The U.N. chief has told member states the organisation is at risk of “imminent financial collapse,” citing unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces the global body to return unspent money, a letter seen by Reuters on Friday showed.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has repeatedly spoken about the organisation’s worsening liquidity crisis but this is his starkest warning yet, and it comes as its main contributor the U.S. is retreating from multilateralism on numerous fronts.

“The crisis is deepening, threatening programme delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future,” Guterres wrote in a letter to ambassadors dated January 28.

The U.S. has slashed voluntary funding to U.N. agencies and refused to make mandatory payments to its regular and peacekeeping budgets.

U.S. President Donald Trump has described the U.N. as having “great potential” but said it is not fulfilling that, and he has launched a Board of Peace which some fear could undermine the older international body.

Founded in 1945, the U.N. has 193 member states and works to maintain international peace and security, promote human rights, foster social and economic development, and coordinate humanitarian aid.

In his letter, Guterres said “decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced.”

He did not say which state or states he was referring to, and a U.N. spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Under U.N. rules, contributions depend on the size of the economy of each member state. The U.S. accounts for 22% of the core budget followed by China with 20%.

But by the end of 2025 there was a record $1.57 billion in outstanding dues, Guterres said, without naming the nations that owed them.

“Either all Member States honour their obligations to pay in full and on time – or Member States must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,” he said.

U.N. officials say the U.S. currently owes $2.19 billion to the regular U.N. budget, another $1.88 billion for active peace-keeping missions and $528 million for past peace-keeping missions.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Guterres letter.

Guterres launched a reform task force last year, known as UN80, which seeks to cut costs and improve efficiency. To that end, states agreed to cut the 2026 budget by around 7% to $3.45 billion.

Still, Guterres warned in the letter that the organisation could run out of cash by July.

One of the problems is a rule now seen as antiquated whereby the global body has to credit back hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent dues to states each year.

“In other words, we are trapped in a Kafkaesque cycle expected to give back cash that does not exist,” said Guterres, referring to author Franz Kafka who wrote about oppressive bureaucratic processes.

Police arrested a man who sprayed Democratic U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar with a foul-smelling liquid in Minneapolis on Tuesday as she condemned the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Minnesota.

Omar, the frequent target of political insults from President Donald Trump, was uninjured. A security guard immediately grabbed the man and took him to the ground, according to a Reuters witness and video of the town hall event, Reuters reported.

Police said they arrested the man for third-degree assault.

In her remarks, Omar was criticizing ICE and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding that Noem resign after the recent shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during Trump’s immigration enforcement surge.

“ICE cannot be reformed, it cannot be rehabilitated, we must abolish ICE for good, and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem must resign or face impeachment,” Omar said, to applause.

Moments later, a man seated in a front row stepped toward her and sprayed her with the contents of what police described as a syringe, telling Omar, “You must resign.”

Omar defiantly took a few steps toward him, with her hand raised, before he was subdued.

She continued her remarks after a short break, resisting associates’ urging to seek medical attention, saying she just needed a napkin. Her office later issued a statement saying she was OK.

Forensic scientists were gathering evidence at the scene, Minneapolis police said in a statement.

A Reuters witness said the liquid smelled of ammonia and caused minor throat irritation.

“I learned at a young age, you don’t give in to threats,” Omar told the audience, after refusing to suspend the event. “You look them in the face and you stand strong.”

Trump has repeatedly targeted Omar in public remarks and social media posts, also taking aim at her Somali nationality.

“Ilhan Omar is garbage,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting in December. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”

Omar, 43, came to the United States as a 12-year-old girl and became a U.S. citizen in 2000.

On Tuesday, U.S. Capitol Police said its threat assessment cases rose in 2025 for the third year in a row, spiking nearly 58% from 2024.

In 2025, it investigated 14,938 instances of statements, behavior, and communications directed against members of Congress, their families, staff, and the Capitol complex, it added, up from 9,474 in 2024.

Officials in U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration defended on Sunday the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration agents in Minneapolis, even as video evidence contradicted their version of events and as tensions grew between local law enforcement and federal officers.

As residents visited a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles in frigid temperatures and snow to mark Saturday’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, Trump administration officials stated that Pretti assaulted officers, compelling them to fire in self-defense. That account was at odds with videos recorded by bystanders, Reuters reported.

Pretti is the second American to be fatally shot by federal immigration officers this month in Minneapolis, where Trump, a Republican, has deployed thousands of armed and masked agents in a deportation effort with little precedent.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, again called on Trump to pull federal agents out of the state, which has asked a federal judge to restrain what it says are unconstitutional excesses in Trump’s surge.

“The victims are Border Patrol agents,” Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

That official line, echoed by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other members of the administration, drew outrage from local Democratic leaders and law enforcement and Democrats in the U.S. Congress, who pointed to the bystander videos that show all Pretti had in his hands was a cellphone before agents grappled him to the ground and ultimately shot him at close range.

Federal agents over the past few weeks have been met by countless angry residents protesting in the city’s icy streets, some of them blowing whistles. Thousands of people again filled the streets of Minneapolis on Sunday to protest against the surge in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, chanting and waving signs saying: “ICE OUT!”

HOLDING A PHONE, NOT A GUN

Videos of Saturday’s killing verified by Reuters show Pretti, 37, holding a phone in his hand, not a gun, as he tries to help other protesters who had been pushed to the ground by agents.

Pretti can be seen filming while a federal agent pushes away one woman and shoves another woman to the ground. Pretti moves between the agent and the women, then raises his left arm to shield himself as the agent pepper sprays him.

Several agents then take hold of Pretti, who struggles with them, and force him onto his hands and knees. As the agents pin Pretti down, someone shouts what sounds like a warning about a gun.

Video footage then appears to show one of the agents removing a handgun from Pretti’s waistband area and stepping away from the group with it.

Moments later, an officer points his gun at Pretti’s back and fires four shots in quick succession. More shots are heard as another agent appears to fire at Pretti.

Darius Reeves, the former head of ICE’s field office in Baltimore, told Reuters that federal agents’ apparent lack of communication was troubling. “It’s clear no one is communicating to me, based on my observation of how that team responded,” Reeves said.

Minnesota officials say Pretti had a valid state permit to carry a concealed gun in public, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled was a constitutional right in 2022.

‘VIDEOS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES’

Brian O’Hara, the Minneapolis police chief, told the CBS “Face the Nation” program that “the videos speak for themselves,” calling the Trump administration’s version of events deeply disturbing. He said he had seen no evidence that Pretti brandished a gun.

Tensions in the city were already running high after a federal immigration agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Renee Good on January 7 after approaching her in her parked vehicle. Trump officials said she was trying to ram the agent with the vehicle but other observers said bystander video suggests she was attempting to steer away from the officer who shot her.

State and local law enforcement are investigating whether the agent who killed Good broke any Minnesota laws. The U.S. Justice Department withdrew its cooperation from that probe, and at least a dozen federal prosecutors said they were resigning over the Justice Department’s handling of Good’s killing.

At Minnesota’s request, a federal judge issued a temporary order on Saturday night forbidding the Trump administration from destroying or altering evidence related to Pretti’s killing.

Chief executives of some of Minnesota’s largest companies, including Target, Cargill and Best Buy, published a letter calling for the “immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

In separate statements, former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton decried the killings of Good and Pretti, with Clinton accusing the Trump administration of lying and Obama saying American values are under assault.

“This has to stop,” Barack and Michelle Obama said.

Pretti worked as an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital. On Sunday, more than 200 healthcare workers gathered at the site of his killing, leaving flowers and other tributes. One woman in medical scrubs, when asked what brought her out, said she had worked with Pretti and began to sob.

“He was caring and he was kind,” she said, asking not to be named for fear of retribution from the federal government. “None of this makes any sense.”

At a Sunday press conference, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison recounted a story that he said was from his 31-year-old son, a nurse in Minnesota’s healthcare system.

“When he was at work today and last night, he said, ‘Look, our colleagues were crying and in tears, and they took this hit to one of their own very personally,'” Ellison told reporters.

Trump has defended the operations as necessary to reduce crime and enforce immigration laws.