U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Afghanistan as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” accusing the Taliban of “unjustly” detaining Americans and other foreign nationals.

In his announcement on Monday, Rubio said the Taliban continues to use “terrorist tactics” that he insisted “need to end.”

“I am designating Afghanistan as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention,” Rubio said in a statement. “The Taliban continues to use terrorist tactics, kidnapping individuals for ransom or to seek policy concessions. These despicable tactics need to end.”

The secretary also called on the terror group to free a pair of Americans who are “unjustly detained” in Afghanistan.

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“It is not safe for Americans to travel to Afghanistan because the Taliban continues to unjustly detain our fellow Americans and other foreign nationals,” he said. “The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever.”

Coyle, 64, was detained more than a year ago without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to his family, noting that he still has not been charged. His family said he was legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher.

Habibi, a 38-year-old American citizen who was born in Afghanistan, was taken along with his driver from their vehicle in the capital of Kabul in August 2022 by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, according to the State Department.

The FBI said Habibi was previously Afghanistan’s director of civil aviation and worked for the Kabul-based telecommunications company Asia Consultancy Group. The FBI said the Taliban detained 29 other employees of the company but has released most of them.

Habibi has not been heard from since his arrest, and the Taliban has not disclosed his whereabouts or condition, according to the State Department and FBI. The Taliban has previously denied it detained Habibi.

The U.S. is also calling for the return of the remains of Paul Overby, an author who was last seen close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in 2014, according to Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the situation.

The State Department could restrict the use of U.S. passports for travel to Afghanistan if the Taliban does not meet the U.S. government’s demands, the sources told the outlet.

A passport restriction of this kind is currently only in place for North Korea.

The Taliban called the decision by Rubio to designate Afghanistan a “state sponsor of wrongful detention” regrettable, adding that it wanted to resolve the matter through dialogue.

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The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 during the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal from the country that ended the 20-year war in the region.

Rubio gave the “state sponsor of wrongful detention” designation to Iran late last month, just one day before the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country. He warned that the U.S. could restrict travel to Iran over its detention of U.S. citizens, but there have not been any restrictions yet.

“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said at the time.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A professional gambler and FBI informant has made good on his threat to take legal action against Paramount Skydance president Jeff Shell, as attorneys for Robert “R.J.” Cipriani have filed a 67-page complaint against the media exec in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Among the allegations Cipriani has brought against Shell are breach of oral contract and fraud, charges related to a reformatted Spanish-language TV show that never got off the ground. The court document claims that Shell broke “a clear promise to help [the] plaintiff develop an English-language version” of Roku Channel’s four-part series Serenata de las Estrellas, which was co-produced by Cipriani in 2023.

Cipriani is suing Shell for $150 million in damages.

“This case arises from the oldest form of fraud: A powerful man took everything a less powerful man had to offer, promised to repay him, lied to him when he asked about it and then refused to compensate him at all,” the second paragraph of the complaint states.

Cipriani claims he had provided Shell with what amounts to 18 months of “sophisticated, high-value crisis communications services,” all of which went uncompensated. Shell allegedly agreed to develop Star Serenade, an adaptation of Serenata, in exchange for these services, but did not follow through.

The legal document also includes allegations that Shell had disclosed sensitive information about the Paramount’s bid to acquire the Warner Bros. Discovery assets. Cipriani states that Shell in a Feb. 2 meeting had told him that PSKY “intended to enhance and ‘sweeten’ its pending hostile tender offer … to $30 per share in cash,” information that was not made public until Feb. 10. (Cipriani claimed that Shell during that same meeting referred to WBD CEO David Zaslav as a “suck-up.”)

Cipriani went on to state that Shell told him, “We’re paying way too much for Warner Bros. If we could just wait another year, we could get it a whole lot cheaper.”

Paramount and WBD formally entered a $111 billion merger agreement on Feb. 27. Should the deal be met with regulatory approval, the combined CBS Sports/TNT Sports portfolio will bring the rights to the NFL, NHL, MLB, college football, the UFC, the Masters and March Madness under one roof. Shell did not participate in the briefing Paramount convened with analysts the following Monday.

A few pages deeper into the complaint, Cipriani stated he had filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission related to disclosures Shell had made to him regarding the then-pending $7.7 billion Paramount-UFC deal. Cipriani claims Shell told him about the pact 26 days before it went public. Shell is said to have shared details of the negotiations with Cipriani despite the fact that “even UFC president Dana White did not yet know of the transaction.” (Oddly enough, Cipriani’s complaint alleges that Shell characterized the talks as “very hush hush” while he was spilling the beans.)

The legal complaint includes a screen shot of what appears to be a WhatsApp conversation between Cipriani and Shell, in which the latter states, “We are buying ALL of the UFC rights for the next 7 years for Paramount.”

When a draft of Cipriani’s complaint began circulating last month, an attorney representing Shell said the document was “riddled with clear errors of fact and law.” With the complaint now filed, Shell will have to opportunity to formally rebut Cipriani.

Shell is currently the subject of an internal Paramount investigation related to Cipriani’s claims and is expected to remain on the sidelines until the inquiry is complete. That said, no official action has been taken, and he remains on the job as of Tuesday afternoon.

As Cuba faces rolling blackouts, food shortages and renewed protests, Cuban human rights activist Rosa María Payá is warning in an interview to Fox News Digital that the island’s deepening crisis cannot be solved with economic reforms alone and is urging the United States to maintain pressure on the communist government in Havana.

The recent outages and shortages are tied to Cuba’s worsening energy and economic crisis. 

A recent nationwide blackout was triggered by a failure at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the island’s largest power station, cutting electricity across much of the country, according to Reuters. The crisis has been compounded by fuel shortages after the Trump administration moved to curtail oil shipments to the island, particularly from Venezuela — one of Cuba’s main suppliers. 

Cuban officials say U.S. sanctions have worsened the country’s economic difficulties, while repeated power plant failures and an aging electrical grid have left millions facing prolonged blackouts that have fueled growing public frustration and protests.

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The state-run company blamed U.S. sanctions in an official statement, saying, “Without ending the financial blockade, there can be no permanent energy stability,” according to CubaHeadlines.

The Trump administration has increased pressure on Cuba in recent months, tightening sanctions and targeting oil shipments that help power the island’s energy system. The measures are part of a broader effort to weaken the Cuban government and support democratic change on the island. 

“To President Trump, it’s important for you to know that the Cuban people are grateful for what this administration is doing and that we are ready, and we want to make Cuba great again,” Payá said, addressing him directly. “And that means an end to the communist dictatorship, not just a new economy, but a new republic.” 

Her appeal comes as Cuba has re-emerged in Washington’s foreign policy discussions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and one of the most prominent Cuban–American voices in U.S. politics, long has advocated a tougher stance toward Havana and stronger support for pro-democracy movements on the island. 

The Trump administration recently has increased pressure on the Cuban government, including measures targeting oil shipments that help sustain the island’s struggling energy sector. 

Trump praised Rubio during a press conference Tuesday and suggested he could play a central role in any potential negotiations with Havana.

“Marco Rubio is doing a great job,” Trump said. “I think he’s going to go down as the greatest secretary of state in history. They trust Marco.”

“We want to work with President Trump and with Secretary Rubio, the opposition is united,” Payá said. “We have a plan. It’s called the Freedom Accord,” she added, referring to a democratic transition framework promoted by opposition groups in Cuba. “We are ready to lead this process. The moment is now, Mr. President.”

Opposition groups have developed the Freedom Accord, a political roadmap for democratic change, which she says would guide a transition away from the current system in Cuba. 

Payá, 37, who escaped the country 13 years ago, has spent the past decade advocating internationally for democratic change in Cuba. 

She is the daughter of prominent dissident Oswaldo Payá, founder of the Christian Liberation Movement and architect of the Varela Project, a petition campaign in the early 2000s that gathered more than 25,000 signatures demanding free elections and civil liberties in Cuba.

Her father died in 2012 alongside fellow activist Harold Cepero in what Payá describes as an assassination by the Cuban regime. Cuban authorities said the men were killed in a car crash in eastern Cuba, but the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights later concluded there were “serious indications” that Cuban state agents were involved in the deaths.

“After the Cuban regime assassinated my father … I have been trying to follow his legacy together with many, many other Cubans on the island and in exile that today believe that we have a real chance and freedom,” she said, describing a movement that today includes activists both on the island and in exile.

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The crisis inside Cuba has reached a level where basic survival has become a daily struggle for many families, according to Payá.  

“The situation today is that mothers don’t know if they are going to be able to feed their child tonight,” she said. “Most of the island has been suffering blackouts that last for days on many occasions.”The island has experienced waves of unrest in recent years driven by economic collapse and political repression. 

The largest demonstrations against the regime erupted on July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the island chanting “freedom” in the biggest protests since the 1959 revolution.

Authorities responded with mass arrests and prison sentences for many demonstrators. 

For Payá, those protests reflected something deeper than economic frustration.

“The Cuban people have been fighting for freedom for the last 67 years,” she said. “We are demanding political freedom, not just a new economy.”

Despite comparisons between Cuba’s crisis and the political turmoil in Venezuela, Payá argues the situation in Cuba is fundamentally different. 

“Cuba’s situation is quite different,” she said. “This is the longest running communist dictatorship in the Western hemisphere.” 

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While she emphasized that Cubans themselves must ultimately drive political change, Payá said international pressure remains essential because of the regime’s ability to repress dissent.

Her appeal comes as Cuba has re-emerged in Washington’s foreign policy discussions.

Payá said the Cuban opposition hopes the United States will continue supporting democratic change on the island.

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“I believe that President Trump knows very well, better than anyone, the difference between a real deal and a better one,” she said. “He understands that this dictatorship must end.”

“To end the crisis,” she added, “we need to end the regime.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Rubio for comment and has not yet received a reply. 

Reuters contributed to this report.