Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is going to allow federal funding to flow once again to Planned Parenthood after a one-year ban, according to the Washington Examiner.Pro-life groups are trying to keep the ban on Medicaid funds to the abortion provider when it expires on July 4.'Defending the right to life is fundamental and something all Republicans should fight for.'Johnson passed a two-year ban on funds through the House last year, but it was reduced in reconciliation to one year in order to pass the Senate.Now it appears that the reconciliation process will kill the ban altogether.Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) responded on social media by calling on Johnson and other Republicans to reconsider the decision."I strongly supported defunding Planned Parenthood in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act and have championed provisions to ensure federal tax dollars aren't funding abortions throughout my career," he wrote. "Defending the right to life is fundamental and something all Republicans should fight for."Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri also registered his disappointment."This would be a massive betrayal," he wrote on social media. "Under no circumstance can Planned Parenthood be allowed to get taxpayer money for their abortions and gender transition insanity. Period."RELATED: 'Fraud ... for abortion'? Vance announces probe into Planned Parenthood's $88M taxpayer-funded loans at March for Life A Planned Parenthood report said it provided 434,450 abortions last year, the highest number recorded for the organization. The Live Action pro-life organization said that worked out to about one child aborted every 73 seconds in the U.S. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A Federalist article published yesterday revealed that the government-funded Global Engagement Center assured the State Department its censorship “test bed” platform would not target U.S. audiences, yet it proceeded to fund a trial specifically aimed at Blaze Media.“Let me break it down simply,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says. “Back in 2011, Obama signed an executive order to establish the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications ... to support ‘agencies in government-wide public communications activities targeted against violent extremism and terrorist organizations,’” she recounts.This was the “seed,” she explains, that would eventually sprout and bloom into a domestic censorship apparatus.In 2016, Obama then signed an executive order, renaming the existing Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications the Global Engagement Center and tasking it with coordinating U.S. government-wide counterterrorism communications activities directed at foreign audiences abroad to counter terrorist messaging.“Pay attention to these dates. 2016, [Obama] is out the door,” Sara says.In the waning days of President Trump’s first term (December 14, 2020, to January 7, 2021), however, a GEC-funded test-bed trial diverted from its stated mission to target foreign disinformation when it set its sights on Blaze Media.Its other target was Sputnik News, a Russian state-owned news agency and radio service.“Why would we be as big of a target as a Russian state news agency?” Sara asks. “Is the deep state that threatened by what we talk about?”“The answer is yes — the deep state actually is that threatened by what we talk about,” she answers definitively.When Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the GEC and its successor office, the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, in 2025, the New York Times and other left-wing outlets lamented it.Sara mocks the coverage the story received: “He closed down the State Department office on foreign disinformation. Why would we want to have disinformation? That’s bad!”“No, it was just being used to suppress and censor actual American media,” she explains. “Sorry, I’m saying American media like it was plural — like it was like this big venture. ... No, it was just us.”Why Blaze Media specifically?Sara believes it’s tied to Blaze Media’s COVID coverage.“We were one of the only (actually the only) alternative media outlet that was telling the truth during COVID, myself included,” she says. “We were getting demonetized left and right because we were actually telling the truth.”To hear more, watch the episode above.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The man on trial for allegedly stabbing to death a Ukrainian immigrant without provocation has been determined to be "incapable to proceed" by a state psychiatric facility.Video from the light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, captured the moment that Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly brutally stabbed Iryna Zarutska in the neck, according to prosecutors.Brown's attorney argued that the capacity hearing cannot take place as long as the suspect is in federal custody.Brown, who is 44 years old, had a long history of violence and mental illness before he allegedly attacked Zarutska, who was on her way home after working a shift at a pizza shop in Aug. 2025.A public defender filed a court filing Tuesday citing the mental evaluation from the Central Regional Hospital, but the judge must determine whether he will accept the findings.The case is expected to be delayed until Brown is given psychiatric treatment to restore his capacity to proceed.Zarutska, who was 23 years old at the time of her death, had fled from Ukraine to escape the dangers of the Russian war. Her death has become a national crusade against lax criminal prosecution and was featured in President Donald Trump's last State of the Union address to Congress.Brown's attorney argued that the capacity hearing cannot take place as long as the suspect is in federal custody.WBTV-TV reported that the process of restoring competency in North Carolina can take a long time because of the lack of psychiatric resources.The suspect's mother has admitted that Brown suffered from mental illness and had been arrested more than a dozen times. RELATED: Axios gets obliterated online for unbelievable framing of stabbing death of Ukrainian refugee Tech billionaire Elon Musk donated $1 million to help fund murals across the country to honor the memory of Zarutska and bring more publicity to the cause. Some of those efforts have been stymied by local activists and politicians who oppose the murals on the basis that they are "divisive" or do not align with their values. "Evil doesn't see policy. Evil doesn't see left or right. Evil doesn't see any of that. Evil is just evil," said graffiti artist Gear Duran, who painted a mural in Las Vegas. "I'm here trying to combat that, to bring awareness with this mural, just to bring some positivity and light to what happened."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!