LOS ANGELES (AP) – A jury awarded $6.2 million to a firefighter who said she was harassed by colleagues because she is black and lesbian.

Brenda Lee’s lawsuit against the Fire Department claimed her superiors made derogatory comments about her and put her through grueling drills without proper safety precautions because of her race and sexual orientation.

She also alleged that someone put urine in her mouthwash.

The jury payout was the largest in a string of recent settlements of cases alleging discrimination and retaliation against women and minorities within the Fire Department.

Judge Michael L. Stern ordered the panel back to court Thursday for a second phase of the trial involving the possible awarding of punitive damages against Lee’s former supervisor, Capt. Christopher Hare.

Rob Kitson, Lee’s attorney, declined to comment on the case because it was ongoing.

A spokesperson for the city attorney’s office, Jonathan Diamond said the city would “review its options going forward.”

Two other firefighters in the discrimination lawsuit already have won jury awards after their cases were tried separately.

In April, a jury awarded $1.7 million to Lewis Bressler, who claimed he was forced to retire for backing Lee in her claims of discrimination. Firefighter Gary Mellinger, who alleged the department retaliated against him after he helped Lee, settled with the city for $350,000 after a jury found in his favor.

Councilmember Jack Weiss, who heads the City Council’s public safety committee, said the verdict was “very alarming to anyone who has a fiduciary responsibility over the city budget.”

”The most important thing is to reform the Fire Department,” he said. “There’s new leadership. … Hopefully that will prevent these sorts of lawsuits.”

BALTIMORE (AP) – The Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine has received a $43 million federal grant to help fight AIDS in Nigeria.

The money from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief will be used to treat 48,000 patients in Nigeria and to expand HIV testing and counseling to an additional 100,000 people, the university announced Monday in a release.

The institute’s AIDS Care and Treatment in Nigeria, or ACTION, was founded in 2003 using a model where members of the institute’s medical team work with Nigerian colleagues to get communities involved in treatment and care.

ACTION has placed thousands of Nigerians on therapy and provided thousand so of pregnant women in the country with HIV-preventive services.

“The work being done now in Nigeria is extraordinary,” Dr. Robert C. Gallo, the founder and director of IHV, said in a statement.

“This new award enables us to reach even more people who need the care and treatment provided by our institute’s experts,” Gallo said.

BOSTON (AP) – A man who failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about same-sex marriage has filed a federal lawsuit, claiming the test violated his rights and that his religious beliefs were targeted.

Stephen Dunne, 30, of Boston, is seeking $9.75 million in the suit against the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He was denied a license to practice law in May after scoring 268.866 on the exam, just shy of the 270 passing grade.

Dunne, who is representing himself in the case, refused to answer a question addressing the rights of two married lesbians, their children and their property, and claims in the suit that it cost him a passing score.

In the suit, Dunne’s called the question “morally repugnant and patently offensive,” and said he refused to answer it because he believed it legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, which is contrary to his moral beliefs.

Dunne claims the Massachusetts state government is “purposely-advancing Secular Humanism’s homosexual agenda.”

The “disguised mechanism to screen applicants according to their political ideology has the discriminatory impact of persecuting and oppressing [Dunne’s] sincere religious practices and beliefs” protected by the First Amendment, and was “invasive and burdensome,” according to the lawsuit filed in June.

The suit also challenges the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, which was legalized in Massachusetts in 2003.

Dunne could not immediately be reached by the Associated Press for comment. He told the Boston Herald he has a law degree from a Boston law school, and is currently attending a Boston business school.

He said the bar exam is not the place for questions about same-sex marriage.

”There’s a different forum for that contemporary issue to be discussed, and it’s inappropriate to be on a professional licensing examination,” Dunne told the Herald. “You don’t see questions about partial-birth abortion or abortion on there.”

The Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declined to comment.

NEW YORK (AP) – A bouncer at a popular West Village restaurant ejected a lesbian customer from the bathroom after last month’s Pride march because she looked too masculine, the woman charged Monday.

Khadijah Farmer, 27, said the incident happened June 24 at Caliente Cab Company on Seventh Avenue South, where she had gone with her girlfriend and another friend to have dinner after the march.

Farmer said she was using the women’s bathroom when a male bouncer burst in and banged on the stall door, saying a customer had complained that there was a man in the women’s room.

“I said, ‘I am a woman and I am where I am supposed to be,’” Farmer said. “I offered to show him some identification. I was told that’s neither here nor there.”

Caliente Cab Company, a Mexican restaurant known for its enormous margaritas and checker-cab decor, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Farmer said the bouncer escorted her to her table and forced her party to pay their check and leave.

“I felt embarrassed and humiliated,” said Farmer, a Manhattan resident who works as a counselor at a residential program for people with disabilities. “I’m just hurt that even my wanting to prove that I’m female wasn’t enough.”

Farmer is being represented by the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is demanding that the restaurant train its staff not to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and expression. No formal complaint or lawsuit has been filed.

New York City law prevents discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Farmer is not a transgender person, but she said her appearance is masculine enough that she is sometimes mistaken for a man.

“I’m never upset with that,” she said. “I say very kindly, ‘I’m female.’ Usually I get, ‘I’m so sorry.’”

COLUMBIA (AP) – More than 100 people gathered at the South Carolina Statehouse on Sunday to remember Sean Kennedy – a 20-year-old gay man who died a day after being punched outside a bar in Greenville.

His family and friends say the man who punched him uttered anti-gay comments after hitting Kennedy.

The family is pushing lawmakers to increase the punishment for people committing hate crimes.

“We’ve got to stop the hate,” said Kennedy’s mother, Elke Kennedy. “Life is so precious. How could anyone think of hurting anyone because of who they are?”

It was the third vigil in the state to honor Kennedy’s life and raise awareness of hate crimes.

“This is not an isolated act of violence,” said Ed Madden, a member of the South Carolina Equality Coalition board.

Stephen Andrew Moller, 18, has been charged with murder in connection with Kennedy’s death, said Greenville County sheriff’s spokesperson Lt. Shay Smith.

South Carolina doesn’t have a law outlining punishment for someone convicted of committing a crime against someone based on the victim’s race, sexual orientation, religion or other characteristics.

Rep. Seth Whipper, D-North Charleston, introduced a bill in March that would make it a felony to threaten or harass someone on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, religion, race, age or ethnic background, or to vandalize or destroy their property.

“It’s time for a change,” Elke Kennedy said. “I never thought I would be here doing this. But Sean stood up for what he believed in and I have to do the same.”

NASHVILLE (AP) – Kroger Co. says it will allow a regional gay and lesbian newspaper to again be distributed on the free publication rack inside some of its Nashville-area grocery stores.

The Cincinnati-based company announced the change Monday, about a month after the Out & About monthly newspaper was removed from racks at 34 of its Nashville-area stores.

A Kroger spokesperson last month cited a company policy against displaying publications that promote “political, religious or other specific agendas” as reason for the removal.

But some supporters of the paper said Kroger allows the display of gay newspapers at its stores in other markets, such as Atlanta. They also noted that alternative weekly newspapers with political columns and advertisements for strip clubs in the Nashville area were available in the stores.

Last month, members of the city’s gay and lesbian community organized a weeklong boycott against Kroger and Harris Teeter, another grocery store chain where the newspapers were removed. Organizers say the boycott cost the two stores more than $15,000.

Kroger Co. said in a news release Monday that it has a process for all free publications to be distributed at its stores, and the company that manages its free publication racks – DistribuTech – did not follow that process with Out & About.

The company has more than 60 locations in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky.