Free Republic

NEW YORK — Did the United Nations Development Program use an American charitable organization to secretly funnel nearly $2 million, and perhaps much more, to North Korea — over and above the millions in hard currency it is already known to have given the Kim Jong-il regime in violation of its own rules?UNDP documents seen by FOX News raise those questions, and others about the relationship between UNDP and the humanitarian group Mercy Corps, also known as Mercy Corps International. The documents show millions of dollars allocated to Mercy Corps International for North Korea seem to have escaped normal UNDP...

The Supreme Court rejected a case Monday brought by an atheist who wanted to scrub “In God We Trust,” the U.S. motto, from the nation’s currency, claiming it was an entanglement of state and religion. Michael Newdow, an activist who previous challenged reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, had set his sights on money, but lost at the district, circuit and now Supreme Court levels. On behalf of a group of atheists, Mr. Newdow argued America’s money lacked an reference to God until 1864, when it was added in. He said that amounted to an endorsement of religion.

In a small, windowless room in the bowels of the Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square, Rob Holsen washes the hotel's money. Every penny, nickel, dime and quarter. Three times a week, Holsen soaps, rinses, dries and rolls money. He estimates that $1.5 million in spare change has passed through his hands in the past 20 years. "That's a lot of pieces of money," Holsen said as he began a recent cleaning. Since 1938, all the coins the St. Francis acquires through its cafe, restaurants and bars - tarnished by the grime of the outside world - have made...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents along with Colombian customs inspectors and Colombian National Police (CNP) officers seized approximately $11.2 million Wednesday at the port of Buenaventura, Colombia. The seizure was the result of a joint investigation conducted by the CNP and ICE Attaché Bogota. The U.S. currency was hidden in two shipping containers, each containing 20 big bags filled with ammonium sulfate. Sixteen of the 40 bags contained $700,000 in $20 dollar bill denominations. The containers departed from the port of Manzanillo, Mexico, destined to the west coast port of Buenaventura, Colombia. According to...

A smuggler arriving from Sydney has been caught at a New Zealand airport with almost $US1.3 million in counterfeit notes. Mustafa Yousif Ibrahim was arrested at Auckland International Airport as he came off a flight from Sydney last night. Ibrahim was born in Sudan but is believed to have been made a New Zealand resident in the early 1990s after arriving as a refugee. A police summary of facts, presented in the Manukau District Court today, said the counterfeit money was found by customs officers as they searched Ibrahim's bags before he came through the entry gate at the airport....

NEW YORK - Almost a year has passed now since U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe made headlines by introducing his anti-penny bill, yet these pesky one-cent coins continue to jingle uselessly in people's pockets. Can nobody rid America of this copper-coated scourge? Kolbe, an Arizona Republican, is doing his best, although his proposed Legal Tender Modernization Act is languishing in a subcommittee. The bill would not ban pennies, but merely discourage their use by establishing a system under which cash transactions would be rounded up or down. That would render the penny unnecessary. "It's practically useless in everyday life," complains Neena...