AP National News

Colorado GOP lawmaker who used racist term is reprimanded

By JAMES ANDERSON - Associated Press
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by Rayos Syndication User

A Republican lawmaker in Colorado has been reprimanded after calling a colleague “Buckwheat,” a racist term that provoked outcry from Democrats. It wasn’t clear who state Rep. Richard Holtorf was directing the remarks to Wednesday during debate on a stimulus measure. Holtorf, who is white, quickly said he was using the word as a “term of endearment,” furthering angering Democrats. He then apologized. On Thursday, a chastened Holtorf apologized again to a silent House chamber. House Speaker Alec Garnett told lawmakers that he’d had a long conversation with Holtorf and vowed that “discriminatory remarks, whether intentionally launched or carelessly said, have absolutely no place in this House.”

The Latest: Fiji locks down hospital over coronavirus death

By The Associated Press
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Updated:

by Rayos Syndication User

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Soldiers and police in the Pacific nation of Fiji have surrounded and locked down a major hospital. Health authorities say they are quarantining 400 patients, doctors, nurses and other staff within the compound until they can determine who had contact with a coronavirus patient who died there. The 53-year-old patient at Lautoka Hospital was only the…