Unions love nothing more than blaming problems on non-union operations. So it was no surprise last weekend when the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, best known as IATSE, blamed the lack of union representation on the set of The Daily Wire’s new action film when movie star Jonathan Majors fell through a prop window and “nearly died.” Well, not exactly. Majors only fell a few feet. He’s totally fine. In the video of the “accident” posted by Deadline you can hear Majors immediately asking, “Did we shoot it? Use it!” READ MORE: Daily Wire 1, Hollywood Union 0: Production Wraps On Jonathan Majors Action Movie Still, IATSE, the self-proclaimed “union behind entertainment,” wants people to believe that if they were there, nobody could have possibly gotten hurt. Except, here’s the thing: IATSE is full of it. It’s all a game to twist producer Dallas Sonnier’s arm into entering a collective bargaining agreement with the union. And it’s a game the union lost, because Sonnier “doesn’t negotiate with communists.” But let’s go back to the issue of the unions and safety. Forget for a moment that a Screen Actors Guild representative was present on set the entire time and had no safety concerns. Forget, again, that Majors only took a small tumble and was totally fine. Let’s pretend Sonnier had caved to the union’s demands and given them everything they wanted. That would have prevented even this minor injury, right? Well, sure. Nobody ever gets hurt on union-run Hollywood sets — at least if you don’t count the “Mission: Impossible” where Tom Cruise broke his ankle jumping off a building.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Mission: Impossible (@missionimpossible) Yes, IATSE was on set for that. It’s on set for every Hollywood movie. It’s unclear whether anyone walked off after that accident, which was so bad that they even included it in the film’s promo. Shout out to Cruise, who had the same reaction as Majors and immediately told the director to use the footage. He kept going after he knew he snapped his ankle, because he knew it was the perfect shot.  IATSE was also probably on the set of “Django Unchained” when Leonardo DiCaprio slammed a table so hard that he smashed a prop glass and bled all over his co-star, Kerry Washington. It’s unlikely that anyone walked off that set. In fact, it’s said the crew broke out into applause after director Quentin Tarantino called “cut.” And Tarantino put DiCaprio and his blood-soaked hand into the final cut of the movie.     View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The Film Enthusiast (@thefilmthusiasts) On the set of “Cast Away,” Tom Hanks ignored a small cut on his leg and developed an infection that nearly killed him. He was rushed to the hospital, and production was shut down for weeks as Hanks recovered. Again, it’s unclear whether any crew left the set in Fiji in protest. George Clooney was so badly injured performing a stunt on the set of 2005’s “Syriana” that he considered suicide. It was during a torture scene, and Clooney flipped the chair he was tied to and cracked open his skull. He leaked spinal fluid out of his brain. He won the Oscar for best actor, back when an Oscar really meant something. There were no reports of a union worker mutiny for an unsafe set. Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic via Getty Images Sylvester Stallone got slammed so hard by wrestling legend Stone Cold Steve Austin in “The Expendables” — an awesome movie which he directed himself — that he broke his neck and dislocated both of his shoulders. He needed seven surgeries and ended up having a metal plate inserted into his neck. Jackie Chan gets injured in almost every movie he does: cracked skull from a jump off a tree, legs crushed between two cars, and even one time where he almost lost an eye to a roundhouse kick.  We can imagine that an IATSE production assistant advised Jackie Chan to take a few plays off, but I assure you that didn’t happen. As Sonnier told Deadline, sometimes the people making action movies are just “too busy being bad asses, blowing sh*t up, flying helicopters, and killing movie terrorists to concern ourselves” with attention-seeking union assholes.  So, no, unions don’t make film sets any safer. If anything, injuries on union-run sets are so common at this point that it’s almost malpractice to involve them.

The Trump administration has launched a recruiting campaign aimed at gamers as it looks to address a nationwide air traffic controller shortage.  A recruitment video released on Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tells gamers they can put their skills to work directing airline traffic while earning high salaries. The hiring window opens on April 17 and will be capped at 8,000 applicants, the New York Times reported.  “Become an air traffic controller. It’s not a game. It’s a career,” the text of the campaign says. “You’ll keep millions of people safe every day. (And make a lot of money).” The video blends clips of people playing video games like Fortnite with footage of busy airports, noting that average salaries can reach $155,000 after three years.  “To reach the next generation of air traffic controllers, we need to adapt,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told The New York Times, adding that the campaign “taps into a growing demographic of young adults who have many of the hard skills it takes to be a successful controller.” The FAA currently has around 11,000 air traffic controllers on staff, short of its target of 14,663 positions.  “We’re really going to start to see gains about two and a half to three years from now,” Heather Fernuik, the executive director of the FAA’s human resources office, told The Times.  The hiring process can be lengthy, with certification taking up to six years, including initial screenings, a four- to six-month FAA training course, and on-the-job training.  The FAA hired more than 1,800 controllers in fiscal year 2024, exceeding its hiring benchmarks. The agency plans to bring on at least 8,900 new controllers through 2028 and has moved to speed up hiring by increasing starting pay and streamlining the process.   Still, a shortage persists. A January 2026 report from the Government Accountability Office found that while applications have surged in recent years, the number of controllers has fallen by about 6% even as flights have increased by roughly 10%.   The report blamed government shutdowns, the COVID pandemic, and a high number of people dropping out of the workforce from 2019 to 2024.

Inflation ticked up to 3.3% in March, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The March Consumer Price Index report is the first to reflect the impact of the conflict with Iran. While the 3.3% reading was in line with expectations, inflation had been at 2.4% and on a downward trend prior to the U.S. strikes. Energy prices saw the largest increase, rising 10.9%, the biggest monthly jump since 2005. Gas prices are now above $4 a gallon, while diesel is just over $5. Food prices, however, remained stable despite disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply flows. Rising energy costs are a key driver of inflation, as they affect the price of goods and services across the economy. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the administration expected inflationary pressures tied to Operation Epic Fury. “President Trump has always been clear about short-term disruptions as a result of Operation Epic Fury, disruptions that the Administration has been diligently working to mitigate,” he said. “Although gas and energy prices are seeing volatility, prices of eggs, beef, prescription drugs, dairy, and other household essentials are falling or remain stable thanks to President Trump’s policies.”  Desai added that the administration is working to ensure the free flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz and that the economy can handle the disruption due to its “supply-side agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, and energy abundance.” Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who served under the Biden administration, told CNBC that the Trump administration’s policies are contributing to rising prices. “As feared, inflation is up,” he said, adding that the administration is actively making prices higher through tariffs and the war. Inflation peaked at 9.1% under the Biden administration. March’s reading is the highest level of inflation under the Trump administration.

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. *** Pro-lifers face a crossroads. The number of abortions is slightly up since the defeat of Roe v. Wade, and pro-choice sentiment has risen, reversing a 2010s trend that had the issue evenly split among Americans. Major media organizations continue to cover the pro-life position in a biased way. And the conservative electoral coalition is wavering on the importance of the issue. This is how even red states such as Ohio, Kentucky, and others adopted largely unrestricted abortion access via referendum. The blue-collar, working class populists who now form a coalition with social conservatives will vote for pro-life candidates, but they do not prioritize the issue. Even the Trump administration, which should be credited for many pro-life victories in the first term, including the appointment of Supreme Court judges who overturned Roe, has become less committed to the issue. The Trump Health and Human Services has been slow to reverse the Biden administration’s actions to make the abortion drug, mifepristone, which is responsible for a majority of abortions, easily available by mail without prescription. The Trump Justice Department revealed last month that it is defending the pill’s efficacy in court, against Republican attorneys general.  Pro-life activist groups should continue to press the administration to reverse these policies, and faithful Christians should continue to urge their legislators to uphold pro-life principles. But it’s time to return to the strong moral language that awakened the American conscience on this issue. Those of us who have grown up in the movement might wrongly assume that our fellow Americans understand the moral gravity of the issue of abortion. We are so often bogged down in talk of strategy and prudence — important and vital conversations in a complicated political environment — that we forget to explain to the public why it is we are pro-life.  When the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision was announced, conservative Christians were divided on its morality. The Catholic Church was opposed, and lay leaders such as Nellie Gray, founder of the March for Life, began to organize. Perhaps the most prominent pastor in America, W.A. Criswell from First Baptist Dallas, commended the ruling: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had life separate from its mother that it became an individual person, and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” At the convention following the ruling, in 1974, the messengers overwhelmingly approved a pro-abortion resolution. A 1970 poll showed that 70% of Baptist pastors supported abortion. In a 1968 Christian Medical and Dental Association meeting, the participants released a statement saying, “Whether the performance of an induced abortion is sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity of it and permissibility for it under certain circumstances we are in accord.” At the same time, Christianity Today and the National Association for Evangelicals condemned Roe. Most evangelicals, either ignorant or dismissive of early church teaching condemning abortion, largely considered the practice to be a primarily Catholic concern. Yet, only a few years later, abortion became a major concern not only for Catholics but for conservative evangelicals as well. Jerry Falwell, in 1979, declared it to be one of the key issues that characterized a nation in decline: “The Roman Catholic Church for many years has stood virtually alone against abortion. I think it’s an indictment against the rest of us that we’ve allowed them to stand alone.” Southern Baptists, led by Richard Land (who would later go on to lead their public policy arm), organized a group of Baptists for life who pushed for a strong resolution at the 1982 convention declaring that human life begins at conception. Many other evangelical organizations followed. Ronald Reagan, who had signed a permissive abortion law in the late 1960s as California governor, changed his position and by 1980 pledged to be a pro-life president. He wrote a book, “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,” explaining his newfound convictions.   Credit: Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images. What changed opinion and brought evangelicals and Catholics together to champion unborn life? There are many factors, of course, including the tragic rise in the number of abortions that took place after Roe. But perhaps the most influential voice was a Presbyterian pastor named Francis Schaeffer, who barnstormed the country in 1979 with both a book and video series, “What Ever Happened to the Human Race,” explaining the abortion practice in detail and how this practice both devalued human life and was an attack on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded. Schaeffer teamed up with Boston pediatric surgeon and future U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. If Schaeffer’s bestseller “How Shall We Then Live,” published in 1976, moved Christians to get off the sidelines and resist the moral relativism that was eating away at the nation’s moral fabric, “What Ever Happened to the Human Race” gave conservative Christians an issue that stood at the center of this worldview clash. Jerry Falwell, writing in his memoir, admitted that Schaeffer’s work moved him from a pietistic fundamentalism to a more socially active position. It was not long after reading Schaeffer that Falwell launched the Moral Majority. Richard Land said, “Schaeffer had enormous influence on a whole generation of baby-boomer evangelicals, calling us to engagement with society and inspiring us to be the salt and light that Jesus commanded.” Chuck Colson, the Nixon hatchet-man turned Christian leader, dedicated his book “How Now Shall We Live” to Schaeffer, whom he called a mentor. The consistent Catholic conviction and the work of men such as Schaeffer birthed the enduring and effective pro-life movement. Today, nearly a half-century later, it is one of the most powerful movements in American politics. Roe is gone, many states outlaw abortion, and pregnancy resource centers dot the American landscape, offering help and hope to young mothers in crisis. This justice movement has introduced a moral vocabulary into American life — that even the most vulnerable Americans are worthy of dignity and respect — to the point that its most bitter foes co-opt this language to accuse us of being inconsistently pro-life. So often the pro-life position is on the defensive. We are told that our position is anti-women. We are asked for our five-point plans on poverty reduction and health care. Pro-life champions should have thoughtful answers on these important issues. And yet we should also be willing to ask the question of those who oppose the sanctity of life: Do you believe in the humanity of the unborn child? Do you believe there is a baby there? If so, why would you be in favor of ending that life for the crime of existing?  Pro-lifers must return to the art of persuasion. We cannot assume our fellow Americans and even many of our fellow Christians understand the issue. And we should do it in a way designed to generate converts, not in ways that push folks away from our side. The small but loud cohort of internet activists who fantasize about throwing women in jail and repealing the 19th Amendment may seem courageous to their text threads, but they are not moving public opinion and in fact may be doing the work of those who seek to expand abortion. Courage requires the fortitude to stand up for what is right, even when it’s unpopular. But it also requires the wisdom to make arguments that expand the movement. In a democracy, this is the only way to make change. Many of the activists in the movement use moral language, but we need to urge our political leaders to do this as well. Too often, with the exception of folks such as Senator James Lankford, who routinely speaks on the Senate floor about the value of human life, many of our pro-life politicians, when asked about the issue, either mumble about exceptions or stare at their shoes. They rarely give an eloquent defense of the unborn.  We should defend the sanctity of life in the public square by appealing both to America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and to our founding principles in the Declaration. This is how successful social activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. helped build a movement that saw real civil rights victories in the 20th century. He appealed to America’s uniquely Christian character by talking about the God-given dignity of black people. And he appealed to the words in our founding documents that declare “all men are created equal.”  Two hundred and fifty years after this grand experiment in human government was formed, we have come much closer to realizing the reality of those words. And yet, as long as unborn children are treated as less than human, we have so much further to go. While we strategize and support pro-life candidates as we should, let’s return once again to appealing to the moral imagination of our fellow citizens. And perhaps, several decades from now, we might look back at this moment as the influential second chapter in the long pro-life struggle. *** Daniel Darling is the director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Seminary, a columnist for World, and the author of several books, including his latest, “In Defense of Christian Patriotism.”

Ordinarily, when a man affirms that American culture and Islam are mutually exclusive, that Muslims cannot assimilate because their allegiance to Sharia law trumps everything else, and that their religion will “make people feel uncomfortable,” you can assume he’s making a case for immigration restrictions. Then along comes Shadi Hamid, a Muslim Washington Post columnist who happily asserts all these things in an ostensible effort to make the opposite case: reassure Americans that these are qualities they should embrace. In reality, of course, Hamid’s arguments are likely to have the opposite effect, repel even those who harbored hopes that Muslim immigrants and their descendants would be assimilable. Indeed, he spent a great part of Wednesday dealing with the hornet’s nest that his op-ed kicked off online. But there is a clue that Hamid must have known he was being disingenuous. He made sure to throw in a caveat: his co-religionists are American now, at least in what he claims is a vague “constitutional” sense, and aren’t going anywhere anyway. Hamid, it is important to add, is not just anyone. He is a bona fide member of the establishment. He is not just a columnist at the Post, where he published the piece; he is also a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, a former fellow at Stanford University, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the director of research at its Doha Center. In other words, Hamid has shaped the thinking on Islam’s place in America from the highest of ivory towers and now popularizes it through a regular gig at one of the country’s most prominent newspapers. And yet, rebutting his claims is not hard. Some are untrue (he wrote that most American Muslims were “born and raised here,” earning an X community note showing that 58% are actually immigrants), other claims are only partly so, and still others are just downright specious. Among the main arguments were the following: America no longer has a unifying culture to conserve; assimilation means secularization, and thus degradation; and Republicans should ally themselves with unassimilated Muslims because they have anti-gay views (yes, he really makes this argument). In his piece, Hamid writes that “America was not founded on the assumption that its citizens would eventually come to agree on foundational questions.” The Founders would like to have a word. They created the new country precisely on the premise that, if it took in immigrants, they would have to, as Alexander Hamilton put it, “get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments.” Not for nothing did they make E Pluribus Unum — out of many, one — the country’s motto. The evidence is far too large to go through in a piece of this size, but numerous quotes from many of the Founders to this effect can be found in this comprehensive study I authored more than a decade ago. But let’s quote at least George Washington, who wrote to John Adams that his hope with immigrants was that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.” On the question of Sharia, Hamid avers that “practicing Muslims — despite being repeatedly asked to — can’t disavow ‘sharia’ even if they wanted to,” because it “includes guidelines on how to pray, fast and otherwise observe what it means to submit to God.” But Sharia is a large system derived from Muslim sacred texts and their interpretation. Many Muslim countries and clerics have interpreted things in ways that severely disadvantage more than 50% of society, women. Sharia is invoked to impose oppressive rules from dress codes to rules on inheritance, testimony, mobility, etc. I dare Hamid to show any evidence of conservative support for any of this. Sharia is even invoked by some Muslim states in the punishment of homosexuality. Some American conservatives will rail against LGBTQ ideology when pushed on minors. But all conservatives would find the notion of throwing gays off buildings stomach-churning. Thus, though Hamid is disingenuous throughout his arguments, he is particularly so when he says that “You’d think Republicans would sense an electoral opportunity.” I don’t know about Republicans, but the conservative “crusade” as I understand it — and as President Donald Trump has pursued it, with universities, museums, etc. — is to conserve the unified American culture that Hamid not only repudiates but claims no longer exists (he writes in a tweet “There is no longer any unified culture or set of supreme values that enjoy a consensus. We can lament this, but it’s a fact”). First, as the X poster Noah Smith pointed out, there is plenty of evidence that “we actually agree on a lot more than politics suggests.” But it is the Left — which denigrates this culture as much as Hamid — that has made a wartime alliance with political Islam. They sense that they both seek to deconstruct Western culture. In Europe, this is called “the Red-Green Alliance.” To be sure, each side senses they will fall out with each other as soon as they destroy the unified culture. But medium-term alliances win wars, as World War II attests. (My money is on the Islamists crushing the silly Leftists if this dystopia ever came to pass). The fight to save the West — against secularism, family breakdown, and the atomized individual — is real. But it presupposes that we save the unifying culture, which may be on life support yet still redeemable. And for that I can quote evidence from one Shadi Hamid, who left no doubt in a 2016 Atlantic piece on the Ottoman Empire that he understands that “spiritual unity” was foundational if there is a hope of establishing a legitimate political order. That is why assimilation remains an indispensable condition in any land that takes in immigrants. Islam is one of the world’s great religions, but its practitioners don’t get a pass. *** Mike Gonzalez is the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. His book “BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution” is now available.