National Desk

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Second Ex-Altar Boy Says He Was Abused by Priest Who Fondled Foley

MIAMI — Another former altar boy says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by the same retired Catholic priest who acknowledged fondling Rep. Mark Foley when Mr. Foley was a teenager, the man’s attorney said yesterday. The new allegations against the Reverend Anthony Mercieca were made by a man who lived in North Miami and was an altar boy at St. James Catholic Church, where Rev. Mercieca worked, attorney Jeffrey Herman said. Mr. Herman said he planned to file a lawsuit yesterday against the Archdiocese of Miami. His client, now 40 and identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe no. 26, says Mr. Mercieca abused him when he was about 12 years old.

— Associated Press

Famous Lucy Skeleton Set for Display in U.S.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — One of the world’s most famous fossils — the 3.2 million-year-old Lucy skeleton unearthed in Ethiopia in 1974 — will go on display abroad for the first time in America, officials said Tuesday. Even the Ethiopian public has only seen Lucy twice. The Lucy exhibition at the Ethiopian Natural History Museum in the capital, Addis Ababa, is a replica while the real remains are usually locked in a vault. A team from the Museum of Natural Science in Houston, Texas, spent four years negotiating the American tour, which will start in Houston next September. Debate still rages over how close an ancestor to man Lucy would be, as many experts suspect she was anatomically far closer to apes than humans.

— Associated Press

Scientists: Half of the World’s Coral Reefs May Die Within 25 Years

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands — Researchers fear more than half the world’s coral reefs could die in less than 25 years and say global warming may at least partly to blame. Sea temperatures are rising, weakening the reefs’ resistance to increased pollutants, such as runoff from construction sites and toxins from boat paints. The fragile reefs are hosts to countless marine plants and animals. “Think of it as a high school chemistry class,” the Caribbean and Gulf Mexico director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Billy Causey, said.

— Associated Press

7-Eleven Pulls Drink Named Cocaine

DALLAS — Convenience-store operator 7-Eleven Inc. is telling franchises to pull a high-caffeine drink from its shelves because of the product’s name: Cocaine. The company acted after getting complaints from parents of teenagers, who are a big part of the drink’s target audience. “Our merchandising team believes the product’s name promotes an image which we didn’t want to be associated with,” a spokeswoman for 7-Eleven, Margaret Chabris, said.

— Associated Press

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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