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.

The House Republican majority just got reduced to a perilously slim one-vote margin thanks to a Democrat’s victory in Texas over the weekend.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swore in newly minted Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Texas, on Monday evening, bringing the overall House of Representatives margin to 218 Republicans and 214 Democrats.

That means if a bill gets no Democratic support and the House is in full attendance, losing more than one GOP vote will result in a 216-216 tie — meaning it would fail to pass.

Johnson is no stranger to dealing with slim margins and has eked out significant GOP victories while dealing with majorities between two and three seats. 

But this is a particularly difficult week for House GOP leaders who are scrambling to end an ongoing partial government shutdown.

The House is expected to vote on a funding compromise hashed out between Senate Democrats and the White House sometime on Tuesday, and Republicans will need nearly everyone in lockstep for the legislation to survive a chamber-wide ‘rule vote.’

Rule votes are procedural hurdles that traditionally fall along partisan lines.

Menefee, a former attorney for Houston’s Harris County, won a special congressional election in a left-leaning district in Texas that has been vacant for nearly a year.

He’s replacing the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, who died while in office in March 2025.

The Associated Press reported that Menefee defeated former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards, a fellow Democrat, in Saturday’s runoff election to fill the seat left vacant when Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner died last March.

Sylvester, a former longtime state lawmaker, served two terms as Houston mayor before winning election to Congress in 2024 to fill the seat of the late longtime Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

While Texas has redrawn its congressional maps for the 2026 midterms, as part of the high-stakes redistricting battle between President Donald Trump and Republicans versus Democrats, the special election used the state’s current district lines.

The addition of another lawmaker into the House Democrats’ ranks will give Republican leadership in the chamber further headaches.

And House GOP leaders are painfully aware of the politically difficult situation they’re in.

‘They’d better be here,’ Johnson said of his Republican members last month. ‘I told everybody, and not in jest, I said, no adventure sports, no risk-taking, take your vitamins. Stay healthy and be here.’

Relations between President Donald Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro have swung sharply from open confrontation to cautious engagement over the past year, setting the stage for a pivotal White House meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

Once considered a model partnership in the Western Hemisphere, U.S.–Colombia ties are now being tested by deep disagreements over drug policy, security cooperation and migration.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the visit, President Donald Trump suggested the tone between the two leaders has shifted in recent weeks, while underscoring that drug trafficking will dominate the talks.

‘I mean, he’s been very nice over the last month or two,’ Trump said during a press availability. ‘They were certainly critical before that. But somehow after the Venezuelan raid, he became very nice. He changed his attitude. Very much so.’

Trump said he is looking forward to meeting Petro in person, while making clear that narcotics remain a central concern. ‘He’s coming in. We’re going to be talking about drugs because tremendous amounts of drugs come out of his country,’ Trump said. ‘And I look forward to seeing him. We’re going to have a good meeting.’

Colombia has long been one of Washington’s closest partners in South America, particularly on counternarcotics and security. Bilateral cooperation expanded dramatically under Plan Colombia beginning in 2000, with U.S. military and law-enforcement assistance playing a central role in Colombia’s fight against insurgent groups and drug trafficking networks. That cooperation helped stabilize the country and eventually led the United States to designate Colombia a major Non-NATO ally. U.S. officials and analysts say that foundation has eroded in recent years amid diverging priorities and growing mistrust.

Tensions first erupted in January 2025, when Petro initially refused to allow U.S. deportation flights carrying Colombian nationals to land. The standoff prompted Trump to threaten tariffs, travel bans and visa restrictions before Colombia reversed course and agreed to accept the flights. The episode marked the first major rupture between the two leaders following Trump’s return to office.

Relations deteriorated further in September 2025, when Petro traveled to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, participated in protests and publicly urged U.S. soldiers to ‘disobey the orders of Trump.’ The remarks prompted the U.S. State Department to revoke Petro’s visa on Sept. 27, 2025. The following month, the Trump administration announced punitive measures targeting Petro and members of his inner circle, citing concerns about drug trafficking and security cooperation.

Colombian officials denounced the moves as politically motivated. Trump publicly labeled Petro a ‘drug leader,’ suspended U.S. aid and threatened additional punitive measures, pushing relations to what observers described as their lowest point in decades.

Signs of de-escalation emerged last month when the two leaders spoke by phone for the first time since the diplomatic breakdown. Trump later described the call as a ‘great honor,’ saying he appreciated Petro’s tone and looked forward to meeting him in person. Both sides agreed to restart dialogue on contentious issues, including counternarcotics, migration and trade. Colombia subsequently resumed U.S. deportation flights as part of broader efforts to stabilize relations, paving the way for Tuesday’s face-to-face meeting.

Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, said the visit highlights how much is now at stake for both countries.

‘Colombia remains the most important U.S. partner in South America, but that status is conditional, and lately it’s been under real strain, largely because of President Gustavo Petro’s tolerance for criminal networks that threaten both Colombian sovereignty and American security,’ Maldonado told Fox News Digital.

She said the Trump administration’s objectives heading into the meeting are likely focused on restoring what she described as ‘real cooperation’ on counternarcotics and security after years of drift.

‘Counternarcotics and security cooperation will likely dominate the conversation,’ Maldonado said, pointing to record cocaine production and what she described as growing tolerance within parts of the Colombian state for criminal networks. She argued that Washington has increasingly treated Colombia as failing to meet U.S. expectations in the fight against illegal drugs.

Maldonado said the administration has signaled it is no longer willing to accommodate governments it believes enable narco-criminal ecosystems.

‘What to watch going forward is whether Colombia chooses to course-correct or continues drifting toward the model next door, which blurred the line between the state and organized crime,’ she said. ‘Colombia earned its status as a major Non-NATO Ally through decades of sacrifice. That trust has been badly damaged, but it is not beyond repair if Colombia demonstrates genuine resolve against cartels, rejects political cover for criminal groups and realigns clearly with the United States on hemispheric security.’

She added, ‘This visit should make one thing unmistakable: the United States wants a strong, sovereign Colombia. It is in America’s best interest. However, it will not tolerate ambiguity when it comes to narco-terrorism, regional security or the safety of the American people,’ Maldonado said.  

The Senate’s compromise to end the ongoing partial government shutdown survived an important hurdle on Monday night, teeing up the legislation for a vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most bills get a chamberwide vote, advanced the upper chamber’s deal with the White House with little internal discord among Republicans on the panel.

But the measure could face issues on the House floor during a second procedural hurdle called a ‘rule vote,’ which needs a simple majority of lawmakers to unlock debate and a vote on final passage. House votes normally fall along partisan lines, and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will need virtually all GOP lawmakers to vote in lockstep to succeed.

The current partial shutdown, affecting roughly 78% of the federal government, is in its third day after Congress failed to send its remaining spending bills to President Donald Trump’s desk by Jan. 30.

House lawmakers passed an initial set of bipartisan bills to finish funding the government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026, Sept. 30, but Democrats rebelled against the plan en masse in protest of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Senate Democrats walked away from the deal in protest of its funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after federal law enforcement shot and killed a second U.S. citizen during anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demonstrations in Minneapolis.

Trump has responded by removing Customs and Border Protection (CBP), whose agents shot the second person, from the Midwest city, and replacing senior officials leading the crackdown there.

But Democrats are demanding further guardrails, like judicial warrants, to restrict agents in Minneapolis even further.

The resulting compromise would fund areas of government that were caught up in the political standoff — the departments of War, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Education — while simply extending the current federal spending levels for DHS for two weeks.

That two-week span is aimed at giving lawmakers time for more bipartisan negotiations on a longer-term deal.

The Senate passed the new deal on Friday, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is sharply divided from his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in his position.

Despite Schumer and Senate Democrats negotiating the plan with Trump’s White House, Jeffries told Johnson not to rely on House Democrats’ support to pass the bill.

It’s a stunning division between the top two Democrats in Congress, and one that will leave House Republicans largely on their own for much of the process of ending the shutdown.

But Trump managed to quell another rebellion on the conservative side earlier on Monday, easing at least one headache for House GOP leaders.

At least four House Republicans signaled they could vote against their own party during the rule vote on Tuesday over its exclusion of an unrelated measure requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

The president posted on Truth Social earlier Monday demanding ‘NO CHANGES’ to the current deal, effectively undercutting conservatives’ push for the legislation.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., had been leading a group of conservatives threatening to tank the rule vote if the SAVE America Act was not attached.

But Luna told reporters on Monday night that she and Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., both changed their minds after getting assurances from the White House that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would force a vote on the bill — called the SAVE America Act.

‘As of right now, with the current agreement that we have, as well as discussions, we will both be a yes on the rule,’ Luna said. ‘There is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow Senator Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing that that is going well and he is considering that…so we are very happy about that.’

It’s not clear if it’s enough for other House Republicans, however, some of whom are upset over the new deal opening up the need for bipartisan discussions on reining in Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Johnson can only lose one House GOP vote for the funding deal to survive a chamber-wide rule vote.

In the meantime, nearly 14,000 air traffic controllers are expected to work without pay. Members of the military could also miss paychecks if the shutdown goes on long enough, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be limited in its ability to communicate public health updates to Americans.

Planned Parenthood announced it is voluntarily dropping its lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s ability to withhold Medicaid payments under a provision in President Donald Trump’s tax bill.

The organization sued in July after President Donald Trump signed a spending bill that included prohibiting federal funding from going to abortion providers, a section of the legislation that Planned Parenthood attorneys argued unfairly targeted their clinics and would leave patients with even fewer health care options.

In December, a federal appeals court ruled that the administration could continue to withhold Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

A separate lawsuit filed by a group of mostly Democratic states suffered a similar setback in January but remains ongoing, and a related case filed in Maine was voluntarily dismissed in October.

A third lawsuit filed in Maine by a network of medical clinics that was also impacted by the spending bill was voluntarily dismissed in October.

Planned Parenthood moved on Friday to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

‘The goal of this lawsuit has always been to help Planned Parenthood patients get the care they deserve from their trusted provider. Based on the 1st Circuit’s decision, it is clear that this lawsuit is no longer the best way to accomplish that goal,’ the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah said in a joint statement.

Under the tax provision in Trump’s spending bill, Medicaid payments would be stopped if providers like Planned Parenthood primarily offered certain services, including abortion, and received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.

Planned Parenthood was not specifically named in the legislation, but the organization’s leaders have said the law is intended to affect their clinics across the country, as Republicans at the federal and state level continue to target the organization.

Federal law bans taxpayer money from covering most abortions, but many Republicans have long argued that abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood used Medicaid money for other health services to subsidize abortion.

Planned Parenthood said 23 of their health clinics have been forced to close due to Trump’s spending bill. More than 50 clinics closed in 18 states last year, with most located in the Midwest.

‘President Trump and his allies in Congress have weaponized the federal government to target Planned Parenthood at the expense of patients — stripping people of the care they rely on,’ Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

‘Through every attack, Planned Parenthood has never lost sight of its focus: ensuring patients can get the care they need from the provider they trust,’ she continued. ‘That will never change. Care continues, as does our commitment to fighting for everyone’s freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The ongoing partial government shutdown is now in its fourth day, but House GOP leaders are confident that the end is near.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is aiming to hold a chamber-wide procedural vote on the Senate’s funding compromise on Tuesday afternoon, teeing up a subsequent vote on final passage potentially later in the day.

It comes after he and President Donald Trump quelled a burgeoning rebellion by House conservatives who were threatening to tank the measure if an unrelated election integrity bill was not attached to the funding legislation.

House GOP leaders had been watching anxiously for signs of defections on a House-wide ‘rule vote’ that appears to have been largely abated after the rebellion’s ringleader, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told reporters she was backing off her threats on Monday night.

A rule vote allows for lawmakers to open up debate on a given bill, and normally falls on partisan lines even if the underlying legislation has bipartisan support.

Under current House margins, Johnson can only lose support from one GOP lawmaker to still advance legislation on a party-line vote.

Meanwhile, Luna had corralled a group of conservatives to vote against advancing the rule if a bill called the SAVE America Act was not attached to the final funding bill.

The SAVE America Act would require voter ID for casting ballots in federal elections and mandate proof of citizenship in the voter registration process, among other election safeguards.

Luna and Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Fla., had both signaled to Fox News Digital that they would vote against the rule if it was not attached.

But such a move, if successful, would force the bill to be returned to the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., warned it would be dead on arrival.

Luna told reporters on Monday night that she and Burchett both changed their minds, however, after getting assurances from the White House that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would force a vote on the SAVE America Act.

‘As of right now, with the current agreement that we have, as well as discussions, we will both be a yes on the rule,’ Luna said. ‘There is something called a standing filibuster that would effectively allow Senator Thune to put voter ID on the floor of the Senate. We are hearing that that is going well and he is considering that…so we are very happy about that.’

The Senate compromise would fully fund the departments of War, Health and Human Services (HHS), Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Education and Labor through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, lining up with previously passed spending bills.

But Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding would only see current levels extended for two weeks in order to give Democrats and Republicans time to negotiate a bill that would more significantly rein in Trump’s immigration crackdown.

It passed the Senate on Friday after Democrats there walked away from an earlier bipartisan deal that would have also fully funded DHS. Left-wing lawmakers demanded further guardrails on Trump’s immigration enforcement after the second of two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis during anti-Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests there.

And despite House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., indicating to Johnson that Democrats would not help him pass the new deal, there are some signs that it will get bipartisan support.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said she would vote for the legislation after voting against the original House-passed deal.

‘I will take those ten days and see what we can get,’ she said of the stopgap funding for DHS. ‘And at the end of those ten days, if if we can’t decide to go with it, then it’s a no vote, and Department of Homeland Security is shuttered…but not the other five bills because they’re good bills with good things for the people that we care about.’

In the meantime, nearly 14,000 air traffic controllers are expected to work without pay. Members of the military could also miss paychecks if the shutdown goes on long enough, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be limited in its ability to communicate public health updates to Americans.

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.