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. *** Women now outnumber men in the paid workforce. This is raising alarm bells for many as they worry about the decline in good jobs for middle- and working- class men as well as the downstream effects, such as declining marriage rates, and men who have dropped out of the labor market entirely. The good news is there are many possible ways to help male workers. But they aren’t going to fit into a 280-character tweet about the gender wars. The federal government recently released this remarkable statistic: When it comes to non-farm jobs, there are more gals than guys. This has happened before. More women than men were working during the Great Recession in 2009, as well as right before the 2020 pandemic. Overall, however, the changes in male vs. female workforce participation are dramatic. In 1990, there were about 7 million more employed men than women. Today? The gender gap has narrowed to nothing. The Left looks at these stats and interprets them as a story of women’s empowerment and female career success. Many conservatives, by contrast, see potential long-term negative impacts on the social fabric, including fewer marriages and children. Stepping back to look at the full picture of male and female employment, however, provides another option: We don’t need to have another round of the gender wars in 2026. To be clear, male unemployment is a serious issue that should receive sustained attention from politicians interested in the common good. However, prudent policymakers should consider how to help American men find good jobs while resisting calls to place them in a zero-sum competition with women. First, the stats. Women now narrowly outnumber men in non-farm jobs, but this doesn’t tell the whole story, since men on average still significantly out-earn women. Likewise, many more women than men are simply not in the labor force at all, frequently devoting themselves to full-time care of the home, children, or the elderly in unpaid, but still enormously socially valuable, work. Put another way, the number of women in the paid workforce has increased significantly, but men still get paid more and are less likely than women to drop out of the labor force entirely to care for family and community. Focusing on the men and women who work in our formal economy, the trend line is striking. Women are clearly working at much higher rates than they did 40 years ago. Whatever social media personalities might claim, however, it is far from obvious that the presence of women in the workforce is disadvantageous to men. Instead, looking at the broad picture: declining male employment in recent years is largely driven by broad economic forces. American companies just aren’t hiring as much in fields that used to provide stable jobs for working-class men. As Axios reports, hiring “in construction and manufacturing has been relatively flat or negative.” Pushing women out of the workforce isn’t going to increase the number of jobs in sectors dominated by blue-collar men. The most likely solutions instead will come from well-designed industrial policy to boost domestic manufacturing and thoughtful responses to industrial automation. Efforts to boost infrastructure investment and housing reform will also likely help, since both should lead to an uptick in hiring in fields more likely to employ men. Likewise, some analysts believe limiting immigration in sectors that are predominantly held by men could also boost both employment of U.S. citizens and their paychecks. Additionally, men have fallen behind as the economy shifts toward greater reliance on the healthcare sector, which is traditionally disproportionately female. These jobs don’t need to remain overwhelmingly held by women, however. Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, has called for efforts to get men into “HEAL” jobs — health, education, arts, and literacy — in order to meet this challenge. Reeves notes the success of businesses and policymakers in moving more women into the STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. He suggests that the failure to integrate men into nursing, teaching in K-12 schools, and the like, means “missed job opportunities for men as well as a damaging lack of men in some vitally important roles.” As the mother of four kids, three of whom are boys, I can attest to the importance of making sure young men have a wide range of positive male role models in their lives. For many boys, the presence of more men as public school teachers, running after-school education programs … or even as EMT techs or ER nurses … might make a significant difference in the trajectory of their lives, providing needed examples of healthy masculinity that focus on service and stability — rather than video game addiction and pot. Additionally, when my dad went through a period of extensive hospitalization, I remember his male nurses with fondness. Although the women who cared for him were wonderful, he seemed to have a special connection with the men who took competent, careful care of him when he was too ill to care for himself. Encouraging men to join the HEAL professions can fill a needed gap not only in the economy but also in providing a positive, distinctly masculine contribution to an important sector. We sometimes think of jobs in the “care economy” as “pink collar,” but just as a family benefits from the distinct contributions of both dad and mom, the nursing and education professions would benefit from more men. There are two elephants remaining in the room to consider. It is shamefully true that in both the C-suite and certain prestigious fields of work (like fiction writing and screenplay creation), there are still numerous DEI measures and explicit or implicit quotas that have disadvantaged (primarily white) men to the benefit of women. While the average male construction worker is not personally negatively implicated by DEI hiring in elite publishing houses, that doesn’t make those programs right. We must pay more attention to measures that could help working-class men in the trades and manufacturing, but we also ought to work toward ending unjust discrimination against men, including getting rid of the justly unpopular disparate impact test, which pushes large businesses to consider the proportion of men vs. women on their payroll. Likewise, it’s impossible to talk about male employment numbers without also talking about male unemployability. As Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, writes: “One in 4 young men use weed, and a good many are acting out violent scripts they learned from pornography or gambling their weekly earnings on a prop bet.” Many working-class men seem caught in a vicious circle, in which various vices — especially drug use — make it harder for them to find and keep stable, good-paying jobs, resulting in them leaning further on drugs, video games, etc. to get through the days. The declining number of men in the American workforce is indeed a serious problem. But the problem is not women. Instead of trying to return to an idealized vision of the 1950s, addressing male workforce participation will require a complex and sophisticated bucket of fixes that looks at construction and manufacturing, immigration, drug policy, and DEI measures. A push for creating well-designed policy measures to boost male workforce participation is not going to go viral, unlike calls to kick women back into the kitchen. However, they are the changes that will actually help America’s working-class men, who need and deserve a hand up from their elected officials. *** Ivana Greco has several jobs, but her favorite is being a homeschooling mom of four.

A law that became the subject of scrutiny following surveillance on 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page is up for renewal with an April 20 deadline, and the debate is creating unusual battle lines. The debate centers on whether reforms should be made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702, or if there should be a “clean” extension of the law. FISA allows for the federal government to gather foreign intelligence, but some critics have warned that it opens the door for Americans to be spied on in the process. President Donald Trump is asking for a “clean 18-month” extension of the law, saying that it is an “effective tool to keep Americans safe” when “used properly.” He noted that “whether you like FISA or not, it is extremely important to our Military,” noting it could be useful during the ongoing military operation in Iran. “HOWEVER, the Critical and Common Sense Reforms that were made in the last Reauthorization of FISA must remain intact to protect the American People from abuses,” Trump posted to Truth Social on March 25. The president said he “was a victim of the worst and most illegal abuse of FISA in our Nation’s History, by Radical Left Lunatics who lied to the FISA Court to spy on my 2016 Presidential Campaign in their attempt to RIG the Election in favor of Crooked Hillary Clinton.” In 2024 when President Joe Biden was in office, Trump asked Congress to “KILL FISA” in a Truth Social post, saying “IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS.” The FBI ended up issuing an apology in 2020 for how it pursued FISA warrants against Page over alleged Russian connections, as he was never prosecuted. The House has been in recess, but returns to work this week, when Speaker Mike Johnson plans to raise the renewal. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has said that she wants the SAVE America Act, an election security bill, to be tacked onto the FISA vote, which was a point of contention between her and Johnson, according to Axios. Even though the SAVE America Act has passed the House, it has struggled to gain the momentum necessary to pass in the Senate. Meanwhile, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has declared “warrants or bust” in order to get her vote on the legislation, as she wants more barriers in place to review American communications gathered under FISA, according to Politico. Some congressional Democrats have joined in on the calls for reforms, but their concerns relate to weaponization by the Trump administration. “Any attempt to push forward a ‘clean’ reauthorization of Section 702 will put our private, sensitive data at risk,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said in a March 19 statement. “This Trump administration has been particularly brazen in its use of domestic surveillance to suppress our Constitutional rights and dissent,” she added. However, some Democrats, like Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), have faced left-wing backlash for their decision to support a FISA renewal. “It is our most important intelligence collection tool … every day it stops terrorist attacks somewhere in the world,” Himes said, according to Connecticut Public Radio on March 31. Matthew R.A. Heiman, Chairman of the Cyber & Privacy Working Group of the Regulatory Transparency Project, told The Daily Wire that “to the extent that [FISA] picks up Americans communications, it’s incidental.” “Members of both sides, multiple boards and committees, have looked at this tool now for almost 20 years that it has been used, and they consistently find that the tool is really effective in terms of delivering important intelligence, and the misuses of the tool have been largely accidental,” Heiman said. “And so it’s not a tool that’s been heavily abused, or there’s been malicious intent when there’s a mistake made,” he said. “I think the Americans should support renewal of this tool, because it’s really important for all of our safety,” he continued.

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. *** No offense to National Cat Herder Day, Clean Your Desk Day, and Walk Around Things Day, but no unofficial holiday is cheesier than National Grilled Cheese Day on April 12. Make this the year of the epic cheese pull by nailing your ooey-gooiest sandwich yet.   Reigning supreme as one of the most comforting food combos on Earth, grilled cheese has deep roots in Ancient Rome. But the version we know best — also called a croque monsieur, tost, or gallete au fromage in other parts of the world — got its start in the 1920s. Over a hundred years later, we’re still obsessed. There’s a reason grilled cheese was astronaut Suni Williams’ first meal when she returned home after being stuck in space for nine months. Culinary experts claim Gruyère works best for its warm, nutty flavor and meltability. But just about any variety of cheese does the job. “Give me that. There’s like $8 of Jarlsberg in there,” Nate said, devouring Andrea’s grilled cheese in “The Devil Wears Prada.” (Jarlsberg cheese is Norwegian and a little more mild than Switzerland’s Gruyére.) Whatever cheese you choose, let there be grill marks, crunchy crusts, creamy middles, and butter for days. With recipes like these, you’ll be celebrating National Grilled Cheese Day every day of the week.  Borden’s Grilled Cheese Of The Year: “Protein Powerhouse” This is not a drill. After a nationwide vote, Borden Cheese just named its first ever Grilled Cheese of the Year. And it’s got way more protein, and flavor, than your average cheese “swamich.”    View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Borden Cheese (@borden_cheese) Bite into 40-plus grams of protein from cheddar, mozzarella, deli-sliced chicken breast, and Greek yogurt. Garlic, Dijon, and paprika add kick, and you can level up the fiber with seedy bread. Taste what the brand calls “the most indulgent, mouth-watering melt” of your life.  Preacher’s Grilled Cheese from “Virgin River” Fans of the Netflix series “Virgin River” would love any sandwich made by the show’s most accomplished chef, but this is one extra special treat. You can order Preacher’s Grilled Cheese at Netflix House and Netflix Bites, but it’s just as easy to make at home.  A simple tomato soup recipe accompanies the grilled cheese ingredient lineup, featuring sourdough bread, garlic aioli or mayo, and four different cheeses for the full effect. Keep the American slices intact, but shred the fontina, sharp cheddar, and creamy butterkäse cheeses for truly iconic meltiness.  Ina Garten’s Ultimate Grilled Cheese with Bacon I would put all my money on anything in Ina Garten’s East Hamptons kitchen, but her Ultimate Grilled Cheese is particularly mouth-watering. Using her favorite “good” ingredients, she transforms a standard lunch into a show-stopping sensation. Don’t forget the applewood smoked bacon. Thick-sliced sourdough gets buttered on the outside and slathered with a mixture of mayo, Dijon, and parmesan on the inside. Layer in the bacon under a generous pile of shredded Gruyère and cheddar cheese, toast it till golden brown in a panini press, and you’ll never go back to basic grilled cheese again. “The” Classic Grilled Cheese by Tillamook  Well, the 78,000 people who’ve ordered the Tillamook Classic Grilled Cheese can’t be wrong! This fan-favorite recipe comes from the happy cows munching on the grass along the Oregon coast. And may it never disappear from the flagship Tillamook Creamery menu. (Okay, that and the fried cheddar cheese curds.) Tillamook sharp yellow cheddar and medium white cheddars take center stage, melted between two thick slices of sourdough. A seasoned butter-and-mayo spread caramelizes on the outside of the sandwich for what the family-run dairy calls “grilled cheese greatness.” Viral Crème Brûlée Grilled Cheese This wouldn’t be a nationwide party without one grilled cheese recipe that takes it over the top. Go sweet-and-savory with Crème Brûlée Grilled Cheese made popular by Grammy-winning artist and Mr. Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco. Try it before you judge it because it might be the manic flavor combo you didn’t know you needed. @itsbennyblancocrème brûlée grilled cheese♬ Little Things – Adrián Berenguer Blanco mixes Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust with butter and sugar to form the outside coating for the sandwich. He also swears by Kraft singles and Wonder Bread, advising, “Don’t use any other bread. Don’t be stupid.” The result is a cheesy, buttery, dessert-like hug for your mouth. If you like fries dipped in milkshakes or hot honey pizza, this one’s got your name written all over it. Secret ingredient upgrades for grilled cheese: A thin layer of mustard adds a little kick to rich, fatty flavors. A few dabs of Worcestershire sauce between cheese slices levels up umami without soggy bread. In-season fresh figs or fig jam serve elevated charcuterie board energy. A classy schmear of Boursin adds flavor and creaminess to the rest of the cheese filling. (Try an onion and herb or rosemary and black garlic Boursin.) You can even make grilled cheese croutons to upgrade a bowl of your favorite soup. Luckily, you really can’t go wrong melting cheese between two slices of bread. Like “Schitt’s Creek”’s Moira Rose told her son David when he asked how to fold in the cheese, “Here’s what you do … you just fold it in.” Bon appétit.

The CIA and U.S. military may have employed a secret, never-before-used technology to rescue the second American airman stranded behind Iranian enemy lines. On April 3, Iran shot down an F-15E Strike Eagle during Operation Epic Fury, triggering a dramatic search-and-rescue mission to save the two crew members. The pilot was found and rescued in “broad daylight,” but finding the weapons systems officer (WSO) proved far more difficult. For nearly 48 hours, a “seriously wounded” American colonel evaded capture by scaling a ridge and hiding inside a mountain crevice as Iranian forces worked to close in on his position, The Daily Wire previously reported. President Donald Trump later described the mission as an “Easter Miracle,” according to NBC News. Speculation about how the United States ultimately located the airman has drawn attention online. The New York Post reported that the CIA used a classified system known as “Ghost Murmur” to detect the airman’s heartbeat from dozens of miles away. In a recent podcast, Joe Rogan and guest Duncan Trussell discussed the technology. “This is science fiction. This is full minority report, science fiction-level technology. We can find a guy’s heart rate,” Rogan said. “What sick f*ck invented this?” Joe Rogan: “CIA found the pilot who got shot in Iran by using classified tech called Ghost Murmur and AI that detects human heartbeats up to 40 miles away. What sick f*ck invented this. What else don’t they tell us?”pic.twitter.com/A3L9fge3CT — Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) April 9, 2026 “They find this guy’s … heartbeat, he’s hiding in some kind of crevice, and then they’re able to go extract him,” Trussell told Rogan. “Heartbeat says a lot about a person — are they sleeping? Are they like in good shape, bad shape? Bet you can learn so much from a heartbeat.” The classified technology “uses long-range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic signal of a human heartbeat,” according to the Post, “and pairs the data with artificial intelligence software to isolate the signature from background noise.” “It’s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert,” a source told the Post. “In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.” CIA Director Jon Ratcliffe did not confirm specifics, but referenced advanced capabilities during a White House press briefing, calling the tools used in the operation “exquisite” and unlike anything possessed by other intelligence services. He described the rescue as a “race against the clock,” comparing it to “hunting a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.” Ratcliffe also said the CIA carried out a deception campaign to mislead Iranian forces searching for the downed airman, adding that U.S. intelligence indicates Iran was “embarrassed” and “humiliated” by the outcome of the mission. Not everyone is convinced of the government’s account or the powers behind the alleged technology. Scientific American, a popular science magazine, spoke to researchers with expertise in magnetic fields, who describe the story “as almost certainly not true,” claiming the described ability of Ghost Murmur “finds no support in decades of peer-reviewed physics.” Chad Orzel, a professor of physics at Union College, said to detect a heartbeat, a Ghost Murmur device would have to sort through more than the Earth’s natural magnetic field, but with “the heartbeats of the sheep and dogs and jackrabbits—whatever else is running around out there,” according to Scientific American. “Quantum atomic transitions obey classical antenna physics,” Hans G. Schantz, scientist and engineer, posted on X. “Vastly superior performance, such as that attributed to Ghost Murmur, defies the known behavior of quantum systems.” Quantum atomic transitions obey classical antenna physics. Vastly superior performance, such as that attributed to Ghost Murmur, defies the known behavior of quantum systems. https://t.co/1U0Ephx05z https://t.co/IAqdpGaHe3 — Hans G. Schantz (@AetherCzar) April 9, 2026 “Somebody yanking a reporter’s chain,” Orzel told Scientific American. “It could be a ‘snarky, clever way to say, ‘Of course, I’m not going to tell you how we figured this out.” The Daily Wire reached out to alleged Ghost Murmur developer Lockheed Martin, but we have received no reply as of publication. BREAKING

A U.S. appeals court on Friday declared unconstitutional a nearly 158-year-old federal ban on home distilling, calling it an unnecessary and improper means for Congress to exercise its power to tax. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled in favor of the nonprofit Hobby Distillers Association and four of its 1,300 members. They argued that people should be free to distill spirits at home, whether as a hobby or for personal consumption including, in one instance, to create an apple-pie-vodka recipe. The ban was part of a law passed during Reconstruction in July 1868, in part to thwart liquor tax evasion, and subjected violators to up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Writing for a three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Edith Hollan Jones said the ban actually reduced tax revenue by preventing distilling in the first place, unlike laws that regulated the manufacture and labeling of distilled spirits on which the government could collect taxes. She also said that under the government’s logic, Congress could criminalize virtually any in-home activity that might escape notice from tax collectors, including remote work and home-based businesses. “Without any limiting principle, the government’s theory would violate this court’s obligation to read the Constitution carefully to avoid creating a general federal authority akin to the police power,” Jones wrote. The U.S. Department of Justice had no immediate comment. Another defendant, the Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Devin Watkins, a lawyer representing the Hobby Distillers Association, in an interview called the ruling an important decision about the limits of federal power. Andrew Grossman, who argued the nonprofit’s appeal, called the decision “an important victory for individual liberty” that lets the plaintiffs “pursue their passion to distill fine beverages in their homes.” “I look forward to sampling their output,” he said. The decision upheld a July 2024 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas. He put his ruling on hold so the government could appeal. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)