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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Worker at Algerian Gas Facility Describes Escape

BERGEN, Norway — After militants stormed his remote desert workplace last week, Liviu Floria, a Romanian gas worker, locked the door and sought refuge under a desk. For five hours, as he stayed hidden, he communicated by text message with a Romanian co-worker in another part of the sprawling In Amenas gas facility.

Then an ominous final message flashed on his cellphone from the colleague. “I am a hostage,” it said.

That colleague would later be found dead, Mr. Floria said, along with at least 36 other foreigners whom the Algerian government has identified as victims of the attack. But Mr. Floria’s story is one of both terror and salvation as he and seven others managed to scale the fence surrounding the compound, trek through the desert and escape death.

Mr. Floria saw the attack as it began last Wednesday. He and a colleague, George Iachim, were making their morning coffee when an alarm sounded. They rushed to the window and saw what looked like an action movie unfolding before them. Four men with assault rifles had gotten out of a car and were shooting at the guards stationed at the entrance.

“Out of a peaceful place, a normal place to work, in a few seconds it was transformed into a cemetery,” Mr. Iachim later told Romanian television.

After nearly two days of hiding from the hostage-takers, Mr. Floria and seven others decided their only chance at survival would come from climbing the fence and running away. They left around 2 a.m. for what became a harrowing desert trek, guided only by the flickering flame atop a gas well in the distance and a compass application on Mr. Floria’s iPhone.

Algerian officials said Tuesday that they were searching the Sahara for five missing foreigners, in the hopes that others might have escaped into the desert as Mr. Floria and the others did. “It’s ongoing,” said a senior Algerian official. “They’ve disappeared. We’re not going to just abandon them like that.”

Helge Lund, chief executive of Statoil, the Norwegian company that is one of the operators of the In Amenas plant, said Monday in a televised news conference that 12 of Statoil’s 17 employees had returned home, while “extensive searches in and around the plant at In Amenas and at hospitals in Algeria are taking place” for the other five. It was unclear whether the Algerians were referring to the Norwegians, who as of late Tuesday were still classified as missing rather than dead.

Mr. Floria recounted his experiences from back home in Romania on Tuesday. He was clearly still shaken by the experience and traumatized about the deaths of his colleagues, including two Romanians, and on Monday he had gone to a monastery to pray.

Mr. Floria, 45, said that he was no wildcat cowboy, no thrill seeker or adventurer, just a hard-working man hoping to provide a better life for his family. He had been employed in the oil and gas industry in Pitesti, Romania, for nearly 20 years when he was contacted through the job-networking Web site LinkedIn by an international recruiting agency.

The new job in Algeria as a mechanical foreman paid five times as much as he was making in Romania, where the industry was struggling and the future looked uncertain. With the money he earned, Mr. Floria hoped that he could send his teenage daughter to Britain for college and eventually buy himself a little house in the mountains. Safety was not a concern, he said.

He began work in 2010 and before long was used to the routine, one month in the Sahara working 12-hour days and one month back home.

The night before the attack, Mr. Floria went to bed early. It was a decision he said he believed might have saved his life. He woke up early, at 5:15 a.m., and he and Mr. Iachim drove in a Toyota Land Cruiser from the living area to the central processing facility a few miles away. They drove through the very gate that the militants would storm minutes later.

The two Romanians stayed all day and all night in the office, trying to keep quiet, subsisting on water and a few cookies they had with them. Long periods of silence were interrupted by minutes of gunfire and explosions. Mr. Floria tried to suppress his emotions and remain focused on staying alive.

“In my mind, the fate was we should escape from here,” Mr. Floria said. “I must stay calm, manage my feelings and we see what happens next.”

On Thursday afternoon, after more than 24 hours in hiding, they heard someone calling: “Anybody here? Anybody here?”

It was Lou Fear, one of the Britons. “When we heard his voice, we were very happy,” Mr. Floria said, relieved to have been found by others who had eluded capture.

Mihai Radu contributed reporting from Bucharest, Romania, Henrik Pryser Libell from Bergen, and Adam Nossiter from Algiers.

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Sony to sell new Xperia tablet in Japan: Nikkei

(Reuters) – Sony Corp’s Sony Mobile Communications Inc said it will sell the new version of its Xperia tablet in Japan this spring, the Nikkei reported, citing Kyodo News.

The Xperia Tablet Z, whose price has not been announced, has a 10.1-inch display, is 6.9 mm thin and weighs 495 grams, according to the company’s website.

Rival Google Inc’s Nexus 10 tablet is 8.9 mm thick, while Apple Inc’s iPad mini measures 7.9 mm.

Sony halted sales of Xperia in October, a month after launch, after discovering gaps between the screen and the case that made some of the machines susceptible to water damage.

The Nikkei reported on Sunday that Japanese smartphone makers seem to be regaining some market share they lost to companies like Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

(Reporting by Krithika Krishnamurthy in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)

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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.

___

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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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Algeria Defends Tough Response to Hostage Crisis as Toll Rises

Ramzi Boudina/Reuters

Rescue workers with the coffin of one of the slain hostages.

ALGIERS — The prime minister of Algeria offered an unapologetic defense on Monday of the country’s tough actions to end the Sahara hostage crisis, saying that the militants who had carried out the kidnappings intended to kill all their captives and that the army saved many from death by attacking.

But the assertion came as the death toll of foreign hostages rose sharply, to 37, and as American officials said they had offered sophisticated surveillance help that could minimize casualties, both before and during the military operation to retake a seized gas field complex in the Algerian desert.

At least some of the assistance was accepted, they said, but there were still questions about whether Algeria had taken all available steps to avert such a bloody outcome.

American counterterrorism officials and experts said they would have taken a more cautious approach, using detailed surveillance to gain an information advantage and hopefully outmaneuver the militants. But others declined to second-guess the Algerians, saying events had unfolded so rapidly that the government might have felt it had no choice but to kill the kidnappers, even if hostages died in the process.

The debate over how the Algerians handled one of the worst hostage-taking episodes in recent memory reflects conflicting ideas over how to manage such mass abductions in an age of suicidal terrorist acts in a post-9/11 world.

The Algerians — and some Western supporters — argue that the loss of innocent lives is unavoidable when confronting fanatics who will kill their captives anyway, while others say modern technology provides some means of minimizing the deaths.

At a news conference in Algiers, the prime minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, portrayed the military’s deadly assaults on the Islamist militants who had stormed and occupied an internationally run gas-producing complex last Wednesday in remote eastern Algeria as a matter of national character and pride.

“The whole world has understood that the reaction was courageous,” Mr. Sellal said, calling the abductions an attack “on the stability of Algeria.”

“Algerians are not people who sell themselves out,” he said. “When the security of the country is at stake, there is no possible discussion.”

It was the Algerian government’s first detailed public explanation of its actions during the siege, a brazen militant assault that has raised broad new concerns about the strength of extremists who have carved out enclaves in neighboring Mali and elsewhere in North Africa.

Mr. Sellal said that the 37 foreign workers killed during the episode — a toll much higher than the 23 previously estimated — came from eight countries and that five captives remained unaccounted for. It was unclear how many had died at the hands of the kidnappers or the Algerian Army. The United States said that three Americans were among the dead and that seven had survived.

The prime minister also said that 29 kidnappers had been killed, including the leader, and that three had been captured alive. The militants were from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Tunisia and Canada, he said — an assertion the Canadian government said it was investigating. Mr. Sellal said the group began the plot in Mali and entered Algeria through Libya, close to the site.

Other countries, notably Japan and Britain, have raised concerns about what they considered Algeria’s harsh and hasty response. The United States has not publicly criticized Algeria, which it regards as an ally in the fight to contain jihadist groups in Africa. But law enforcement and military officials said Monday that they almost certainly would have handled such a crisis differently.

First, the United States would have engaged in longer discussions with the captors to identify the leaders and buy time, the officials said. In the meantime, the Pentagon, the C.I.A. and possibly allied security services could have moved surveillance drones, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and electronic eavesdropping equipment into place to help identify the locations of the hostages and the assailants.

“It would have been a precision approach as opposed to a sledgehammer approach,” said Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, a retired deputy commander of the United States military’s Special Operations Command.

Adam Nossiter reported from Algiers, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Hadjer Guenanfa from Algiers, Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare from Paris, Alan Cowell from London, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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BlackBerry Z10 confirmed for Verizon in new leak

Another day, another handful of BlackBerry 10 leaks to enjoy as the tech world waits for the new platform’s January 30th unveiling. Twitter user “evleaks,” who has a solid track record of leaking accurate details and images of unreleased smartphones, published a purported screenshot from Verizon Wireless (VZ) on Friday. The document confirms some details we already know — RIM’s (RIMM) first full-touch BlackBerry 10 phone will be called the BlackBerry Z10 and will feature 4G LTE, among other specs — and it also confirms Verizon will support the handset. An image of Verizon’s BlackBerry Z10 screenshot follows below.

[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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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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