CITYWIDE

Mearsheimer Weighs In On Israel Lobby

A political science professor at the University of Chicago, John Mearsheimer, who co-authored a Harvard paper on the “Israel Lobby” that ignited a furor when it was published in March, will participate in a debate tonight on whether the lobby exerts undue influence on American foreign policy.Also on stage at Cooper Union tonight will be a professor at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi; a professor at New York University, Tony Judt; two former State Department officials, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk; a former Israeli minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami; and a dean at Princeton University, Anne-Marie Slaughter. “My guess,” Mr. Judt said, “is that we’ll begin by focusing on the Mearsheimer paper and whether it opens up the ground of anti-Semitism, but I hope we’ll talk about whether America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is distorted by our relationship with Israel. I hope we can talk about that rather than just the Mearsheimer piece itself.”

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

Lawmakers Propose Subsidized Service Academy

Lawmakers including Senator Clinton introduced legislation yesterday that would create a federally-subsidized public service college. Proposed by Mrs. Clinton and Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, the bill would create the U.S. Public Service Academy, a four-year college for as many as 5,000 students. Modeled after American military academies, students would commit to five years of public service after graduation. Responding to increasing vacancies in public service employment, Mrs. Clinton said in a statement: “Now, more than ever, it is imperative that our nation improve its capacity to groom future public servants.” At least one observer praised the initiative: “Americans’ sense of willingness to sacrifice for the common good has faded dramatically,” Rogan Kersh, a professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, said. “We do this for the military, it seems worth it to do it for citizenship and government, as well.” A companion bill was proposed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia.

— Special to the Sun

Governor Signs Law Giving Phone Companies Billing Flexibility

ALBANY — Governor Pataki has signed into law a bill allowing traditional telephone companies to reduce or eliminate fees on non-basic services, a move proponents say will lead to lower bills for consumers. Under state law, telephone companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. were permitted to offer free or reduced basic services only for limited amounts of time, subject to the approval of the state Public Service Commission. Such companies had been barred completely from offering deals on non-basic services such as voice mail or call waiting, Mr. Pataki’s office said. Sponsors of the bill said cable or wireless telecommunication companies were not subject to the same regulations or PSC oversight and had a competitive advantage by offering pricing incentives on all their services. But Gerald Norlander of the Public Utility Law Project said the bill will lead to price disparities across the state as landline phone companies reduce rates in urban areas, but will have no incentive to reduce prices in rural areas where cable or wireless service is limited.That means consumers in the areas where the promotions are not offered will effectively subsidize customers in other areas, he said.

— Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

Pimp Convicted of Prostituting Teenage Girl

A man who was a pimp for a 15-year-old girl was convicted of forcing the teenager into prostitution yesterday, the Brooklyn District Attorney announced. Prosecutors said Donny Payne, 25, taught the girl to solicit clients and threatened to hurt her if she refused. Under his watchful eye and direction, the girl had positioned herself near a known prostitution site in East New York, where a passerby called police, prosecutors said. Officers arrested Payne after he tried to escape arrest by boarding a city bus. Yesterday, Payne was convicted of promoting prostitution in the second degree, endangering the welfare of a child, and first-degree criminal contempt – a charge stemming from threatening phone calls he made to the girl while he was in jail.

— Special to the Sun

Fatal Accident Kills Two on GWB

The driver and passenger of a mattress delivery truck making deliveries for 1-800 Mattress were killed in an early morning accident on the George Washington Bridge yesterday.The accident occurred around 1:20 a.m. on the upper deck of the bridge after the mattress truck struck a tractor-trailer, a spokesman for the Port Authority said. The driver, identified as Salvador Vasquez and his assistant, Wilfred Gomez, were employees of Eleven Truckers, an independent contractor to 1-800 Mattress, the company said in a statement. They had completed deliveries to New Jersey and were headed back to New York when the accident occurred. Traffic on the upper deck of the bridge was suspended for five hours after the accident, the Port Authority reported.

— Special to the Sun