MANHATTAN

DERSHOWITZ TO SPEAK ABOUT MIDDLE EAST STUDIES AT COLUMBIA

The outspoken lawyer Alan Dershowitz is visiting Columbia University today to make the case against Middle East studies on American campuses.

The issue is a particularly sensitive one for Columbia, whose investigation into the alleged misconduct of faculty members toward students is focused on the university’s Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

In recent years, Mr. Dershowitz – a Harvard Law School professor best known for his notorious clients such as Michael Milken, Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, and Claus von Bulow – has become a passionate defender of Israel, lecturing on behalf of the country at college campuses and handing out free copies of his 2004 book “The Case for Israel.”

Organizers of his visit to Columbia said he will talk to students about what he believes is the intellectual corruption of Middle East studies at Columbia and other campuses, a field he says has been taken over by an anti-American political agenda.

Senior Columbia officials, responding to complaints from students against professor in the Mealac department, said they are not focusing on the political views of the professors.

Meanwhile, a former Columbia student who served in the Israeli military, Tomy Schoenfeld, testified Friday before the faculty committee that was appointed by Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, to handle the campus investigation. Mr. Schoenfeld has accused assistant professor Joseph Massad of ordering him to say how many Palestinians he killed when the student asked Mr. Massad a question following an on-campus lecture. Mr. Massad does not deny the incident took place.

The committee has said it would complete its investigation before the scheduled spring break, which begins March 14.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BROOKLYN

HYNES SAYS SPORTS BETTING SHOULD BE LEGAL After announcing his annual roundup of bookies hours before the Super Bowl kick-off yesterday, the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, said legislators should consider changing the state’s gambling laws to make wagers on sporting events a legal practice throughout the state.

The biggest problem with sports betting, Mr. Hynes said during a press conference yesterday, is that the millions in revenues obtained from bookies is often used to “fuel organized crime and the mob.” Mr. Hynes, who is up for re-election, also said that by taxing bets made through the underground sporting market, the revenue could be further used to finance education, similar to the state lottery and horse-racing. According to some estimates, New Yorkers spend more than $15 billion a year betting on sports events each year, Mr. Hynes said, with about $2 billion in wagers going to the Super Bowl, the largest gambling draw in the country.

While it is not the first time Mr. Hynes has advocated the legalization of sports betting, the controversial position has been recently taken up by one of the city’s most influential business advocacy groups, the Partnership for New York. What is more, at least one city council member plans to introduce legislation that would make a Super Bowl bet, or any other wager on sports, as legal as a lotto pick in a local corner store or a horse race at Aqueduct.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

PRICE OF HOMES SURGES 37% IN TWO YEARS

The cost of buying an existing single-family home soared by nearly 37% in New York State between 2002 and 2004, prompting a real estate agents group to warn that some people are in danger of being priced out of their local housing markets.

The median resale value of single-family homes rose from $169,500 in 2002 to $232,000 in 2004, according to the New York State Association of Realtors. The comparable figures for national single-family sales were $158,100 in 2002 and $184,100 in 2004. Price increases were gaining steam as last year ended, with a median sales price of $278,000 in December, up from $214,900 in December 2003.

– Associated Press