Global Cash Crisis: United Nations Says It Could Have Zero Cash by July as US Withholds Dues (Bloomberg)

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The United Nations could run out of cash by July, its chief warned, as the organization continues to tackle a financial crisis largely fueled by overdue US payments.

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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told member states that the world body is facing “imminent financial collapse” and that if historical trends continue, its regular budget could become depleted in the next six months.

In an interview with Politico on Sunday, President Trump dismissed the idea that the U.N. could ever leave New York, even as senior U.N. officials warn that the organization could be forced to scale back operations and shut its New York HQ if it ran out of cash, Politico’s Sophia Cai writes in to Playbook.

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“I don’t think it’s appropriate. The U.N. is not leaving New York, and it’s not leaving the United States, because the U.N. has tremendous potential,” said Trump, who suggested that he could quickly reverse the organization’s financial fortunes if the agency reached out, according to Politico.

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“If they came to Trump and told him, I’d get everybody to pay up, just like I got NATO to pay up, right? All I have to do is call these countries. If the head of the U.N. would call the president of the United States, I would make the appropriate phone calls and they would send checks within minutes,” he said.

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In a turn from his sharp criticisms of the organization last year, Trump insisted the U.N. remains vital — especially after his presidency. “When I’m no longer around to settle wars, the U.N. can,” he said. “It has tremendous potential. Tremendous.”

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The institution has long been strapped for cash, but it has been especially squeezed since the start of Trump’s second term as the US has assailed international organizations and refused to pay its dues — instead taking a more selective approach to the causes it helps fund.

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The US is traditionally responsible for 22% of the organization’s budget. It still owes the UN about $1.4 billion in arrears for years past, on top of a $767 million bill for this year’s budget, according to a senior UN official. In 2025, the White House did not pay any of its $826 million in dues.

Taken together, US arrears total about $2.2 billion, accounting for roughly 95% of all outstanding UN arrears.

Today in Trump

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Trump Says He’ll Close Kennedy Center for Two Years in July (Bloomberg)

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President Donald Trump said he plans to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing  Arts for about two years to carry out renovations after his takeover prompted a significant backlash.

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Trump has paid significant attention to the Kennedy Center during his second term in the White House, becoming its board chair and renaming it the Trump Kennedy Center without approval from Congress.

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His decision to close the whole facility comes after a number of prominent artists canceled performances at the facility and with ticket sales declining. The Washington National Opera moved its operations from the center to an auditorium at George Washington University partly because of new funding rules, while the primary cast of Les Misérables refused to perform in May when Trump was in attendance, leaving it to their understudies.

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Ezra Klein: Trump Has Overwhelmed Himself (New York Times Opinion)

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The strategy of the Trump administration over the last year has been to move so fast, to do so much, that the opposition could never find its footing, Ezra Klein writes in a New York Times op-ed.

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This was Steve Bannon’s insight, and it was real: Attention is limited. The media, the opposition, the electorate — they can only focus on so much. Overwhelm their capacity for attention and you overwhelm their capacity to think, organize and oppose.

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But what you are doing to the opposition you are also doing to yourself. “It is a strategy that forces you into overreach,” Klein wrote last year. “To keep the zone flooded, you have to keep acting, keep moving, keep creating new cycles of outrage or fear. You overwhelm yourself.” And that is what happened. The Trump administration is overwhelmed — by its own violence, its own cruelty, its own lies, its own chaos.

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Foreign Fortune: ‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company (Wall Street Journal)

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Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.

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The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named US envoy to the Middle East, the documents said. 

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Crypto Crash: Bitcoin Wipeout Erases Entire Trump-Era Gains (Bloomberg)

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Price, relevance, conviction — Bitcoin is bleeding all three.

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The world’s largest cryptocurrency slipped below $76,000 in thin weekend trading, dropping about 40% from its 2025 peak and revisiting levels last seen in the aftermath of the “Liberation Day” tariff fallout.

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What began as a sharp crash in October has morphed into something more corrosive: a selloff shaped not by panic, but by absence of buyers, momentum and belief.

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What I'm Reading

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In Photos: Nationwide ICE Protests Enter Second Weekend as Thousands Rally Across the US (NPR)

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Thousands of people attended “ICE Out of Everywhere” protests across the United States this weekend, with demonstrations held in cities including Minneapolis, New York City, Washington, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, among others.

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In many locations, temperatures dipped below freezing, yet protesters still turned out in large numbers, bundled in mittens, hats, and heavy winter coats.

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[Above] Protest scenes in Minneapolis, Minnesota (Photo: AP / Getty Images)
[Below] Protest scenes in New York City [left] and Chicago [right]. (Photos: Getty Images)

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Court Order: Judge Declines to Pause Minnesota Immigration Agent Surge (Bloomberg)

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A US judge has denied Minnesota’s request to pause the Trump administration’s recent surge of thousands of immigration enforcement agents in the state.

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US District Judge Katherine Menendez’s order will allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies to maintain approximately 3,000 officers deployed in Minnesota.

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Menendez’s order isn’t a final ruling on the legality of the operation, but it marks an early setback for state and local authorities who have condemned the federal operation as an act of political retaliation that is terrorizing Minnesotans.

Immigration Shift: The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline (Bloomberg)

If there’s one single consistent advantage the United States has carried since its founding, it is its ability to draw talent and expand its population. Now, as the country prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, the US risks recording a historic and economic milestone decades ahead of schedule: 2026 may see the first real population decline in American history.

Even if that milestone doesn’t happen this year, there’s broad agreement among experts on both sides of the immigration debate that Trump’s second term is hastening a critical point — when net migration into the US stops offsetting the declining births and rising deaths that come with an aging native-born population.

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Blue Wave Watch: Democrat Clinches Shock Win in Texas State Senate Runoff (Bloomberg)

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The Democratic candidate for a Texas state Senate seat in a conservative district near Dallas won a runoff election Saturday, overcoming a late intervention from President Trump in a race viewed as a bellwether for this year’s midterm elections.

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Taylor Rehmet defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss in the race for the seat in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth. Trump carried the district by 17 percentage points over Kamala Harris in 2024.

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Despite Trump’s endorsement of Wambsganss, Rehmet won by more than 11 points. A Democrat has not held that state Senate seat since 1983, Rehmet’s campaign said in a statement.

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Latest on the Epstein Files: Justice Department Releases Millions of Pages of Epstein Documents (New York Times)

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The Department of Justice on Friday released the largest batch of Jeffrey Epstein files to date: three million pages, 2,000 videos and some 180,000 images. The pages consist of email chains, text messages, news articles, internal investigative reports and other material tied to Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

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The files appeared to contain at least 4,500 documents that mentioned Trump. One was a summary that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation assembled last summer of more than a dozen tips from members of the public involving Trump and Epstein.

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UK Defense Reset: Keir Starmer Renews UK Bid to Join EU Defense Fund After Rejection (Bloomberg)

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Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he still wants the UK to join the European Union’s flagship €150 billion ($178 billion) defense fund after negotiations last year ended in failure.

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Britain had sought to participate in the first round of the Security Action for Europe program, or SAFE, which allows countries to apply for funding to purchase military equipment as the continent tries to collectively rearm in the face of Russian aggression.

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Au Revoir, Zoom: French Officials Shift to Local Alternative from US Tech in Digital Sovereignty Push (New York Times)

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu of France announced on Thursday that French government officials will stop using American-owned video conference software in favor of a new French-made application, in the latest move by European leaders to reduce their dependence on US digital infrastructure.

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🔊 New Episode Alert: The Daily Read Podcast is live with an AI-fueled breakdown of today’s biggest headlines. Smarter context, sharper analysis—stream it now on Spotify or  Apple Podcasts.

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In Memoriam: Catherine O’Hara, ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Actress, Dies at 71 (New York Times)

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Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy Award-winning comic actress who endeared herself to audiences, blending a maternal Everywoman quality with a sly touch of the surreal, as showcased in blockbusters like the “Home Alone” films as well as offbeat fare like the hit TV series “Schitt’s Creek,” died on Friday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 71.

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New Tennis King Crowned: Carlos Alcaraz Beats Novak Djokovic in Australian Open to Become the Youngest Man to Complete a Career Grand Slam (Associated Press)

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Box Office Buzz... For Now: ‘Melania’ Arrives With Strong Box Office Showing, Grossing $7 Million (Forbes)

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Although the film was panned by critics, earning an 11% on Rotten Tomatoes as of Sunday, the film is being praised by viewers turning up at the theaters.

Less impressed: The critics, according to Politico Playbook. Empire calls it  “political propaganda at its most transparent — cynical, pointless, and very, very boring.” The NYT notes sadly that the viewer is “no closer to knowing its famous subject than you were at the start.” Vulture describes the first lady’s voiceover as “a numbing litany of meaningless observations,” while N.Y. Mag says her “interactions with other people feel rehearsed or reenacted.” “If you were making a movie that parodied the current first lady,” Vanity Fair muses, “I’m not sure what you’d do differently.”  The Atlantic calls it a “horror movie.” And honestly — that’s just a sample, Playbook writes. 

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Despite the unexpected theatrical turnout, the movie still has a long way to go to make back the money Amazon reportedly spent on it, including $40 million for the rights and $35 million on marketing.

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Grammy Winners: Bad Bunny Takes Home Album of the Year, Kendrick Lamar and SZA Win Record of the Year (New York Times)

Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar both made history at the 68th annual Grammy Awards, on a night when artists made political statements throughout the ceremony. The Puerto Rican superstar took home the Grammy Award for best album for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” the first Spanish-language album to win the top honor on Sunday, while Lamar’s win for record of the year for “Luther,” his duet with SZA, made him the most honored rapper ever.

Today in NYC: Staten Island Chuck the Groundhog Weighs In on Winter’s Fate (SI Live)

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Happy Groundhog Day as we await Staten Island Chuck's prediction this morning of early spring or six more weeks of winter.

Groundhog Day in New York has a storied history:

Back in 2014: It was a dramatic Groundhog Day when the NYC mayor Bill de Blasio said: “Chuck and my predecessor didn’t always get along, but I’m hoping we can start a new day,” and then proceeded to drop the poor animal (watch here).

However, it turns out that the groundhog he dropped was Charlotte, Chuck’s mate, who had been swapped out before the ceremony. Unfortunately, Charlotte died seven days later, of what the Staten Island Zoo referred to as “unknown natural causes.” At least Charlotte died a martyr, making another accurate prediction, this time for six more weeks of winter.

Mike Bloomberg paid a visit to Chuck during his time as mayor in 2009, when the groundhog successfully predicted six more weeks of winter:

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Fast forward to today's recognition of Groundhog Day: stay tuned this morning at 8:30 AM ET, when Chuck reveals his consensus on whether we’re in for six more weeks of winter. Meanwhile, Punxsutawney Phil—the nation’s most famous groundhog—spotted his shadow at sunrise this morning, forecasting six more weeks of winter.

Groundhog Day (1993), the comedy about grumpy meteorologist Phil Connors reliving the same day in Punxsutawney, is available to stream on Apple TV.

Best of SNL

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“This weekend a documentary about Melania Trump debuted in theaters, its title ‘Wicked: For Real.’”
-- Colin Jost

"Officials in London announced that they will create a new national police force that's being called the British FBI. It will be run by the British equivalent of Kash Patel: Mr. Bean."

-- Colin Jost

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On border czar Tom Homan's arrival in Minneapolis: 
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"Call me crazy, but I just don’t see this guy calming things down. This feels like trying to quit cocaine by taking up crack."
-- Colin Jost

And from the Cold Open: White House Border Czar Tom Homan (Pete Davidson) meets with ICE agents (Kenan Thompson, James Austin Johnson, Mikey Day, Ben Marshall, Andrew Dismukes, Jeremy Culhane) in Minneapolis. Click the photo below to watch.
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