitry piece, so I spent the weekend wiring it up.” ‘Magical’ technology Ernst says she usually has multiple ambitious ideas ticking away in her mind, sometimes for months at a time. Her projects are not meant to represent the future of tech or fashion, though, as she emphasizes, but are instead a conversation-starter for young makers and designers to see technology presented in a different way. “Technology really is magical to me… When I say I make robotic dresses, I never want it to look like how people picture it,” she said. “The wonder and the whimsy is very important to me. All of my designs really introduce that aspect to (engage) people who might not traditionally be interested in engineering.” Though Ernst isn’t planning a more formal entry into fashion, robotics on the runway have led to some of the industry’s most memorable moments. In 1998, Alexander McQueen staged a frenetic moment of performance art when two robots spray-painted a dress worn by model Shalom Harlow. Two years ago, Coperni partnered with Boston Dynamics in Paris to send out the company’s robot canines to interact with models, including Lila Moss, to take off their coats and tote around handbags. The wonder-evoking combination is one that Ernst discovered early on, through the first fashion project she made in college: a Bluetooth-controlled color-changing LED dress she created during a hackathon at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The number of girls who approached her exhibition booth asking for instructions on how to recreate the dress was a “lightbulb moment”, she explained, as she realized that fashion projects could be a gateway into STEM studies. In high school, she was a mathlete who loved reworking her clothes, but felt that when it came time to apply for universities, she had to choose between the two fields. “A lot of people think that fashion is completely divorced from the sciences, but that is not true at all. The history of the computer is actually textile history,” Ernst said. The punch-card Jacquard loom, invented in the early 19th-century for weaving, is considered a precursor to modern computing because its use of binary code inspired early computer design. “That history is very interwoven.” Embracing failure In her own practice, Ernst combines a range of disciplines and techniques, from 3D modeling and laser cutting to hand dyeing and knitting, she explained. Because of that, she often prototypes her projects in simpler materials such as cardboard “before dropping into high-tech tools.” Since college, Ernst has explored various ways to design curriculum for students. She received a small grant in 2017 for her hackathon project to create introductory circuit projects with art and fashion in mind and provide them online for free. She also provided educational kits to five public schools in Chicago from 2022 to 2023. And this past year, she was a maker-in-residence at Chicago Public Library, teaching free classes at the Harold Washington Library branch while growing her online audience. There, she taught people from all walks of life, from young students to parents to retirees. In one case, a Girl Scout leader who attended and learned to program a motor said she would teach the new skills to her troop, Ernst recalled, and offer a new electronics badge that members could earn. During her residency, Ernst created a new design for the library’s display window, a gold and blush Phoenix gown with feathers that rise and fall, activated by passersby who place their hands up to a panel on the window. The garment is a tribute to the Garden of the Phoenix, which was built in Jackson Park for the 1893 Chicago Fair as a symbol of US-Japanese friendship; the park was set on fire in the wake of World War II but was later reconstructed. Though at first, Ernst had hoped to trigger the dress using motion sensors, then through viewers’ phones, she eventually (and quickly) had to rig up a more simple solution using light-sensitive photoresistors that activate when covered. “So much of it is trial and error, and I think my computer engineering background and my software job really builds those skills of persistence, of debugging, of experimentation, and I’m able to bring that over into my experimental fashion, where I’ll often go through 6, 7, or 8 prototypes before I get close to something that works,” she said. She’s learned that showing or explaining the unsuccessful versions of her projects to her followers have sometimes become just as interesting to them. “I was surprised by how many people have commented that they like seeing the failures. They like seeing the prototypes that don’t work,” she said. “It helps them see that it is OK to fail and OK to iterate — nobody inherently knows how to do these things.”

Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday for “Heart Lamp,” a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of more than 30 years and which chronicle the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India. The award was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter in his role as chair of the five-member voting panel, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern. It is the first time the award has been given to a collection of short stories. Bhasthi is the first Indian translator — and ninth female translator — to win the prize since it took on its current form in 2016. Mushtaq is the sixth female author to be awarded the prize since then. Written in Kannada, which is spoken by around 65 million people, primarily in southern India, Porter praised the “radical” nature of the translation, adding that “It’s been a joy” to listen to the evolving appreciation of the stories by members of the jury. “These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects,” said Porter. ”It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.” The book, which beat five other finalists, comprises stories written from 1990 to 2023. They were selected and curated by Bhasthi, who was keen to preserve the multilingual nature of southern India in her translation. Mushtaq, who is a lawyer and activist as well as writer, told a short list reading event on Sunday that the stories “are about women – how religion, society and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates.” The 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize money is to be divided equally between author and translator. Each is presented with a trophy too. The International Booker Prize is awarded every year. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the fall.

Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday for “Heart Lamp,” a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of more than 30 years and which chronicle the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India. The award was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter in his role as chair of the five-member voting panel, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern. It is the first time the award has been given to a collection of short stories. Bhasthi is the first Indian translator — and ninth female translator — to win the prize since it took on its current form in 2016. Mushtaq is the sixth female author to be awarded the prize since then. Written in Kannada, which is spoken by around 65 million people, primarily in southern India, Porter praised the “radical” nature of the translation, adding that “It’s been a joy” to listen to the evolving appreciation of the stories by members of the jury. “These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects,” said Porter. ”It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.” The book, which beat five other finalists, comprises stories written from 1990 to 2023. They were selected and curated by Bhasthi, who was keen to preserve the multilingual nature of southern India in her translation. Mushtaq, who is a lawyer and activist as well as writer, told a short list reading event on Sunday that the stories “are about women – how religion, society and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates.” The 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize money is to be divided equally between author and translator. Each is presented with a trophy too. The International Booker Prize is awarded every year. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the fall.

When Christina Ernst dreamed up the concept for a self-twirling dress, she made it and then programmed its robotic arms to lift the hem of a romantic pink smock gown and to spin it left and right. She turned fantasy into reality with a flickering, faux candle-lined corset top, too, as well as a cathedral gown with stained-glass-like panels that could be illuminated like windows seen at night. Over the past year, the 28-year-old has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers for her whimsical fashion projects that incorporate coding and circuitry. Based in Chicago, when Ernst isn’t working as a software engineer at Google’s West Loop office, she’s home experimenting with what she calls “fashioneering” projects, then documenting each one for her online audience. Through her tutorial website and social media accounts She Builds Robots, she hopes to encourage more young women to enter STEM fields. “When I was growing up, I would have loved to see some sort of tech representation (for) my own interests in fashion, art and drawing,” she told CNN during an interview at Chicago Public Library’s Maker Lab, where Ernst had a 12-week residency, demonstrating how some of her designs worked. “I loved all of these things, but never thought that they had any compatibility with the tech world…It’s really important to me to center (my tutorials) on the interests that a lot of teen girls already have, to meet them where they are.” Ernst often goes for feats of fantasy, with her first viral videos documenting her Medusa dress adorned with several undulating robotic serpents, including one programmed to make eye contact using AI facial recognition. But the “stupidest” thing she’s made with her computer engineering degree — as she declared in her most-watched video — was for one of her Halloween costumes. In it, she shows a small, motorized 3D-printed replica of a familiar foodie rat affixed to a headband, pulling two small handfuls of her hair up and down in its paws as she slices up an onion in the kitchen. To test her version of Remy from “Ratatouille,” she gave the rodent yarn first so it wouldn’t yank her hair out. After seeing the reaction online, with nearly 45 million views to date across Instagram and TikTok, she took some commenters’ advice to upgrade him further. “The first version I made just had his arms going up and down. I coded them to move randomly,” she explained. “And a bunch of people in my comments had a wonderful idea to sync it up to my movements, and I just happened to have (an) accelerometer laying around. It’s a pretty common circuitry piece, so I spent the weekend wiring it up.” ‘Magical’ technology Ernst says she usually has multiple ambitious ideas ticking away in her mind, sometimes for months at a time. Her projects are not meant to represent the future of tech or fashion, though, as she emphasizes, but are instead a conversation-starter for young makers and designers to see technology presented in a different way. “Technology really is magical to me… When I say I make robotic dresses, I never want it to look like how people picture it,” she said. “The wonder and the whimsy is very important to me. All of my designs really introduce that aspect to (engage) people who might not traditionally be interested in engineering.” Though Ernst isn’t planning a more formal entry into fashion, robotics on the runway have led to some of the industry’s most memorable moments. In 1998, Alexander McQueen staged a frenetic moment of performance art when two robots spray-painted a dress worn by model Shalom Harlow. Two years ago, Coperni partnered with Boston Dynamics in Paris to send out the company’s robot canines to interact with models, including Lila Moss, to take off their coats and tote around handbags. The wonder-evoking combination is one that Ernst discovered early on, through the first fashion project she made in college: a Bluetooth-controlled color-changing LED dress she created during a hackathon at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The number of girls who approached her exhibition booth asking for instructions on how to recreate the dress was a “lightbulb moment”, she explained, as she realized that fashion projects could be a gateway into STEM studies. In high school, she was a mathlete who loved reworking her clothes, but felt that when it came time to apply for universities, she had to choose between the two fields. “A lot of people think that fashion is completely divorced from the sciences, but that is not true at all. The history of the computer is actually textile history,” Ernst said. The punch-card Jacquard loom, invented in the early 19th-century for weaving, is considered a precursor to modern computing because its use of binary code inspired early computer design. “That history is very interwoven.” Embracing failure In her own practice, Ernst combines a range of disciplines and techniques, from 3D modeling and laser cutting to hand dyeing and knitting, she explained. Because of that, she often prototypes her projects in simpler materials such as cardboard “before dropping into high-tech tools.” Since college, Ernst has explored various ways to design curriculum for students. She received a small grant in 2017 for her hackathon project to create introductory circuit projects with art and fashion in mind and provide them online for free. She also provided educational kits to five public schools in Chicago from 2022 to 2023. And this past year, she was a maker-in-residence at Chicago Public Library, teaching free classes at the Harold Washington Library branch while growing her online audience. There, she taught people from all walks of life, from young students to parents to retirees. In one case, a Girl Scout leader who attended and learned to program a motor said she would teach the new skills to her troop, Ernst recalled, and offer a new electronics badge that members could earn. During her residency, Ernst created a new design for the library’s display window, a gold and blush Phoenix gown with feathers that rise and fall, activated by passersby who place their hands up to a panel on the window. The garment is a tribute to the Garden of the Phoenix, which was built in Jackson Park for the 1893 Chicago Fair as a symbol of US-Japanese friendship; the park was set on fire in the wake of World War II but was later reconstructed. Though at first, Ernst had hoped to trigger the dress using motion sensors, then through viewers’ phones, she eventually (and quickly) had to rig up a more simple solution using light-sensitive photoresistors that activate when covered. “So much of it is trial and error, and I think my computer engineering background and my software job really builds those skills of persistence, of debugging, of experimentation, and I’m able to bring that over into my experimental fashion, where I’ll often go through 6, 7, or 8 prototypes before I get close to something that works,” she said. She’s learned that showing or explaining the unsuccessful versions of her projects to her followers have sometimes become just as interesting to them. “I was surprised by how many people have commented that they like seeing the failures. They like seeing the prototypes that don’t work,” she said. “It helps them see that it is OK to fail and OK to iterate — nobody inherently knows how to do these things.”

Homes up for sale across the US carried a median $431,250 price tag in April Housing affordability is a major consideration when purchasing a home that often varies based on the market in which homebuyers are looking to purchase. In its "April Housing Trends Report," Realtor.com identified the markets in the U.S. in which buyers need to make the most money to be able to buy a median-priced home. While five of the metro areas in the top 10 could be found in California, locales in several other states also demanded big incomes, according to the real estate marketplace. ISSUES REMAIN Homebuyers in each of the 10 metro areas that ranked among Realtor.com’s areas "with the highest required incomes to afford a home" all needed to take home at least six figures, with the San-Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California market taking the top spot. In April, homes in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara market had median prices of nearly $1.4 million, according to Realtor.com. It pegged the income needed to buy such a home at just over $370,000, more than any other market it looked at. This housing market, which is ranked No. 2, is also located in Northern California. Homebuyers needed to pocket about $263,000 a year to bear the expense of the market’s $995,000 median listing price in April, the report found. Of the metros in the top 10 for highest required income, the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim market saw the biggest jump – 86% – from 2019 to a take-home of nearly $315,900, Realtor.com reported. The median home there cost $1.195 million in April. San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad ranked as the market requiring the third-highest income from homebuyers, with over $258,900 in income needed for the median $979,500, per the report. Compared to a year ago, the median price of a home in the area in April dropped 6.7%. Tacoma is located south of Seattle, while Bellevue sits to the east of the city. To purchase a median-priced $782,225 home in this market, homebuyers had to make nearly $206,800, according to Realtor.com. The Boston-Cambridge-Newton market saw its median listing price rise 0.9% year-over-year to hit $878,000 in April, per the report. Getting a home there takes a roughly $232,100 income. Boston, home to over 673,000 people, posted a 20.1% year-over-year jump in newly-listed homes in April, Realtor.com also found. Affording the median for a home in and around the Big Apple and across the Hudson River in New Jersey necessitated an income of almost $208,700 in April, the report indicated. The market’s required income has jumped 69.4% since April 2019. Denver serves as the capital of the Centennial State. Its housing market, and nearby Aurora and Centennial, had a median asking price of $599,450, meaning homebuyers there would have to make over $158,400 to be financially capable of getting approval to purchase a residence, according to Realtor.com. Realtor.com found the market, which includes the Golden State’s capital, has a median $633,570 price tag and the income required for such properties to be nearly $167,500. Homes typically sat on the market for 38 days there in April. The District of Columbia, Arlington and Alexandria are among some of the cities that fall within the so-called "DMV" (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia) area encompassing the nation’s capital. The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria market, boasting homes listed at a median of nearly $623,000, requires earnings of about $164,680, the report said. Nationwide, homebuyers had to pocket incomes of $114,000 to be able to be financially capable of buying a home, according to Realtor.com. It used a 30-year fixed mortgage, a 20% down payment and maximum spending of 30% of gross monthly income to calculate that figure. Homes up for sale across the U.S. carried a median price tag of $431,250 in April, according to its data. The report said the income needed to buy a median home in the U.S. has jumped 70.1% in the last six years compared to six years.