Beating victim is taken off life support

A condominium complex was damaged yesterday by a three-alarm fire that officials said might have been started by lightning. Firefighters responded about 4:25 p.m. to an attic fire in a three-unit townhouse on Erin Road. The fire spread to the second floor, but a swift emergency response kept the blaze from damaging the other two units. One firefighter was treated for dehydration. Fire units from Canton, Sharon, Brockton, Avon, Holbrook, and Randolph assisted Stoughton. Stoughton Fire Lieutenant Michael Carroll said lightning appears to have struck the roof of the townhouse.

A 4-year-old boy was rescued yesterday after hitting his head when he fell into a pool at a Kingston country club. The boy was unconscious when pulled out of the water by lifeguards at the Indian Pond Country Club. They, along with several bystanders, performed rescue breathing, the Kingston Fire Department said in a statement. The boy had expelled water and was semiconscious when the Fire Department arrived shortly after 2 p.m., the fire officials said. The child was to be flown to a Boston hospital, but because of foggy conditions, he was taken to Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, the fire officials said. Messages left at the Indian Pond Country Club were not immediately returned.

A New Bedford man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in Taunton Superior Court of killing a 10-month-old boy. Manuel Antonio Lopez, 30, was convicted Friday of second-degree murder in the death of Josiah Pacheco, who died at Hasbro Children’s Hospital three days after sustaining blunt trauma to his head on Aug. 11, 2007. Lopez was watching the baby while his girlfriend, the child’s mother, was at work. Lopez was not the boy’s father. “There is nothing on this Earth that is more cruel and unjust than the intentional killing of an infant,’’ Bristol District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter said in a statement. Lopez was living with the child’s mother on Deane Street, where the incident occurred. He will be eligible for parole after 15 years.

With summer here, Massachusetts health officials have begun urging residents to take steps to avoid mosquito bites and help prevent West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis. The diseases are carried by infected mosquitoes and can cause illness or, in rare cases, death. A 73-year-old man from Essex County with Eastern equine encephalitis died in October. He contracted the disease in either Maine or New Hampshire. One person in Massachusetts also contracted West Nile last year, but survived. The state Department of Health says people should limit outdoor activity at dusk, wear long sleeves and pants, and use bug spray to reduce the possibility of mosquito bites. Residents also should eliminate standing water, which can become breeding grounds for mosquitoes. (AP)

A national Jewish organization and a Boston-based Latino group are planning a joint effort to fight hate crimes that target Latinos. On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League of New England and the Latino Professional Network will announce the creation of the Latino/Jewish Roundtable. The committee will focus on solutions to combat “anti-immigrant rhetoric’’ aimed at US-born Latinos and Latino immigrants. The groups cited recent derogatory statements about Mexicans by Boston radio host Jay Severin and some of the reaction to the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is Hispanic, as evidence of a need for the partnership. The new partnership grew out of ADL’s recent “A Nation of Immigrants’’ Community Seder, and was organized with assistance from Boston law firm Prince, Lobel, Glovsky and & Tye. (AP)