In brief: Police officer shoots another, kills himself

Beverly, Mass. – An off-duty sergeant shot a police officer from a nearby town Friday night, then returned to the scene and killed himself as authorities closed in, the district attorney said.

Authorities responded to a Starbucks in Beverly after a 911 call about 5:45 p.m. Friday and found Beverly police Officer Jason Lantych shot multiple times, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said. Lantych was in serious condition.

Off-duty Hamilton police Sgt. Ken Nagy shot Lantych and fled, the district attorney’s office said.

The 43-year-old Nagy returned to the Starbucks at about 10:30 p.m., and police there began to cordon off the scene. Nagy fatally shot himself in his car as officers approached him, Blodgett said.

Nagy and Lantych knew each other, but the motive for the shooting is unclear, the district attorney’s office said.

Anne Frank latest name in Mormon baptism clash

Salt Lake City – A new claim has surfaced that the Mormon church has posthumously baptized a Holocaust victim, this time Anne Frank.

The allegations come just a week after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints apologized when it was brought to light that the parents of Jewish rights advocate Simon Wiesenthal were posthumously baptized by church members at temples in Arizona and Utah in January.

Researcher Helen Radkey, who revealed the Wiesenthal baptisms, said this week she found Frank’s name in proxy baptism records dated Feb. 18, showing the ritual was performed in the Santo Domingo Temple in the Dominican Republic. Frank was a Jewish teenager forced into hiding in Amsterdam during the Holocaust and killed in a concentration camp. Her diary was published in 1947.

The Mormon church almost immediately issued a statement, though it didn’t mention Frank by name.

“The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism,” the Salt Lake City-based church said. “It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention.”