A U.S. fighter jet was shot down while flying over Iran on Friday, and the U.S. military has launched a major search and rescue operation. U.S. officials confirmed that an aircraft was shot down over Iran and that a search and rescue operation had begun, according to multiple reports. The confirmation came after Iranian state media said early Friday morning that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a U.S. F-15 fighter jet over the Southern Tehran Province. The regime-controlled media also published photos online appearing to show parts of a jet. Israeli journalist Amit Segal reported that the United States has activated “large forces” as part of a search and rescue operation. The Daily Wire reached out to the War Department and Central Command, seeking comment on the reports of the downed U.S. fighter jet. An Iranian state broadcaster told residents of the province to capture the “enemy’s pilot or pilots” and hand them over to Iranian forces for a reward, The New York Times reported. CENTCOM has recently refuted multiple claims that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down U.S. aircraft. On Thursday, CENTCOM said the Iranian forces have made false claims about shooting down U.S. aircraft “at least half a dozen times.” As of Friday morning, however, CENTCOM has not addressed the latest reports of an F-15 fighter jet being shot down over the Southern Tehran Province. If the reports are confirmed, it would mark the first time a U.S. fighter jet was shot down by Iran since President Donald Trump launched “Operation Epic Fury.” This is a breaking story and will be updated. 

Employers in the United States added 178,000 jobs in March, more than tripling expectations of  59,000, while the unemployment rate dropped to 4.3%.         The labor market rebounded after a lackluster February report, which showed payrolls declined by 133,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rose slightly. Job gains in March were led by healthcare, construction, transportation, and warehouse. Healthcare added 76,000 jobs. About half of those gains reflect the return of workers who had been on strike.  Construction added 26,000 jobs, while transportation and warehousing grew by 21,000, signaling continued strength in infrastructure and logistics-related sectors. Leisure and hospitality rebounded partly due to warmer weather last month, adding 44,000 jobs. Manufacturing added 15,000, but finance lost that same amount. Federal government employment continued to decline, falling by 18,000 jobs in March and down 355,000 from its peak in October 2024 during the Biden administration. Wages also continued to rise. Average hourly earnings increased by 0.2% in March to $37.38, following gains in February. Markets are closed today for Good Friday, but the stronger-than-expected jobs report may influence investor expectations when trading resumes. A resilient labor market could also reduce pressure on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, as the central bank has pointed to persistently elevated inflation as a reason to hold off on easing policy.

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. *** Netflix’s “Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere” wants viewers to fear the men it puts on screen. What it never seriously asks is why millions of young men are looking there for guidance in the first place. The easiest thing about the documentary is to focus on the symptoms: hyper-masculine influencers, status obsession, aggression, and young men chasing money, control, and dominance. Some of it is ugly, and some of it should alarm us. But the documentary mistakes the supply for the demand. This culture did not emerge out of nowhere. It filled a vacuum that mainstream institutions still refuse to name. Spend five minutes online, and the shift is obvious. Podcasts about discipline and self-mastery command enormous audiences, and gym routines now double as moral philosophy. Young men trade advice on confidence, money, dating, ambition, and purpose with an urgency that feels almost existential. Much of it is crude. Some of it is wrong and openly corrosive. Yet millions keep watching for a reason elite culture still resists admitting: For years, young men have been told what not to be, while almost no one has been willing to say what they should become. That vacuum became a market. We have taught an entire generation of young men how to analyze their emotions, but not what to do with their lives. As a psychotherapist, I see a version of this often. A young man recently spent nearly an entire session describing, with impressive self-awareness, why he felt stuck: fear of failure, fear of judgment, and fear of choosing the wrong path. He could name every feeling in detail. What he couldn’t name was what he actually wanted. The problem was not a lack of insight. It was the absence of aim. In my forthcoming book, “Therapy Nation,” I argue that our culture has become increasingly fluent in the language of validation and self-analysis while growing less comfortable with challenge, standards, and the harder work of building resilience. Nowhere is that imbalance more visible than in the lives of young men who have been encouraged to interpret themselves endlessly but rarely challenged to build a life. Andrew Tate and an entire ecosystem of male self-mastery influencers thrive because they offer what mainstream culture increasingly withholds: direction, standards, and permission to pursue ambition without apology. None of this excuses the ugliness of what many of these figures sell. It simply explains why the market for it became so large. The mainstream response has been to condemn the message while refusing to confront the conditions that made it so attractive. Young men today are caught in a double bind. Show ambition and risk being labeled toxic. Hold back and risk becoming invisible. Assertiveness is suspect, but passivity is miserable. The result is paralysis followed by backlash. What is often dismissed as “bro culture” did not create this confusion. It recognized it early and built an industry around it. What makes this moment more dangerous is the collapse of credible alternatives. Institutions that once offered direction, from schools to workplaces to families, now speak in softer, more hesitant language. Expectations are blurred, standards are hedged, and authority is treated as something to apologize for rather than exercise. In that environment, many young men are left with a surprisingly vague idea of adulthood. They are taught to be emotionally aware and careful with language, which matters. What they are less often given is a clear sense of what adulthood actually asks of them: responsibility, competence, discipline, and something worth aiming at. The result is a generation that often knows how to monitor itself better than how to direct itself. Self-awareness becomes an end in itself rather than a tool in service of ambition and growth. That leaves a dangerous opening for anyone willing to offer a more forceful script. Even a flawed script can feel liberating when it is one of the only things still speaking in the language of standards, goals, earned competence, and direction. When institutions stop offering a believable model of mature masculinity, the loudest online figures step in and supply one. A second cultural shift has made the problem worse. The language of therapy has escaped the consulting room and seeped into schools, workplaces, and culture itself. Ordinary struggle is now recast as harm, discomfort as danger, and stress as injury. The result is a generation less practiced at enduring difficulty and more dependent on emotional permission before action. We have become fluent in emotional vocabulary while growing less comfortable with standards, authority, and the basic truth that difficulty is often the price of growth. That gap is where the manosphere thrives. It offers something closer to permission: the freedom to pursue goals without endless self-qualification, to value discipline without shame, and to move forward without first turning every impulse into a diagnosis. Young men are asking a basic question: What should I aim for? If mainstream culture refuses to answer it, the loudest and most extreme voices online will. *** Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and author of the forthcoming book “Therapy Nation.” Find him on X @JonathanAlpert.

A California group positioned to shape the future of Artificial Intelligence regulation for children believes drag queens are positive role models for 4-year-olds. Common Sense Media, a California nonprofit with a stated mission to protect kids online, gave a children’s show featuring two male drag queens a perfect child safety score and recommended it for kids ages 4 and up. “The Fabulous Show With Fay & Fluffy” received a 5/5 star rating and was praised for offering positive role models, having educational value, and showcasing diversity. Bluey, the popular family-friendly cartoon, was outshined by the drag queens and only received a 4/5 star rating. Common Sense Media provides safety reviews of movies, books, and video games through a vast database that includes many positive reviews for LGBTQ+ content aimed at young children. The nonprofit has an entire webpage devoted to “LGBTQ+ Stories for the Whole Family.” “From affirming, relatable stories about queer kids and teens, to history-making moments and figures on screen, LGBTQ+ representation in media is increasing. Now, kids have more choices that reflect their world and lived experiences, whether they’re queer, straight, trans, cisgender, or figuring it all out,” states its website. Recent reports say it’s attempting to extract millions of dollars from AI companies to help them self-regulate in the litigious environment. It’s simultaneously supporting legislation in California that would require AI chatbot products to submit to regulation from groups like Common Sense Media. The nonprofit, which claims it’s “holding tech companies accountable,” is asking for millions of dollars to launch a new institute focused on providing safety assessments for AI products, according to reporting from Politico. Common Sense Media offered the tech companies the opportunity to provide input on the safety assessments if they provided a donation, Politico reported. Its current ratings, however, indicate it’s in no position to assess what is appropriate for children. The group recommends transgender content for 4-year-olds, including “I Am Jazz,” which it calls a “Sweet, straightforward story about a transgender girl.” It also recommends “Jacob’s New Dress,” a story about a young boy who likes to crossdress and was written by parents of a “gender-nonconforming child,” and “Sparkle Boy,” the story of a 3-year-old boy who “loves all the glittery stuff his older sister loves” and “causes a stir” when he crossdresses. Common Sense Media also recommends “Marley’s Pride,” the “joyful” story of “Marley and their grandparent” who identify as nonbinary and attend their first pride celebration together. “RuPaul’s Drag Show” is recommended for teenagers 15 and older and called a program that promotes “self-love and compassion for heavily marginalized communities.” The review tells parents to expect “lots of sexual innuendo, including references to various sex acts and partial nudity, mostly bare torsos” and warns it includes strong language and sexual terms such as “f–k,” “s–t,” “doggy style,” but notes these words are mostly used “for tongue-in-cheek humor and camp.” The nonprofit also has an education wing and has partnered with schools to provide training about media and online safety to more than 1.4 million educators, according to its website. Common Sense Media has also worked with the California Department of Education and the Connecticut State Department of Education, who announced in February 2025 that they were implementing the nonprofit’s K–12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum statewide. Common Sense Media provides ways teachers can create LGBTQ+ inclusive classrooms, telling them, “Your courage is critical. Know that you may be the only adult in a kid’s life who shows acceptance — their only oasis,” according to its website. Teachers are recommended to funnel gender confused students to transgender activist groups like the Trevor Project and PFLAG. Common Sense Media now has its eyes on shaping the safety standards of artificial intelligence products for kids. Common Sense Media is supporting two California bills aiming to regulate AI chatbot products for minors. “Because of the potential risks of AI to children and teens, California must take the lead in establishing a process for vetting the impact of AI products and services on kids,” states a Common Sense Media document. California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan introduced AB 2023 in February 2026 saying the bill will establish “nation-leading safety standards for AI companions used by children and teens,” in a press release. Chatbot operators will be required to undergo an annual safety assessment of any “child safety risks” posed by the AI chatbot if the bill becomes law. “This bill would require an operator of a companion chatbot to…annually perform and document a comprehensive risk assessment to identify any child safety risk posed by the design, configuration, and operation of the companion chatbot that assesses, among other things, the likelihood of a covered harm,” states the bill. One of the “covered harms” included in the bill is “gender identity” discrimination. California considers declining to use a person’s preferred pronouns or not allowing a man to use the women’s bathroom forms of “gender identity” discrimination. Under AB 2023 if an AI chatbot product is found to be unsafe by the safety assessment, the operator must make changes to the product and then undergo an independent compliance audit that, upon completion, will be submitted to the California Attorney General. Common Sense Media is positioning itself to be the go-to for AI chatbot safety assessments and stands to play a powerful role in shaping how information is defined and disseminated, if California’s chatbot bills pass. “Three of the people familiar said Common Sense will be positioned to become a default safety auditor in California for AI products aimed at kids,” Politico reported. Public figures known for their transgender activism spoke at the March 2026 Common Sense Summit on Kids And Families including Randi Weingarten, President of The American Federation of Teachers, JB Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, and Rob Bonta, Attorney General at the California Department of Justice. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan also spoke at the summit. Common Sense Media did not respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.

The Artemis II mission is officially headed to the Moon after NASA gave the go-ahead for its Orion spacecraft to leave Earth’s orbit for the next stage of its historic space mission.  Orion fired its main engine at 7:49 p.m. EST on Thursday, sending the four astronauts aboard out of Earth’s orbit and onto a trajectory toward the Moon. The crew is set to travel around the Moon and could venture farther than any humans have since the Apollo 13 mission in 1970.  “Nominal translunar injection burn complete. The Artemis II crew is officially on the way to the Moon,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “America is back in the business of sending astronauts to the Moon. This time, farther than ever before.” After Orion departed Earth’s orbit, NASA held a press conference for the four astronauts aboard the spacecraft. Commander Reid Wiseman, who is leading the mission, began by giving a shout-out to the astronauts’ families.  “There was a moment about an hour ago where Mission Control Houston reoriented our spacecraft as the sun was setting behind the Earth,” he said. “And I don’t know what we all expected to see in that moment, but you could see the entire globe from pole to pole. You could see Africa, Europe, and if you looked really close, you could see the Northern Lights. 
It was the most spectacular moment, and it paused all four of us in our tracks.” Wiseman said the astronauts had a busy first few days and that the magnitude of the mission was only starting to set in.  “We had been to the moon before in 1969, 1968 through 1972. It’s been a long time since we’ve been back. And I got to tell you, there is nothing normal about this. 
Sending four humans 250,000 miles away is a herculean effort, and we are now just realizing the gravity of that,” he said.  The other astronauts on the mission are pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.  Koch said she hoped any milestone reached by the Artemis II crew would be surpassed by future missions.  “We think that the journey that we’ve been on, and all of our teams have been on with us, is so much more than just one number, but we also hope that that number just keeps being exceeded and exceeded by the future crews,” she said.  NASA has said that the mission has gone smoothly so far, apart from a brief loss of two-way communications between ground control and the crew due to an issue on the ground. Crew members are currently preparing a “lunar targeting plan,” which will guide their observations of the Moon’s surface during a six-hour window on Monday.