Secretary of State Marco Rubio has terminated the legal status of three Iranian nationals tied to Masoumeh Ebtekar, the spokeswoman for the militants behind the Iran Hostage Crisis, placing them in ICE custody and initiating their removal from the United States. “I terminated their lawful permanent resident status and today, Seyed Eissa Hashemi, Maryam Tahmasebi, and their son are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pending their removal from our country,” Rubio said. Rubio added that the decision reflects a broader principle: “America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families — and under the Trump administration, it never will.” ‼️ NEW DETAILS: Secretary of State Marco Rubio has TERMINATED the legal status of three Iranians tied to regime figure known as “Screaming Mary.” They are now in ICE custody and facing deportation. “I terminated their lawful permanent resident status and today, Seyed Eissa… https://t.co/7XnEgjbyQ0 pic.twitter.com/xU3udiFLJ8 — Mossad Commentary (@MOSSADil) April 11, 2026 The individuals are directly connected to Masoumeh Ebtekar, known to many Americans as “Screaming Mary,” who served as the English-language spokeswoman for the militants who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. That crisis saw 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, a defining moment in U.S.-Iran relations that continues to shape policy decades later. Chosen for her fluent English and familiarity with the United States, she became the public face of the hostage-takers, appearing repeatedly on American television to defend the operation and relay the group’s demands. She has never expressed regret for her role, and frequently used her appearances to justify the takeover. After the crisis, she transitioned from revolutionary activist to establishment figure, eventually rising to serve as a vice president of Iran, specifically Vice President for Women and Family Affairs from 2017 to 2021. Despite that history, her son Hashemi had been living in Southern California, working as a lecturing psychology professor while residing in Los Angeles County with his wife, according to the New York Post. Reports and photographs placed him at upscale locations in the area, fueling criticism that relatives of senior regime figures were benefiting from life in the United States. Public pressure had been building for months. Petitions and protests called for federal authorities to review the immigration status of Hashemi and others connected to Iran’s ruling apparatus, arguing that allowing such individuals to remain in the country undermines U.S. credibility on human rights and national security. In its statement, the State Department indicated that the individuals originally received visas during the Obama administration before later obtaining green cards through the Diversity Visa Program. Later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters, “Her family should never have been allowed to benefit from the extraordinary privilege of living in our country. America can never become home for anti-American terrorists or their families.” The move comes amid a broader push by the administration to target individuals in the U.S. with ties to Tehran’s ruling apparatus. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Daily Wire the effort is a “top priority,” particularly in cases involving fraud or national security concerns. “I understand one of the individual’s visas was revoked by Secretary Rubio, and they were deported by ICE because they had a fraudulent asylum claim,” Leavitt said, referring to a separate case involving relatives of the late Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. “Anyone who is here illegally or fraudulently is subject to our nation’s immigration laws and will be removed from our country.” That case involved Soleimani’s niece and grandniece, who were also taken into custody after reportedly living openly in the United States while expressing support for the regime, part of what officials describe as a pattern now under increased scrutiny. The administration has already deported dozens of Iranian nationals over the past year, with hundreds more potentially facing removal as enforcement ramps up. The message from the administration is that drawing a harder line not just against Iran’s government, but against those connected to it, is going to continue and we could see similar moves going forward. For all the latest Iran news, follow The Daily Wire’s live blog.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has completed his tenant reach-out series, allowing him to start the process of crafting policy based on the testimonies his administration collected over the last six weeks. Each week in a different borough of New York City, Mamdani invited renters to air their grievances about their landlords — one of Mamdani’s flagship initiatives. Within ninety days of the hearings, the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection, along with other agencies, will bring a joint report to Mamdani’s desk showcasing common themes they learned from tenants. Mamdani’s team told renters that they wanted to hear about repairs, problems with rats, problems with heat, deceptive fees from landlords, and “ICE-related harassment in buildings.” “Your testimony will directly inform policy changes to strengthen city policies to protect tenants,” an ad for the dubbed “Rental Ripoff” series stated. The Daily Wire spoke to one of the tenants offering her testimony. “I’ve been living in my apartment for over ten years. We didn’t have heat in the apartment most of the time for years. We had walls that were collapsing, a ceiling that’s collapsing, a horrific bug and rat infestation problem,” a female tenant, Abigail, said. When asked why she remained in the apartment, she told The Daily Wire it was because it was rent stabilized. She pays $300 a month for her share of a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. She said the total rent for the apartment was $900 monthly, while the average rent for a three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn is $4,892 a month. Abigail explained that she was a comic strip artist, so it was hard to find an affordable place to live. She hopes Mamdani keeps her rent frozen at $300 and that he mandates that her landlord fix all that is wrong with her apartment. The Rental Ripoff hearings were led by Mamdani’s Director of Tenant Protection Cea Weaver — who infamously claimed that “Homeownership is a tool of white supremacy.” In her presentation, titled “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords,” Weaver told renters that the mayor’s office would use the feedback collected at the hearings to inform housing policy going forward. New York real estate broker Adam Frisch warned The Daily Wire that the hearings are too one-sided. “They should pull from a combination of tenants, landlords, financiers, developers, and economists. Everybody looks at the situation with their own biases, and it’s the role of the mayor to sit down with tenants and landlords and say I know you’re both unhappy. Let’s see what we can do.” Landlords blame rent stabilization for the poor conditions of certain apartments. Without the ability to raise rent, they say, they are unable to generate sufficient revenue to maintain their buildings. Pinnacle Group, a major New York landlord, filed for bankruptcy in 2025, claiming that the “sharp increase in financing costs outpaced rental revenue, which could not be correspondingly increased due to rent stabilization.”

Today on “Dystopia Now,” we take a look at something called the Enhanced Games, where nearly 40 athletes compete while doped up on performance-enhancing substances. You can catch them at Resorts World Las Vegas in late May. A Legion of Doom-worthy coalition of tech billionaires is funding the Enhanced Games, including Peter Thiel, the Winklevoss twins, Saudi prince Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, and Donald Trump Jr. According to their materials, it’s “a diversified revenue model designed to capitalize on the growing global demand for sports entertainment, performance enhancement and longevity products.” As Richard Dawson said in “The Running Man,” “Without further ado, it’s time to start running!” A major driver behind the Enhanced Games is German tech billionaire Christian Angermayer, the author of the Next Human Agenda. He is pushing the games as “a significant economic driver for the biotech pharma industry in the years ahead.” If the Enhanced Games sounds suspiciously like an advertisement for Compound V, the superhuman-making substance in “The Boys,” it should. This isn’t a sports gambit — it’s an advertisement for the “longevity” industry, based on big tech’s obsession with expanding the human lifespan and human vitality. The problem is, Compound V can create metahumans like Homelander, who is a total psychopath but is essentially evil Superman, but it can also create people with the power to shoot octopi out of their butts, or some such thing. We know that these substances aren’t steroids or cocaine, but we don’t know much else about them, or about their long-term effects. The Enhanced Games is promising sprint records, but A-Train, the super-sprinter on “The Boys,” has extreme heart issues and a dependency on Compound V. Some athletes — who are either being paid very well, desperate for glory, or both — don’t seem to care. Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev broke a 50-meter freestyle world record in an Enhanced Games trial last year, making a million dollars in the process. As Forbes reported this week, “Irish swimmer Max McCusker, also an Olympian, said publicly that his decision to join was a “no-brainer” after earning less than $10,000 across four years of professional swimming.” Screenshot: Enhanced Games/YouTube.com So what’s the endgame? Clearly, life expansion is a mantra of the day, slotting in alongside at-home helper robots, personalized flight, Mars colonization, and the AI singularity. We seem to be heading toward a bifurcated, Gattaca-like future, with “optimized” people at the top of the pyramid and a vast mass of suboptimal people at the bottom, Elois performing feats of strength at Resorts World for an audience of barely human Morlocks. All this reminds me of the opening credits of the “Six Million Dollar Man,” “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability of making the world’s first bionic man. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster.” (Of course, today, six million is rounding error). This future is actually kind of appealing, even interesting. We should at least try to see if the current billionaire obsession with hyperbaric cold plunges and blood transfusions and liquid megavitamins and genetic manipulation works. My own program of fish-oil pills, probiotics, not eating like crap, and standing on my head a few times a week seems to be working just fine, but I haven’t really started into the peak of my decline yet. The real test of Enhanced Games technology won’t be how it affects super-swimmers or Olympic sprinters, who are already close to Peak Personhood. When they start injecting nootropics into people like me, to see if they can make the Substack posts a little snarkier and the decision-making at the $400 No-Limit Hold Em poker tournaments a little smarter, then we’ll see how well it works. Just remember that, sure, there are a lot of super-people in “The Boys.” But most of them end up with exploding heads. * * * Neal Pollack, “the greatest living American writer,” is the author of 12 semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction and is a three-time “Jeopardy!” champion.

Rep. Eric Swalwell denied the accusations against him in a video statement released late on Friday, making it clear that he had no intention of dropping out of the California governor’s race despite mounting claims that he’d engaged in inappropriate behavior with several former staffers. Swalwell posted the video on both X and Instagram, along with the caption, “Hear it directly from me. These allegations are flat false. And I will fight them.” WATCH: Hear it directly from me. These allegations are flat false. And I will fight them. pic.twitter.com/bQSlCquD1U — Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 11, 2026 “A lot has been said about me today through anonymous allegations,” Swalwell said. “And I thought it was important that you see and hear from me directly.” “These allegations of sexual assault are flat false, they’re absolutely false,” he added. “They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California.” “I do not suggest to you in any way that I am perfect or that I’m a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past,” Swalwell continued. “But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. I also apologize to you if in any way you have doubted your support for me. But I think you know who I am.” Swalwell went on to tout his 20-year record of serving the public from the City Council to the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as his record as a prosecutor defending victims of sexual assault. “That’s who I am and have always been. This weekend, I’m going to spend time with my family and friends, and I appreciate those who have reached out to me to show support,” he concluded. “I look forward to updating you very soon.” Swalwell’s response comes in the wake of several accusations — including one from a former staffer who said he raped her — of inappropriate sexually-charged behavior and sexual assault. But the California congressman, who alleges that the timing and anonymity of the accusations make them suspect, sang a very different tune when similar 11th-hour accusations were leveled against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh ahead of his confirmation hearings. On September 18, 2018, Swalwell joined with a number of House Democrats in calling for a postponement of the Senate’s confirmation vote, demanding an investigation and including the #MeToo era “believe women” tagline: “I joined 109 of my House colleagues in urging the Senate to #PostponeTheVote on #Kavanaugh, so America can have a thorough investigation of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s story. #BelieveWomen.” Swalwell also criticized Republicans who pointed out the fact that Democrats — namely the late Senator Dianne Feinstein — had reportedly been aware of the accusations against Kavanaugh for some time and had intentionally withheld them until they could be used to derail his confirmation. “The #Kavanaugh defenders are trying to stand on the process/timing of the allegation and wish to ignore its substance. Would they prefer that she never had come forward? Is that what they’re really suggesting?” he posted on September 17, 2018. “A lot of GOP senators are unfairly holding #Kavanaugh victims to criminal law standards for their accounts. If that’s the case they should know this jury instruction: ‘The testimony of a SINGLE witness can prove any fact,'” Swalwell posted a week later. Even as Swalwell denies the claims against him, his colleagues have already begun to jump ship. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) was among those who withdrew endorsements ahead of the primary election. “I have read the San Francisco Chronicle’s account and I am deeply distressed by its allegations. This woman was brave to come forward, and we should take her story seriously. I am withdrawing my endorsement immediately, and believe that he should withdraw from the race,” Schiff said.

Some belated sequels crash and burn on arrival. Think “Zoolander 2,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “Terminator: Dark Fate” and “Independence Day: Resurgence.” All duds or box office disappointments. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” won’t suffer that fate, despite the 20-year gap between the two films. In fact, the sequel might mimic another recent blockbuster that lured women back to theaters in droves. The 2023 smash “Barbie.” That film wasn’t just a box office juggernaut. It convinced women to dress up in the grand Barbie tradition to enjoy the experience with their best gal pals. It became a cultural flashpoint, a chance to bond over childhood memories and sisterhood. Will “Prada 2” be a spiritual sequel to that mega-hit? Photo by 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. The safest bet is “absolutely.” Box Office Pro predicts the sequel will land in the $80-95 million range, a hefty debut for a comedy. Word of mouth might do the rest. For contrast, the original scored $27.5 million over a Fourth of July weekend. Why the optimism? Let’s start with the film’s first teaser, which didn’t share much in its brief running time. The under-60 second clip became last year’s most viewed trailer, more than sneak peeks at “Sinners,” “Superman” or “A Minecraft Movie.” That’s despite the original film’s solid but hardly massive $124 million at the U.S. box office (globally, it brought in a hefty $323 million). Yet we had to wait 20 years for a sequel, despite the rising star status of featured players Anne Hathaway (as put-upon assistant Andy) and Emily Blunt as the exasperated Emily. A new Fandango poll shows “Prada 2” as the third most anticipated film of the summer, behind “Toy Story 5” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” The sequel reunites them with Oscar-winner Meryl Streep as the venomous Miranda Priestly and Stanley Tucci. The May 1 release finds Miranda struggling to keep up with the digital age, something that wasn’t a major issue in the original yarn inspired by Lauren Weisberger’s bestselling novel. Photo by 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved. IMDB. The marketing team behind the sequel is keeping most of the details under wraps, a wise move. The sequel does expand the original cast, adding Kenneth Branagh, “Bridgerton’s” Simone Ashley, Lucy Liu, Justin Theroux, B.J. Novak and Pauline Chalamet. So why is “The Devil Wears Prada 2” not a sign of Hollywood desperation but a sly acknowledgement of what audiences crave? Some movies simply grow over the years, boosted by streaming access and stories that speak to something profound within us. The technology in the original “Prada” may be dated — remember that screeching pager tune whenever Miranda needed Andy’s help? The themes, by contrast, are timeless. “The Devil Wears Prada” nailed the hopes and dreams of young women who flirt with a brand of fame that can be intoxicating. Andy didn’t care about fashion until she worked within the industry 24/7. And, when she got her hands on some of the clothes collecting in her company’s closet, she was hooked. And she looked fabulous. Audiences got lost in Andy’s “Pygmalion”-like makeover. We’ll look past the running gag that Andy was both frumpy and overweight at the film’s start. Hathaway has always been lithe and lovely. Copyright: TM and2006 Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved. And as much as the Left wants to deny biology, women by and large want to look beautiful in the best fashions possible. It’s why those “Sex and the City” films featured Carrie Bradshaw luxuriating in that monstrous, overstuffed closet. It’s pure escapism. Plus, we’ve all had bosses as demanding as Streep’s Miranda Priestly, even if they couldn’t chill us with one withering look. Yes, she was a monster, but who couldn’t admire her drive, talent and ruthless efficiently? It helped that Streep’s performance epitomized the power of the softly spoken villain. She could destroy someone with a lifted eyebrow or well-manicured insult. The fact that Andy survived her chronic attacks, growing stronger by the day, proved intoxicating. And then there’s poor Adrien Grenier. He played Hathaway’s frustrated beau in the original film, but he won’t be back for an encore. Could the negative memes around his character be to blame? Or the fact that Grenier opted out of Hollywood, Inc. in the intervening years following his “Entourage” closeup? That’s showbiz. So is Hollywood’s occasional ability to give audiences what they want. Yes, the industry will crank out woke reboots and insult audiences when they’re summarily rejected. See “Starfleet Academy” for Exhibit A. Nostalgia still sells, and movie studios know it. The original “Prada” arrived at a time when culture war battles didn’t distract us from our daily lives. The film lacked the gerrymandered diversity casting we too often see today. No lectures. No “you go, girl” feminist talking points to stop the movie cold. Andy struggled with being Miranda’s assistant, but her intelligence and wit eventually made her an invaluable part of the Runway magazine team. But did she sell her soul in the process? Her beau thought so, but audiences had her back from start to finish. And they’ll have it again soon enough. Han Myung-Gu/WireImage The film is guaranteed a big opening weekend, but the only way to dampen the box office potential is to lean into Hollywood’s worst impulses. Identity Politics. Speeches. Political asides that erupt out of the blue. Or, the film’s stars will use “Prada’s” publicity tour to politicize the film. Streep is already attempting just that by insulting fashion icon turned First Lady Melania Trump. Some movies are critic-proof. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is both critic and culture war proof, assuming Hollywood can get out of its own way. * * * Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic, and editor of HollywoodInToto.com. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at HollywoodInToto.com.