This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** When I was growing up, family dinner was the expectation. We didn’t sit down for breakfast together during the week (I’m pretty sure with having three children, my parents only ate coffee for breakfast), but we all knew we would gather around the table together in the evening. Whether we were eating at our house or at my grandparents’ house, most of the time it was going to be at the dinner table. My grandparents still have the dinner table I was accustomed to eating at. It’s a staple in their home.  Wherever we were, we would all talk, laugh, and joke. It was rare that dinner was a serious affair. We had stories to share. The kids weren’t there to be seen and not heard; we were part of the whole shebang. I felt included and comfortable. Family dinners are a bright spot in my memory when I think about childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood. I’m happy to say that as a mom, I’ve continued with this tradition.  Roughly half of the population regularly eat dinner as a family. According to research from 2019, 29% of American families sit down and eat dinner together every day — almost a third of families! Another 23% reported eating dinner together four to six times a week. Sixty-two percent of parents with kids under 18 indicated they would like to have family dinners more often. We want to be connected with our family. But why? What is so important about family meals?  Let’s start with the stories. Researcher Robyn Fivush says it beautifully: Stories sustain us. She has conducted research examining how the act of storytelling affects families. She has found children who have strong intergenerational sharing of stories happening in their family show higher levels of self-esteem, social competence, autonomy, sense of meaning, and fewer behavioral problems, which include depression, aggression, and anger. She identifies the act of storytelling as the catalyst; it is more than knowing the facts of what has happened to generations of your family. It is the bond of sharing the story that leads to these positive outcomes. It’s sharing the experiences. She goes on to explain that families who shared stories in a coherent and emotionally open way with their adolescents found that those kids coped better with life events. Family meals also act as a protective net around our children. A meta-analysis (really big review of a lot of research studies) found that family meals are especially beneficial for children and adolescents. The data showed sitting down to eat with family led to increased levels of self-esteem and performance in school. The meals together were also linked to fewer mental health issues (disordered eating, symptoms of depression, substance abuse, and violent behavior).  When kids eat dinner as a family, they are more likely to develop healthy eating habits: ingesting more fruits and vegetables, engaging in social eating, finding it important to sit down and eat rather than eating on the run, and eating less fried food and drinking less soda. Please don’t feed your kids a kiddie alternative. When kids eat what their parents eat, they are more likely to have healthy diets overall.  Want even more reasons to eat as a family? Doing so apparently increases literacy! By talking to our children at the dinner table, we expose them to more words that are considered “rare.” When we include children in the conversation, sometimes we have to explain things, and that’s how they learn. Family dinner is also a time for longer conversations. These involve more back-and-forth between family members and are excellent for learning.  Family dinner is not only beneficial for children; there are benefits for adults too. Family meals lead to increased intake of healthy foods, decreased consumption of fast food, and decreased negative eating behaviors. Data show eating with your family is related to better mental health in parents. Having a lot of conversation or storytelling during dinner means we have to eat more slowly, and this gives our brain a chance to register how full we feel, meaning its easier not to overeat.  Now for the harsh part: The data show that eating in front of the TV removes that protective net from eating together. The healthy food goes out the window. The emotional atmosphere of dinner takes a hit too. Researchers observed people’s family meals and found that when eating in front of the TV, people’s level of enjoyment was significantly decreased. If your family doesn’t have a dinner table and only eats together on the couch, that’s fine; simply leave the TV off while you eat so your family is able to engage with each other.  Family dinners are great, but the atmosphere around the meal matters. If everyone is stressed and yelling at each other, that’s not going to lead to positive outcomes. It’s up to the adults at the table to cultivate a warm and engaging environment so the family can feel connected to each other. From my experience as a mother and a therapist, I can report that eating together leads to a feeling of connection, especially when storytelling is tied in. Ideally, our family is the place where we feel comfortable and secure. Dinner time becomes a time for sharing emotional experiences and receiving empathy, problem-solving, or feedback from the people who love you. I personally am hoping it is a time for creating positive memories. Our brains learn from our experiences, so if we continually experience a positive environment with our family, then we are able to link those positive emotions with the family unit.  My own basic rules are: put away phones and tablets, turn off the TV, sit down together, try the food on your plate, and participate in conversation. And everyone helps with clean-up.  Set a goal for eating together three to four times a week because research shows positive outcomes from this baseline. Happy dinners, y’all! *** Gabrielle Frook is a licensed clinical professional counselor who has worked with children, adolescents, and adults, delivering evidence-based treatment for PTSD, depression, and anxiety. She writes her own Substack and has been published in Medium publications.

A year ago, MAGA champion and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) fired a shot across the bow, calling on all major league sports commissioners to be honest about how the changing sports-viewing landscape affects fans. He made clear that Congress was watching as America’s sports leagues quietly moved more games behind expensive streaming paywalls, pricing out the working fans who fill the stands, pack the bars, and enthusiastically tune in to support their teams. It was a warning. The leagues mostly shrugged. They should have listened. On Tuesday, June 9, the Committee’s GOP majority released a new report debunking the leagues’ talking points defending the move to streaming. According to the hard-hitting review, “the NFL’s claim of a fan-friendly distribution model defies the reality experienced by millions of NFL fans.” The report continues, “the NFL’s current model of placing games behind a paywall, especially through its Sunday Ticket offering, is harming consumers. . .” The concerns of consumers will be front and center on Wednesday when the antitrust subcommittee hears testimony on whether the Sports Broadcasting Act’s antitrust exemption is being twisted to harm consumers and benefit leagues’ bottom lines. This is a smart and timely move by Chairman Jordan and subcommittee chairman Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI). Since his letter last year, other Republican leaders have followed, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has opened a review, and the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into potential anticompetitive practices by the NFL. Most importantly, President Donald Trump himself said in a recent interview: “You have people that live for Sunday. They can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden they’re gonna have to pay $1,000 a game. It’s crazy, so I’m not happy about it.” Where the administration and allies in Congress stand is clear: Putting fans first is America first. “$4,785. That’s How Much It Costs to Be a Sports Fan Now,” according to sports journalist Joon Lee. To watch every NFL game last season, die-hard fans needed subscriptions to nine different channels and streaming platforms, totaling more than $750. A recent Fox News national survey confirmed that nearly 6 in 10 sports fans say they’ve skipped watching a game because it was too expensive, with one-third saying this has happened “many times.” And it’s not just happening in living rooms. Restaurants and bars, where watching the game is a community ritual, are equally frustrated—in fact, a restaurant owner will be one of the witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing. The leagues and Silicon Valley streamers are driving a wedge between fans and the teams they love. And as always, it hits hardest on families who can’t afford a different subscription for every sport, every platform, every week. The leagues’ antitrust exemption was a product of its time, and even then, it wasn’t supposed to be a blank check. Courts have been explicit: that exemption covers free, sponsored telecasting, not pay TV, not satellite, not streaming. The leagues have been exploiting a regulatory no-man’s-land, benefiting from an antitrust shield while shifting games to platforms that sit outside it. Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner who presides over the most lucrative sports league in the world, was invited to testify but decided to skip the hearing. The image of an empty chair with a nameplate reading “Roger Goodell” may not materialize on C-Span, but his decision to decline the Chairman’s request speaks volumes. That’s been the NFL’s playbook. When the FCC opened its review, the NFL didn’t engage until the last minute, while the other major leagues didn’t participate at all. The strategy is transparent: run out the clock, hope the political heat fades, and keep the money flowing. But fan frustration isn’t dissipating. Every Sunday when a family can’t find the game, every bar owner who loses customers because the right subscription costs too much, every working-class fan priced out of a sport their family has followed for generations, that frustration will land somewhere. It will manifest in town halls, polling data, and ultimately in hearings like this one. The leagues’ bet is that Washington’s attention span is shorter than their lawyers’ patience. That’s a bad bet, especially as the NFL makes things worse by moving next season’s holiday games online. Sports is a national love affair, not merely another consumer product. The leagues thrive because of their social contract with the American people. Fans give them their loyalty, their money, and their Sundays. The leagues return that love with exciting action available to everybody. That’s the premise behind the telecast exemption. Now the leagues are abandoning that deal in slow motion, and Congress is right to throw the flag. And fans, who have been patient long enough, are right to demand that policymakers protect their interests. *** Daniel Suhr is the president of the Center for American Rights, a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to protecting Americans’ most fundamental, constitutional rights.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you. *** YouTuber Jesse Ridgeway, who goes by McJuggerNuggets to his over 4 million subscribers, has sparked heated debates over the last week after announcing that he and his wife had chosen to get an abortion. They couple recorded themselves explaining that decision after discovering the unborn child had a high likelihood of being born with Down syndrome. The pro-life crowd rightfully called out this evil for what it is: eugenics. Even some leftists seemed to grapple with the larger ramifications, with several X commenters expressing their cognitive dissonance that abortion on demand for any reason is good, but also people with disabilities should be protected. Ridgeway said when he first found out the baby may have Down syndrome, he was “optimistic” and would try to “make it work” if the child was just “a little slow intellectually.” But he decided against it. “I just didn’t fully understand what Down syndrome entailed,” he explained. “I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family … more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.” The one thing no one seems to be talking about is how Ridgeway opened up a conversation that should be seen as a gift to the pro-life argument. That is, he exposed the reality of why abortions are happening, and it’s not the extreme situations that so often dominate headlines. Pro-abortion advocates would love for the general public to picture abortions happening only when the baby was going to die anyway, or when the woman was raped, or very, very early in a pregnancy when the fetus was supposedly nothing more than a meaningless clump of cells. For years, pro-lifers have pushed back on that narrative with facts and reason. But it took a random YouTuber to show the reality of who is getting abortions and why. Per the National Library of Medicine, the most common reasons women seek abortion include “financial reasons (40%), timing (36%), partner related reasons (31%), and the need to focus on other children (29%). Most women reported multiple reasons for seeking an abortion crossing over several themes (64%).” Studies show that at least 67% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted. In Iceland, there are almost no cases of Down syndrome because those who have it are killed before they have the chance to be born. Between 350,000 and 400,000 Americans have Down syndrome, meaning they were born with an extra chromosome. When polled, these individuals consistently say they are satisfied with their life and were happy they were born, as The Daily Wire previously reported.  The Ridgeways going viral for the killing of their unborn child has prompted parents, siblings, and friends of people living with Down syndrome to post stories of why their lives are amazing. They speak of challenges, yes, but also of a surprising joy that can only come from accepting reality. People of faith would call this following God’s plan. However, even non-religious people can understand the futility in trying to control the world and the peace that comes from embracing life as it comes.  It also points to a larger question: Who is qualified to determine what makes a life worth living?  Stories such as the Ridgeways’ are gleefully held up by the pro-abortion crowd as proof of why abortion should exist. But this viral Down syndrome story is a bridge too far for many people who recognize that Trisomy 21 isn’t life-limiting enough to warrant a death sentence. They are pointing out how people with Down syndrome are often the happiest individuals they know. Why do they deserve to die for being “differently abled,” as progressives would say? I used to have a distant acquaintance who was an ob-gyn who performed abortions. We would get into surface-level debates all the time about abortion. I will never forget the one time she conceded to me on one point: sex-selective abortions. She recalled a time her patient, who only wanted two children, came into her office to schedule a second-term abortion after finding out she was pregnant with a second girl. “All I could think about was this woman’s adorable toddler, with blonde curls and big eyes, and think she was making a huge mistake terminating a healthy pregnancy,” she told me. Even someone participating in such an evil act had a moral standard. Most Americans who believe abortion should be legal also have lines they won’t cross, which are commonly determined by gestational age. But the thing about lines is that they are incredibly arbitrary. If we tell mothers only to abort for life-limiting medical reasons, then who gets to decide what counts as life-limiting?  Ridgeway has made it clear that the real justifications people give for abortion — Down syndrome, my boyfriend broke up with me, I wanted a boy instead, I’m just really tired — are flimsy excuses when it comes down to it. Abortion is never the right choice. Now that the reasons it keeps happening are out in the open, we can start having honest conversations about it.

Maine Democrats elected Graham Platner as their Senate nominee on Tuesday, despite a wave of explosive revelations about his Nazi tattoo and alleged aggressive behavior towards women.  With 20% of the vote reported, Platner leads the field with about 74% of the vote. Decision Desk HQ called the race at 9:07 p.m. ET. He will face off against incumbent Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in November.  It’s not yet clear what Platner’s final margin will be after all votes have been tallied, which could offer early clues on his electability this fall. “If Janet Mills’ basically defunct campaign gets 20 to 30%, Graham is in trouble come November,” NOTUS White House Correspondent Jasmine Wright warned earlier on CNN.  Platner’s decisive victory, however, deals a major blow to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who recruited and backed Maine Democratic Governor Janet Mills.  During the bitter primary, a series of damaging revelations dropped against the Senate hopeful, painting a picture of a troubled veteran with a history of infidelity and disturbing social media activity.  The Daily Wire previously uncovered that the Senate hopeful maintained an active account on a social media platform known to attract child predators. Several media outlets reported that Platner, a married man, had exchanged sexually explicit messages with several women.  In May, Platner refused to apologize after resurfaced online posts appeared to show him mocking a Purple Heart recipient who was almost killed in a firefight with the Taliban. Platner was confronted near his home in Sullivan, Maine, and asked whether he regretted a since-deleted Reddit post in which he said wounded Army veteran Ted Daniels “didn’t deserve to live,” The Daily Wire previously reported. In response, Platner attempted to defend his own military record, referring to the accusations as “slanderous and offensive.” “I did four tours in the infantry; any attempt to say that I disrespect veterans is slanderous and offensive,” he said. Resurfaced Reddit posts also showed the Senate hopeful describing himself as a “communist” and denigrating cops and white people. “I got older and became a communist,” Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer, wrote on a Reddit forum dubbed “antiwork” in 2021, according to CNN. He also said he was a “vegetable growing, psychedelics taking social these days” in a United States Marine Corps subreddit that same year, saying that he “still got the guns though, I don’t trust the facsists [sic] these days,” citing his past military experience in the post. “Living in white rural America, I’m afraid to tell you they actually are,” the Democrat said about white Americans. “Bastards. Cops are bastards. All of them, in fact,” Platner said in another post. In addition, the Washington Post reported multiple posts he made to Reddit in 2013 regarding sexual assault, including in the military. “Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear, you’d think you might not get blacked out f***ed up around people you aren’t comfortable with,” he wrote. “In today’s current climate, when every whisper of a misplaced hand brings down a feature-length film, anyone who actually thinks the military is purposefully covering up rape to save the career of some god damn [captain], is clearly both an idiot and junior enough in rank or life experience to think it matters,” Platner wrote. He also called black people cheap. “I work as a bartender, and it always amazes me how solid this stereotype is,” Platner wrote. “Every now and again a black patron will leave a 15-20% tip, but usually it [is] between 0-5%. There’s got to be a reason behind it. What is it?” Last Thursday, the latest shoe dropped, with The New York Times citing ex-girlfriends who claimed Platner engaged in a pattern of “intimidating and disturbing” behavior in their relationships and lied about not knowing the meaning of his Nazi tattoo.  Three of Platner’s ex-girlfriends described volatile and “toxic” relationships with the Senate hopeful, claiming he demeaned women, became physically threatening, and was repeatedly unfaithful. On one occasion, an ex-girlfriend accused Platner of twisting her arm, shoving her into a bedroom, and holding the door shut until she became “calm.”  The Platner campaign denied allegations of misconduct and rushed to MS NOW to do damage control.  “There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about, are simply not true,” Platner said on the television network. “Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated.” On election eve, Platner’s former political director blew the whistle on her former boss, alleging the Senate hopeful knew the meaning behind his Nazi tattoo and “exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior.” In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former Maine state representative Genevieve McDonald wrote that her enthusiasm for the Platner campaign collapsed after she learned of his misconduct. “I quit the campaign in October, disturbed by what I learned about the candidate and concerned about his potential impact on the Democratic Party’s prospects in my home state,” she wrote. In September, Platner told McDonald he had a “problematic” tattoo that could raise questions, but chalked it up to it being a “military thing.” “I believed him,” she wrote in the WAPO. “Then, I began receiving calls from Washington warning me he was not who he seemed: “Have you read his oppo file?” I had not. I trusted that his out-of-state consulting team had thoroughly vetted him. Her account appears to corroborate reporting from The New York Times. The accusations cut against Platner’s previous claim that he did not understand the significance of the symbol, which was used by Nazi Germany’s SS. Most Democrats have bent over backward to excuse or downplay Platner’s conduct, though that did not stop Mills from mounting a last-ditch effort. Hayes: Did that happen? Platner: No, it did not. There are some allegations in this piece that I just want to be kind of unequivocal about are simply not true. Anything alleging, physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was. These are the statements of someone… pic.twitter.com/bghFgN5z75 — Acyn (@Acyn) June 5, 2026 “People have the impression that I withdrew or dropped out, but I simply suspended active campaigning. I am still on the ballot,” she told a local outlet. That effort did not appear to pay off, with results showing a blowout victory for Platner. The Cook Political Report ranks the contentious Senate race as a toss-up. The Democratic establishment viewed Mills as the strongest candidate to defeat Collins. Meanwhile, Platner gained momentum with a leftist-populist message and secured high-profile endorsements from Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The Daily Wire previously reported that leftists turned to the embattled Platner after their initial choice was found to have a major “skeleton” in his closet. Last July, two Bernie Sanders-aligned political operatives hunted for a Democrat to challenge Collins, ultimately landing on and recruiting Platner.   Platner, who brands himself as a blue-collar oyster farmer, launched his campaign on August 19 in a viral video that quickly attracted national attention from leftist activists and Democratic donors.  My name is Graham Platner and I’m running for US Senate to defeat Susan Collins and topple the oligarchy that’s destroying our country. I’m a veteran, oysterman, and working class Mainer who’s seen this state become unlivable for working people. And that makes me deeply angry. pic.twitter.com/QZfAm528N1 — Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) August 19, 2025 Trying to stop his momentum, Mills went on the attack against Platner in commercials, highlighting his scandals and running with the tagline, “Graham Platner: The closer you look, the worse it gets.” One advertisement in particular featured older women expressing disgust.  #MEPol: “Graham Platner, the closer you look, the worse it gets.” Janet Mills is up with a new #MEGov ad attacking Platner. This is the first broadcast TV attack ad in the Democratic primary. pic.twitter.com/885wLOxGmn — AdImpact Politics (@AdImpact_Pol) March 17, 2026 Ultimately, her strategy failed to gain traction with an increasingly restless base eager to buck their party’s establishment. On April 30, Mills suspended her campaign.  “While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else – the fight– to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said in a statement.  

WASHINGTON— The United States denied entry to a Somali World Cup referee because he associated with “suspected members of terror organizations,” The Daily Wire can first report. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said on Monday that Omar Artan had been denied entry after he arrived at Miami International Airport from Istanbul on Saturday.  Artan was set to officiate matches for the FIFA World Cup 2026. A senior administration official told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening that he was seeking admission to the United States, but, upon further inspection, Customs and Border Patrol discovered  “derogatory information,” including his “association with suspected members of terror organizations.” That information made him ineligible for admission to the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). “The traveler was refused admission and given immigration forms that provide the section of law used to complete an expedited removal under 8235 of the INA,” the senior administration official told The Daily Wire. “President Trump’s administration will not allow any security threat to enter our country – full stop.” Referee Omar Artan holds the match ball during the FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025 third place match between Colombia and France at Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos on October 18, 2025 in Santiago, Chile. (Photo by Buda Mendes – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images) On Monday, FIFA released a statement on Artan’s behalf and confirmed that Artan would not be able to train or officiate at the World Cup. “Despite the circumstances, I am in a positive mood and I am focused on the next challenges in my refereeing career,” the Somali referee said in the statement. “I would like to thank FIFA and (the African federation) for all their support and I promise to keep my refereeing levels up as I concentrate on the future. I want to thank the football family for their messages and wish my colleagues all the best success during the World Cup and I look forward to joining them again in future competitions.” CBP explained earlier on Monday that Artan was “determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns and was denied entry” during routine processing, to which all those entering the United States, including coaches, staff, and athletes, are subject. “Admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis using law enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection,” CBP noted. “CBP officers have the authority to question travelers, conduct inspections, and determine admissibility consistent with U.S. law.”