Banks, commodity stocks lift S&P 500 to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank and commodity shares led the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index to a fresh five-year closing high on Tuesday on hopes that the global economy continues to mend.

Travelers' shares climbed after the insurer's results and lifted the Dow Jones industrial average to a new five-year closing high.

On Friday, both the Dow and the S&P 500 ended at five-year highs after the quarterly earnings season got off to a solid start. On Monday, the U.S. stock market was closed in observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday.

In Tuesday's session, the market also gained on signals that Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives aim on Wednesday to pass a bill to extend the U.S. debt limit by nearly four months to May 19. The White House welcomed the move, saying it would remove uncertainty about the issue.

Investors, however, were cautious ahead of an increase in earnings reports and as the S&P 500 rose for a fifth straight session.

Jack de Gan, chief investment officer of Harbor Advisory Corp, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, said better economic numbers in the United States and China, as well as more stabilization in Europe, were driving buyers into sectors associated with economic growth.

"Any (bearish) news could turn us down for a day or so," he said, referring to the recent string of gains.

Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold led gains in the materials sector after it reported a 16 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit on higher production. Shares gained 4.6 percent to $35.19.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 62.51 points, or 0.46 percent, to 13,712.21 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 6.58 points, or 0.44 percent, to 1,492.56. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 8.47 points or 0.27 percent, to 3,143.18.

Tuesday's session marked the highest closes for both the Dow and the S&P 500 since December 2007.

Technology shares underperformed as concerns about Apple's ability to continue to grow at hyper speed and a weak outlook from Intel Corp diminished optimism about the sector's prospects. The S&P technology index <.splrct> added 0.16 percent for the day. In comparison, the S&P energy sector index <.spny>, the S&P financials index <.spsy> and the S&P basic materials index <.splrcm> each gained 0.9 percent.

But Google shares rose 4.8 percent to above $736 in extended-hours trading after the world's No. 1 search engine reported a jump in fourth-quarter revenue. Shares of IBM added more than 4 percent to trade above $204 after the world's largest technology services company reported earnings and revenue that beat estimates.

"We expected Q4 for many tech vendors would be weak because we were expecting a lot of companies sitting on their wallets until it became clear what was going to become of the fiscal cliff," Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels said about IBM.

"Given the fact it's Q4 and the cloud of fiscal cliff within it, it's a positive indication that especially tech software will be doing better in the next couple of months."

During the regular session, shares of blue chips Travelers, DuPont

, and Verizon Communications rose following earnings.

Travelers rose 2.2 percent to $77.95, a closing high. DuPont's shares gained 1.8 percent to $47.82. Verizon's stock rose 0.9 percent to $42.94.

Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning showed that of the 74 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 62.2 percent have topped expectations, roughly even with the 62 percent average since 1994, but below the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are forecast to have risen 2.6 percent. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast from the start of earnings season, but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast from October 1, the data showed.

U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion rallied 13 percent to $17.90 a day after its chief executive said the Canadian company may consider strategic alliances with other companies after the launch of devices powered by RIM's new BlackBerry 10 operating system.

About 6.2 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below last year's daily average of about 6.45 billion shares.

On the NYSE, advancers outnumbered decliners by a ratio of roughly 9 to 4. On the Nasdaq, five stocks rose for every three that fell.

Signs of improved sentiment toward world growth were also seen in European bond markets. The yield on Portugal's benchmark 10-year note fell below 6 percent for the first time since late 2010 on news that the country was set to tap the bond market this week for the first time since it was bailed out in 2011.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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World Briefing | Africa: South Africa: Nigerian Convicted of Planning Deadly Bombings

A South African court on Monday said a Nigerian man was guilty of masterminding twin car bombings in Nigeria in 2010. The double bombing in Nigeria’s capital killed at least 12 people and wounded three dozen. The defendant, Henry Okah, faces a minimum sentence of life in prison, said the prosecutor, Shaun Abrahams. “This is clearly indicative that South Africa cannot be seen as a safe haven for international terrorists,” Mr. Abrahams said. Mr. Okah was arrested in Johannesburg one day after the bombings. He is a leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

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Samsung decides to kick RIM when it’s down by bashing BlackBerry in new ad [video]

Samsung (005930) is well known for its clever ads mocking Apple (AAPL) and its fans, but the company has decided to pick on a less powerful target in its newest ad that takes swipes RIM (RIMM) and its BlackBerry smartphones. The ad revolves around an office that is implementing its own bring-your-own-device policy and is meant to show that both the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II are ideal business phones that can enable greater creativity. While most workers in the ad happily switch to Samsung smartphones after the BYOD policy is put in place, one of them insists on clinging to his BlackBerry, which prompts one of his coworkers to ask, “Are you finally going to retire that thing?” The full video is posted below.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 OS walkthrough, BlackBerry Z10 pricing]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Vera Wang Reveals Details of Michelle Kwan's Wedding Dress

By Cynthia Wang

01/21/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Michelle Kwan and Clay Pell

Courtesy of Caitlin Maloney

Although she was a singles figure skater throughout her successful career, Michelle Kwan did have one steadfast partner on the ice – fashion designer Vera Wang.

"I wore so many skating dresses designed by her, whole skating shows and everything," Kwan, 32, tells PEOPLE. "I have a long relationship with her."

And that made picking a wedding dress designer a fairly easy decision.

For Kwan's Rhode Island nuptials on Jan. 19 to Clay Pell, 31, Wang put plenty of consideration into her creation.

"She is marrying someone whose family has a political history, and Michelle is living and working in Washington, D.C.," the designer says. "[The dress] had to have a certain dignity and a certain classicism, and I think it was a lot about a new way of looking at tradition."

So Wang created an ivory, strapless mermaid gown for Kwan, made with layers of silk organza and featuring lace appliqué.

"The fact that it's got an inordinate amount of handwork in terms of lace is really a tribute to the art of hand-piecing lace," Wang says. "There is a princess-slash-queenly level of sophistication and quiet without sacrificing a lot of detail."

To complement the formal wedding gown, Kwan asked Wang what she thought of designing a second dress for the reception. "She said, 'Yeah, I got it,' " Kwan says. "She said, 'First dance, yes, and then you've got to change into something else.' "

Her history with the skater was not lost on Wang. "I'm really very honored and very thrilled that a, Michelle has found the love of her life and b, that I am the one to dress her for that special day just as I did for world championships, national championships, and Olympics," she said. "It's just the ongoing saga of our friendship."

For more on Kwan's wedding, including photos and details from the ceremony, pick up a copy of next week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Yen, Asian shares mark time before BOJ decision

TOKYO (Reuters) - The yen and Asian shares marked time on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of the Bank of Japan's policy meeting, with expectations running high for bold monetary easing measures aimed at reflating the world's third-largest economy.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was up 0.1 percent. The index was pulled down on Monday after briefly touching 17-1/2-month highs as Malaysian stocks suffered their biggest drop in 16 months on election risks.

European shares rose on Monday near two-year highs, with investors betting on an improving economy in Europe. Wall Street was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Australian shares <.axjo> were up 0.5 percent to a fresh 20-month high early on Tuesday while South Korean shares <.ks11> opened almost flat.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> opened up 0.2 percent. The Nikkei has faced choppy trading over the past two sessions as the yen became more volatile ahead of the BOJ meeting. Tokyo shares have been rising in tandem with the yen's slide against major currencies. The Nikkei tumbled 1.5 percent on Monday after investors booked profits from the index's 2.9 percent rally on Friday. <.t/>

Early on Tuesday, the dollar inched down 0.1 percent against the yen at 89.51 yen, after touching a fresh 2-1/2-year high of 90.25 yen on Monday. The euro fell 0.3 percent to 119.11 yen, off its peak since May 2011 of 120.73 hit on Friday.

Markets have priced in the BOJ boosting its asset-buying and lending program by another 10 trillion yen and doubling its inflation target to 2 percent. The BOJ will announce its decision after it ends its two-day meeting later on Tuesday.

Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac bank in Sydney, noted a bit more uncertainty over the policy decision, given speculation about open-ended easing and removing the 0.1 percent floor on short term interest rates.

"The biggest risk for USD/JPY is a cautious 10 trillion yen increase in asset purchases and not much else new aside from the 2 percent target. The best case for USD/JPY bulls is an open-ended commitment to increase quantitative easing until the inflation target is met," Callow said in a note.

There's a perception in markets that even if investors cut their yen short positions in disappointment over the BOJ result, the yen's rebound was likely to be limited relative to its 13 percent decline against the dollar and a 20 percent drop versus the euro over the past two months, mainly due to expectations for more aggressive BOJ easing to drive Japan out of years of deflation and support the economy.

Overall market sentiment was likely to be supported by signs of a compromise to avert a U.S. fiscal crisis.

Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have scheduled a vote on Wednesday on a nearly four-month extension of U.S. borrowing capacity, aimed at avoiding a fight over the looming federal debt ceiling and shifting their negotiating leverage for spending cuts to other fiscal deadlines.

The Bundesbank said on Monday Germany's economic slump should be short-lived, adding that the euro zone's largest economy could have already bottomed out.

U.S. crude futures were down 0.2 percent to $95.35 a barrel.

Gold was steady around $1,689.81 an ounce.

(Editing by editing by Shri Navaratnam)

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Syria Urges Rebels to Lay Down Arms and Join Transition

Goran Tomasevic/Reuters

Free Syrian Army fighters fired on government forces on Sunday at a checkpoint in Damascus. The foreign minister called on rebels to reject foreign intervention.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — As Syrian opposition leaders met in Turkey over the weekend to try to iron out their differences, Syria’s foreign minister invited rebels to join a national dialogue, promising that all those who lay down their arms and forswear foreign intervention will be part of a transitional government.

“I tell the young men who carried arms to change and reform — take part in the dialogue for a new Syria and you will be a partner in building it,” the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said in an interview broadcast on Syrian state television on Saturday. “Why carry arms?”

The minister’s offer went a significant step beyond what President Bashar al-Assad proposed in a speech on Jan. 6, when he called for a national dialogue but intimated that those who had taken up arms would be excluded.

To many of those fighting Mr. Assad, any suggestion of talks with a government they hold responsible for the civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people is absurd, even offensive. Even those in the opposition who reject the use of weapons refused to engage with Mr. Assad in the talks he proposed.

Yet at least some in the Syrian government appear to be aiming to wrest the political initiative from Mr. Assad’s opponents, who remain divided — between exile leaders abroad and fighters on the ground, between secularists and Islamists, and between the armed and unarmed opposition. Meanwhile, those Syrians who are still on the fence increasingly worry about violence with no end in sight, and the world faces the specter of a failed state in a strategic area of the Middle East.

Still, in a government that was never transparent and has become even murkier during the conflict of nearly two years, it was unclear whether Mr. Moallem spoke with full authority. Broadcasting the speech on state television appeared to give it more weight than other calls for dialogue offered by government figures like Vice President Farouk al-Shara, who proposed an inclusive dialogue in an interview with a Lebanese newspaper in December.

Most rebels would probably be reluctant to trust any assurances that they could safely lay down arms from a government whose harsh crackdown on peaceful protesters set off the conflict in March 2011.

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the opposition exile group formed in November at the behest of Western and some Persian Gulf nations, has said that Mr. Assad’s ouster or resignation is a precondition for talks.

The coalition met for a second day in Istanbul, but by Sunday evening there was no word of a consensus on the selection of a prime minister in waiting, with some members backing former Prime Minister Riad Hijab, the highest-ranking defector, and others arguing that he was too close to the government.

The group was also expected to discuss what it considers to be the broken promises of the United States, the gulf countries and others, which had urged it to reorganize and expand its membership in return for the prospect of increased aid.

A senior official from Iran, Mr. Assad’s only Middle Eastern ally, on Sunday offered one of the strongest recent defenses of the Syrian president, saying that there should be changes but that Mr. Assad should not be forced out.

“We believe that there should be reforms emanating from the will of the Syrian people, but without resorting to violence” and American aid, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader, said in an interview with the Lebanese satellite television channel Al Mayadeen.

In response to a question about whether the ouster of Mr. Assad was a “red line,” Mr. Velayati said: “Yes, it is so. But this does not mean that we ignore the Syrian people’s right” to choose their own rulers.

France’s foreign minister announced that the Syrian opposition and its foreign allies would meet in Paris on Jan. 28 and reiterated calls for Mr. Assad to step down.

“The situation is horrific, and Bashar must go as fast as possible,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a radio interview, Reuters reported.

Agence France-Presse reported that Mr. Assad’s mother, Anisa Makhlouf, was living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, quoting Syrians living in the Emirates in a report that confirmed earlier rumors that she had left Syria with her daughter Bushra, whose husband, Assef Shawkat, was one of four senior security officials killed in a bombing in Damascus in July.

Ayman Abdel Nour, a longtime critic of the Syrian government and the leader of a new group called Syrian Christians for Democracy, called Ms. Makhlouf’s departure an indication of “Assad losing support even from within his family,” the French news agency reported.

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BlackBerry 10 camera software revealed, including built-in Instagram-like photo filters [video]

Just when we start to think we know everything there is to know about BlackBerry 10, new details leak. Mobile blog The Gadget Masters on Friday published a video revealing the new BlackBerry 10 camera software included on a pre-release version of the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. While the software on this prototype phone likely isn’t final, several new features that will be included in RIM’s (RIMM) new BlackBerry 10 camera software are displayed in the video. Among the highlights is a built-in photo editor that includes cropping, rotation and Instagram-like photo filters. The full video follows below.

[More from BGR: RIM heats up as BlackBerry 10 launch nears]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Selena Gomez vs. Justin Bieber: Who Sang It Better?

By Alison Schwartz

01/20/2013 at 06:00 PM EST

Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber

Bryan Bedder/Getty; Steve Mack/FilmMagic

Selena Gomez didn't officially comment on the status of her relationship with on-again, off-again beau Justin Bieber at her New York City acoustic concert benefit for UNICEF. She didn't have to: her song choices seemed to do all the talking.

Along with a cover of industry pal Taylor Swift's "I Knew You Were Trouble," she also performed a rousing rendition of Justin Timberlake's ultimate breakup anthem: "Cry Me a River."

"I’ve kind of been through a lot these past couple of months, and it’s been really interesting and fun at the same time – and weird and sad, but cool," Gomez, 20, told the audience gathered Saturday night before launching into the 2002 pop single. "This song has helped me through a lot, and if anybody knows 'N Sync or, you know, some J.T., you’re gonna know what I’m talking about. But this song definitely speaks to me."

Of course, true Be-liebers know who made the first move: At his November concert in Boston, Bieber, 18, grabbed his acoustic guitar for a stripped-down version of Timberlake's hit, which takes on the feeling of finding out a partner has been cheating. (According to Vulture, he also covered the song in 2008.)

Watch the former couple try their hands at Timberlake's tune, and tell us in the comments below: Who deserves a standing ovation?

• Reporting by GABRIELLE OLYA

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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