After 25 years, Vanessa Williams receives Syracuse diploma

SYRACUSE, New York — Vanessa Williams has received her bachelor of fine arts degree from Syracuse University, nearly 25 years after she dropped out to become the first black Miss America.

The 45-year-old actress-singer, who stars in ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” also delivered the convocation address last Saturday to graduates of Syracuse’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

She encouraged her fellow graduates to “treasure this moment.”

“These days are irreplaceable and are the beginning of the rest of your life,” she said, according to the Web site of The Syracuse Post-Standard.

Williams attended Syracuse’s drama department as a musical theater major from 1981-1983. She earned the remaining credits for her degree through industry experience and performances on stage and screen.

She became the first black Miss America in 1983, but surrendered the title in July 1984 after Penthouse magazine published nude, sexually explicit photographs of her taken several years earlier.

Over her career, Williams has sold more than 4 million albums, won critical praise for her performances on Broadway, made dozens of TV appearances and starred in several movies.

She has won a Tony, received two NAACP Image Awards and nine Grammy nominations.

In 1996, Williams received the George Arents Pioneer Medal, the university’s most prestigious alumni award.

Dominican Republic ups food subsidies to offset rising food costs

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The Dominican Republic has expanded subsidies on basic food staples to maintain calm after deadly food riots recently struck neighboring Haiti.

Trucks loaded with milk, chicken, eggs and other food staples have been rumbling across the Caribbean nation, where almost half of 9.5 million residents live in poverty.

The subsidized food is, on average, 30 percent below supermarket prices. The government recently expanded the effort by selling a $3 package that includes a frozen chicken and 4 pounds each of potatoes and onions. An estimated 20,000 of the packets are being sold daily, according to a May 10 news release.

Food riots in Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, killed seven people in April and cost the prime minister his job.

Dominican President Leonel Fernández implemented the subsidies as he seeks re-election this month.

The food packages are a welcome reprieve to 34-year-old handyman Vidal Rosario, who said people in his working-class neighborhood in northern Santo Domingo have been rationing their food.

“It makes life easier on poor people,” he said of the deliveries by government trucks at a basketball court near his house.

Woman awarded nearly $400K in case against Postal Service

DES MOINES, Iowa — A federal jury has awarded a black woman more than $380,000 in her racial discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service.

Sheryl Rogers, a former night shift mail sorter at the Des Moines Post Office, testified that the harassment included chants of racial epithets by her co-workers.

The lawsuit, filed in October 2004, names Post Master General John E. Potter.

The jury awarded Rogers $382,500 last Tuesday after five days of testimony.

“The jury clearly believed the post office allowed a hostile work environment to fester, and then failed to take prompt and effective remedial action,” Rogers’ attorney David Goldman said in a statement.

Rogers, 54, testified that she complained of her treatment on a couple of occasions, but her supervisors failed to act.

Goldman said his client was fired in August 2002, then offered back her position in April 2005 — about six months after the lawsuit was filed. Nothing had been done by that point to correct the harassing environment, and Rogers couldn’t return to work under such conditions, he said.

Goldman said the jury saw through the offer and realized Rogers couldn’t accept the position.

During the trial, Rogers’ grown children testified about how she worked nights at the post office while she raised them.

“She worked at the post office for 15 years without any discipline for any behavior misconduct. The jury saw her as a credible employee and they believed her,” said Goldman.

He said Rogers was awarded $200,000 for past emotional distress, $100,000 for future emotional distress and $82,500 in back wages.

“We are disappointed in the jury’s findings. The Postal Service does not agree with this verdict and we do not believe that any harassment took place,” U.S. Postal Service spokesman Al DeSarro said. “Until the court makes its final judgment, the Postal Service will be reviewing these findings to determine what, if any, action will be taken on our part.”