Pakistan’s defense minister declared an ‘open war’ with Afghanistan on Friday after the two sides exchanged heavy fire along their shared border on Thursday, according to multiple reports.

Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said in a post on X that Pakistan had hoped the Taliban would bring stability after NATO’s withdrawal, but instead accused the group of turning Afghanistan ‘into a colony of India’ and ‘exporting terrorism.’

‘Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,’ he said.

The clashes came after the Taliban said it launched retaliatory strikes on Pakistani military positions, while Islamabad said it was responding to unprovoked fire in the area.

Reuters reported that both forces clashed for more than two hours along their roughly 2,600-kilometer (1,615-mile) border, threatening a ceasefire that had been agreed to in 2025 after fighting.

Thursday’s flare-up came after Pakistani forces carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan earlier this week, with Taliban officials saying the strikes killed at least 18 people, Reuters reported Feb. 24.

Pakistan said it targeted militant hideouts and rejected claims that civilians were targeted.

The Taliban described an ‘extensive’ military operation against Pakistani army positions in response to the strikes.

‘In response to repeated provocations, extensive preemptive operations have been launched against Pakistani military positions along the Durand Line,’ Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X.

 In a separate statement, he said ‘specialized laser units’ were operating at night.

Taliban military spokesman Mawlawi Wahidullah Mohammadi also said in a video shared with Reuters that the ‘retaliatory operation’ began Thursday evening.

Mujahid said ‘numerous’ Pakistani soldiers had been killed and some were also captured. Reuters said it could not independently verify those claims.

In another post on X, Mujahid said, ‘The cowardly Pakistani army has bombed some places in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia. Praise be to God, no one was harmed.’  

Pakistan has since rejected the Taliban’s account. 

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on X that the Afghanistan Taliban’s ‘unprovoked action along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border’ was given an ‘immediate and effective response.’

The ministry said Taliban forces had ‘miscalculated and opened unprovoked fire on multiple locations’ along the border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The post said the fire was being met with an ‘immediate and effective response by Pakistan’s security forces.’

‘Early reports confirm heavy casualties on the Afghan side with multiple posts and equipment destroyed,’ the ministry said. 

‘Pakistan will take all necessary measures to ensure its territorial integrity and the safety and security of its citizens.’

Pakistani security sources also told Reuters that 22 Taliban personnel had been killed, and several quadcopters were shot down.

The fighting follows Pakistan’s accusations that the Taliban is sheltering TTP militants behind a surge in violence and suicide attacks. 

The Afghan Taliban denies the claim. A day before February’s strikes, Pakistani officials said they had ‘irrefutable evidence’ that militants were launching attacks from Afghan soil, Reuters reported.

As President Donald Trump pressures Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions amid rising tensions, Vice President JD Vance told The Washington Post there is ‘no chance’ the U.S. will enter a yearslong war in the Middle East.

‘The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight — there is no chance that will happen,’ Vance said on Thursday, according to the outlet.

‘I think we all prefer the diplomatic option,’ he said, according to the Post. ‘But it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say.’

‘I do think we have to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. I also think that we have to avoid overlearning the lessons of the past. Just because one president screwed up a military conflict doesn’t mean we can never engage in military conflict again. We’ve got to be careful about it, but I think the president is being careful,’ Vance told the outlet.

Fox News Digital reached out to Vance’s office and the White House on Friday morning.

Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, ‘My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number-one sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon.’

In a Truth Social post regarding Iran on Monday, the president said that he ‘would rather have a Deal than not but, if we don’t make a Deal, it will be a very bad day for that Country and, very sadly, its people, because they are great and wonderful, and something like this should never have happened to them.’

The Department of Justice on Thursday sued five additional states, requesting that their election data be shared with the Trump administration amid its push for access to voter rolls from states across the country.

Four states President Donald Trump carried in the last three presidential elections — Utah, Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia — were slapped with the latest legal action, along with New Jersey.

The DOJ has now sued more than two dozen states in efforts to access election records, with most of the states being controlled by Democrats.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon suggested that state election officials were ‘choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work’ with voter roll access.

‘We will not be deterred, regardless of party affiliation, from carrying out critical election integrity legal duties,’ she said in a statement on Thursday.

‘The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,’ Dhillon said.

The Trump administration has intensified its efforts to take over elections in recent months even though the U.S. Constitution gives states, not federal officials, the authority to run elections. Most states have their secretary of state oversee elections.

Access to election information varies by state, but election officials generally release redacted versions of their voter rolls to the public and government agencies, according to Politico. However, the DOJ has demanded that states give the federal government unredacted files, including voters’ private data such as their driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

‘Accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. ‘This latest series of litigation underscores that this Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country.’

The DOJ has argued the states are in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which affirms that the attorney general can request voter records from election officials, but state officials contend that the department is seeking an escalation of the administration’s wider attempts to become involved in state election proceedings.

‘Neither state nor federal law entitles the Department of Justice to collect private information on law-abiding American citizens. Utahns can be assured that my office will always follow the Constitution and the law, protect voters’ rights, and administer free and fair elections,’ Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson said in a statement to Politico.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams also criticized the lawsuit, saying the state’s elections were ‘a national success story.’

‘Kentucky law protects voters’ personal information, and I will not voluntarily commit a data breach by providing Kentuckians’ personal data to the federal bureaucracy unless a court order tells me to,’ he said in a statement to the outlet.

West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner’s office said it had not yet been served with a lawsuit.

‘Regardless, I think Secretary Warner’s comments to the DOJ were pretty clear. Bring it on! The federal government is not going to get any personal information on West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State,’ spokesperson Mike Queen said in a statement to Politico.

Earlier this month, the FBI executed a search warrant at an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and other voting records from 2020, according to local officials. The Peach State went to former President Joe Biden in 2020, but Trump carried the state in 2024.

In efforts to ensure only American citizens are voting, Trump has also urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters in federal elections to prove citizenship by providing a photo ID and other documentation, such as a passport or birth certificate.

As the Trump administration appoints Vice President JD Vance to lead a nationwide ‘War on Fraud,’ a coalition of conservative state financial officers says it has already uncovered and stopped billions in taxpayer waste and is pledging to partner with the White House to root out corruption nationwide.

In a Thursday letter to the White House, the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) praised President Donald Trump’s focus on what he called fraud scandals that have ‘resulted in tens of billions of dollars being stolen from American taxpayers,’ writing that such corruption ‘shreds the fabric of a nation’ 

SFOF CEO OJ Oleka told Vance that the group’s 40 conservative state treasurers, auditors and comptrollers across 28 states stand ready to support the administration’s anti-fraud mission, noting they collectively oversee more than $3 trillion in state funds.

The letter accompanied SFOF’s inaugural 2025 Oversight Report, which claims that affiliated state financial officers safeguarded more than $28 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse in 2025 alone.

The report highlights some of the most egregious examples within that $28 billion including in Florida, where Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia just under $2 billion in excessive spending and in Kentucky, where Auditor Allison Ball found more than $836 million in improper Medicaid payments.

Medicaid fraud has been of particular interest to the Trump administration given the massive fraud scandal that has unfolded in Minnesota and Vance said on Wednesday the administration has ‘decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people’s tax money.’

The report also highlights North Carolina, where it says State Auditor Dave Boliek discovered more than $1 billion in lapsed salaries from long term vacancies in the state. Additionally, Utah auditor Tina Cannon identified more than $518 million in fraud, waste and abuse across agencies and nonprofits receiving state and federal funds.

In his letter, Oleka told Vance that SFOF’s members are ‘allies already on the battlefield’ and stand ready to assist the administration in protecting taxpayer dollars.

‘The American people deserve nothing less,’ he wrote.

SFOF argues that state-level financial watchdogs, often elected independently of governors and legislatures, are uniquely positioned to expose mismanagement and enforce fiscal discipline.

With billions already identified at the state level, the group says a coordinated federal-state approach could dramatically expand the scope of fraud detection nationwide, potentially reshaping how taxpayer dollars are safeguarded across the country.

‘By working together, we can protect our nation’s treasure to the fullest extent against every foe and every plot to endanger it,’ Oleka wrote.

Republican and Independent voters reacted favorably when President Donald Trump brought up how his administration has cracked down on drug cartels and fentanyl, but Democrats appeared less motivated by Trump’s aggressive foreign policy stance. 

‘For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels. That’s why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,’ Trump said to applause as he turned to look at Republicans. 

Per a panel assembled by polling group Maslansky & Partners of 29 Democrats, 30 Independents, and 40 Republicans, which tracked their real-time reactions during Trump’s SOTU address, Democrats appeared to go slightly below baseline when Trump began touting his aggressive stance towards cartels in Central and South America, specifically his administration’s bombing campaign against them which has included attacks in the open ocean off the South American coastline and in the eastern Pacific.

Meanwhile, Republicans and Independents showed a much stronger favorable reaction to the president’s remarks about the actions his administration has taken against drug cartels and illegal fentanyl. 

During his address, Trump also highlighted the U.S.’s help in capturing drug kingpin ‘El Mencho’ earlier this month in Mexico. Ruben ‘Nemesio’ Oseguera Cervantes, known as ‘El Mencho,’ the leader of the CJNG, was killed Sunday in a Mexican military operation in Tapalpa, Mexico, authorities said. Though the operation was carried out by Mexican forces, the United States laid the groundwork, making El Mencho’s fall possible.

On President Donald Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order directing the State Department to designate several cartels and international criminal groups ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ (FTOs), a designation unlocking military-grade surveillance and ‘material support’ prosecutions. Though lesser known than MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, CJNG was one of the groups designated an FTO by the administration.

Shortly after Trump’s executive order, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a policy memorandum to all Department of Justice employees, announcing a ‘fundamental change in mindset and approach’ to cartels and transnational criminal organizations to a policy of ‘total elimination.’

The Trump administration has engaged in an aggressive bombing campaign against cartel boats throughout both 2025 and 2026. The U.S. has also conducted non-lethal maritime drug interdiction efforts as well.

In early 2026, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro was captured by U.S. forces and extradited to New York on drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges, with Trump accusing him at the time of being a ‘kingpin of a vast criminal network.’

The recent violence and capture of El Mencho this month has led American tourists to be trapped in Mexico. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, the State Department has been taking ‘hundreds of calls a day’ providing Americans with travel support and advice.

‘We are unaware of any reports of any Americans being hurt, kidnapped, or killed, and the Mexican drug cartels know not to lay a finger on a single American or they will pay severe consequences under this president – and they already are,’ Leavitt told Fox News. 

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Thursday that his country could ‘completely destroy’ South Korea if it feels threatened, escalating rhetoric while ruling out renewed talks.

Speaking at North Korea’s week-long Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party in Pyongyang, Kim labeled South Korea the ‘most hostile enemy’ and said ‘the conciliatory attitude that South Korea’s current government advocates on the surface is clumsily deceptive and crude,’ according to state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Kim said North Korea ‘can initiate arbitrary action’ if South Korea engages in ‘obnoxious behavior’ directed at his country, dismissing recent efforts by Seoul to improve relations.

‘South Korea’s complete collapse cannot be ruled out,’ Kim said, according to KCNA.

During the congress, Kim outlined sweeping five-year policy goals centered on expanding North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. The country is believed to possess around 50 warheads and enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more, according to an estimate last year from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The North Korean leader said the country’s ‘international status has risen extraordinarily.’

‘It is our party’s firm will to further expand and strengthen our national nuclear power, and thoroughly exercise its status as a nuclear state,’ Kim said, according to KCNA. ‘We will focus on projects to increase the number of nuclear weapons and expand nuclear operational means.’

Kim laid out plans for North Korea to develop more advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of underwater launches, along with artificial intelligence-driven weapons systems and unmanned drones, KCNA reported.

Kim, who met with President Donald Trump three times during Trump’s first term, signaled he may be open to future negotiations with Washington but placed responsibility squarely on the United States.

‘Whether it’s peaceful coexistence or permanent confrontation, we are ready for either, and the choice is not ours to make,’ he said.

Kim said that if the U.S ‘withdraws its policy of confrontation’ with North Korea and acknowledges the country’s ‘current status,’ there would be ‘no reason why we cannot get along well with the U.S.’

Following the congress, Kim’s teenage daughter attended a military parade in Pyongyang on Wednesday, according to KCNA. Ju Ae, believed to be 13 or 14, was photographed standing beside her father and senior military leaders.

Her appearance comes after South Korean media reported that Kim recently gave her a leadership role in the regime’s powerful ‘Missile Administration,’ which oversees Pyongyang’s nuclear forces.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, along with Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.