S&P rises for seventh day but 1,500 too steep a climb

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The smallest of gains gave the Standard & Poor's 500 its seventh straight winning day on Thursday, but the index failed to hold above the 1,500 line, restrained by Apple's worst day in more than four years.


Apple Inc slid 12.4 percent to $450.50 a day after it posted revenue that missed Wall Street's forecast as iPhone sales were poorer than expected.


The sharp drop wiped out nearly $60 billion in Apple's market capitalization to less than $423 billion, leaving the company vulnerable to losing its status as the most valuable U.S. company to second-place ExxonMobil , at $416.5 billion.


The S&P 500, however, managed to hit its longest winning streak since October 2006.


"The market has sent the message it is no longer driven by the whims of Apple," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities in New York.


The S&P 500 briefly traded above 1,500 for the first time since December 12, 2007, but failed to hold above it, indicating that momentum is waning and a pullback is in the charts.


"If the market had a little bit more excitement to it, momentum players would have jumped after it broke through 1,500. Investors know the market is a little bit ahead of itself," Polcari said.


Economic data helped buoy equities as U.S. factory activity grew the most in nearly two years in January and new claims for jobless benefits dropped to a five-year low last week, giving surprisingly strong signals on the economy's pulse.


At the same time, Chinese manufacturing grew this month at the fastest pace in about two years, while data suggesting German growth picked up boosted hopes for a euro-zone recovery.


"PMI in Asia, Europe, and obviously, here in the United States, is moving in the right direction, and that's stuff people should be excited about," Polcari said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 46 points or 0.33 percent, to 13,825.33 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> inched up just 0.01 of a point, or 0 percent, to finish at 1,494.82. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 23.29 points or 0.74 percent, to end at 3,130.38, with most of that loss on Apple's slide.


The broader Russell 2000 index <.rut> also hit a milestone as it closed above 900 points for the first time.


Video streaming service Netflix Inc surprised Wall Street with a quarterly profit after it added nearly 4 million customers in the United States and abroad. Netflix shares surged 42.2 percent to $146.86, its biggest percentage jump ever.


Earnings have helped drive the stock market's recent rally. Thomson Reuters data through early Thursday showed that of the 133 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 66.9 percent have exceeded expectations - above the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.


About 6.8 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the daily average during January 2012 of about 6.93 billion shares.


Roughly five issues rose for every four that fell on both the NYSE and Nasdaq.


(Editing by Jan Paschal)



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American Mumbai Plotter Sentenced to 35 Years







CHICAGO (AP) — Minutes before an American was sentenced to 35 years in prison for helping plan an attack on Mumbai, India, one of his victims tearfully pleaded for a harsh punishment despite the terrorist plotter's widespread cooperation with U.S. investigators following his arrest.




David Coleman Headley, 52, shifted uncomfortably in a gray tracksuit and kept his eyes fixed on the Chicago courtroom floor Thursday as he listened to an American children's author describe the violent chaos during her 2008 trip to India.


Bullets flew past her check and panicked diners dived under tables as gunmen burst into a hotel restaurant, executing people one by one, said Linda Ragsdale, almost shouting as she stood just a few feet from Headley during the sentencing hearing.


"I know the sweet sickening smell of gunfire and blood," said Ragsdale, 53, of Nashville, Tenn., who was shot through the chest — the bullet passing along her spine and then out her thigh. "I know what a bullet can do to every part of the human body ... These are things I never needed to know, never needed to experience."


She did not comment later the judge imposed the sentence, but others victimized by the attack that has been called India's 9/11 said they were disturbed and upset that Headley did not get the maximum life sentence he faced. With credit for good behavior, he could walk out of prison before he turns 80.


"He lost his right to live life as a free man. He doesn't deserve to be let out. He gave up that right when he played a role in the attack," said Kia Scherr, whose husband Alan Scherr and 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, were at the same table as Ragsdale and died.


It was prosecutors who pressed for leniency, saying they wanted Headley to get no more than 35 years as credit for his almost immediate cooperation after his 2009 arrest and providing intelligence about terror networks, including the Pakistani-based group that mounted the attack. Rewarding Headley with the hope of at least a few years of freedom, the said, would encourage future suspects in terrorist cases to spill their secrets.


A somber Judge Harry Leinenweber sounded reluctant about imposing the lesser sentence, saying the Mumbai assault was so unfathomable and terrifying that, "perhaps the lucky ones were the ones who didn't survive."


"I don't have any faith in Mr. Headley when he says he's a changed person and believes in the American way of life," he said.


Ragsdale, the only victim to address the court during Thursday's hearing, also read a text message from Kia Scherr to the judge, in which Scherr implored the court not to give Headley less than life in prison and asserting that anything less "would be an appalling dishonor."


The attack heightened the strain in a historically antagonistic relationship between India and Pakistan, which have fought three major wars. Indian officials accuse Pakistani intelligence of helping to plan the assault — an allegation Pakistan denies.


It was Headley's meticulous scouting missions that helped make the assault by 10 gunmen from a Pakistani-based militant group on multiple targets in Mumbai so deadly. TV cameras captured much of the three-day rampage that including multiple targets, including the landmark Taj Mahal Hotel.


Ragsdale painted a detailed picture of the gory scene as she huddled under the table with Scherr's husband Alan and her daughter, Naomi. After the initial gunfire, they were all still alive, and she said she would have thrown her body across the teen to shield her.


"That moment still haunts me," she said, crying, as she looked straight at Headley. She said she passed out from her injuries under the table and "awoke to hear Naomi take her last breath."


Headley showed no emotion when the sentence was announced. Earlier, when the judge asked if him if he wanted to address the court, he leaned forward and said politely, "No your honor, I expressed everything in the letter I wrote you."


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Microsoft profit dips on lower Xbox holiday sales






SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp reported a dip in fiscal second-quarter profit on Thursday, as weaker sales of its Xbox game system in the holiday quarter offset a solid start for its new Windows 8 operating system.


The world’s largest software company reported profit of $ 6.4 billion, or 76 cents per share, compared to $ 6.6 billion, or 78 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.






Overall sales rose 3 percent to $ 21.5 billion.


(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Richard Chang)


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Marc Anthony and Shannon de Lima Split















01/24/2013 at 05:45 PM EST







Shannon de Lima and Marc Anthony


Jason Merritt/Getty


It's over! Marc Anthony and Shannon de Lima have called it quits after dating for more than a year.

"Marc is no longer dating model Shannon de Lima," his rep Blanca Lasalle tells PEOPLE exclusively. "The amicable breakup became official right in mid-January."

De Lima and Anthony – who went public with the romance last January on Twitter by calling his model girlfriend "my statue of liberty" – didn't show any sign of discord before their split.

The couple were spotted on Jan. 16 in New York City at Marquee, where an observer noted, "Shannon was dancing up a storm with her friends while sipping champagne and taking iPhone photos of the themselves and the light show. At one point, Shannon even jokingly gave Marc a lap dance when Pitbull came on."

The reason for their split? "The truth is they have been having a great time together, but it no longer worked," says a source.

As for Anthony, it seems he's moving on. "Marc is in a good place," the source adds. "Sometimes things work out and sometimes they don't."

Before de Lima, Anthony, 44, was married to Jennifer Lopez for seven years. The couple announced their separation in July, 2011.

In a recent PEOPLE cover story, Lopez opened up about her painful split from Anthony, saying it felt like her "whole world fell apart."

Reporting by LIZ MCNEIL and CARLOS GREER

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Women have caught up to men on lung cancer risk


Smoke like a man, die like a man.


U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.


Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but is still rising for women.


"It's a massive failure in prevention," said one study leader, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society. And it's likely to repeat itself in places like China and Indonesia where smoking is growing, he said. About 1.3 billion people worldwide smoke.


The research is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. It is one of the most comprehensive looks ever at long-term trends in the effects of smoking and includes the first generation of U.S. women who started early in life and continued for decades, long enough for health effects to show up.


The U.S. has more than 35 million smokers — about 20 percent of men and 18 percent of women. The percentage of people who smoke is far lower than it used to be; rates peaked around 1960 in men and two decades later in women.


Researchers wanted to know if smoking is still as deadly as it was in the 1980s, given that cigarettes have changed (less tar), many smokers have quit, and treatments for many smoking-related diseases have improved.


They also wanted to know more about smoking and women. The famous surgeon general's report in 1964 said smoking could cause lung cancer in men, but evidence was lacking in women at the time since relatively few of them had smoked long enough.


One study, led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, looked at about 217,000 Americans in federal health surveys between 1997 and 2004.


A second study, led by Thun, tracked smoking-related deaths through three periods — 1959-65, 1982-88 and 2000-10 — using seven large population health surveys covering more than 2.2 million people.


Among the findings:


— The risk of dying of lung cancer was more than 25 times higher for female smokers in recent years than for women who never smoked. In the 1960s, it was only three times higher. One reason: After World War II, women started taking up the habit at a younger age and began smoking more.


—A person who never smoked was about twice as likely as a current smoker to live to age 80. For women, the chances of surviving that long were 70 percent for those who never smoked and 38 percent for smokers. In men, the numbers were 61 percent and 26 percent.


—Smokers in the U.S. are three times more likely to die between ages 25 and 79 than non-smokers are. About 60 percent of those deaths are attributable to smoking.


—Women are far less likely to quit smoking than men are. Among people 65 to 69, the ratio of former to current smokers is 4-to-1 for men and 2-to-1 for women.


—Smoking shaves more than 10 years off the average life span, but quitting at any age buys time. Quitting by age 40 avoids nearly all the excess risk of death from smoking. Men and women who quit when they were 25 to 34 years old gained 10 years; stopping at ages 35 to 44 gained 9 years; at ages 45 to 54, six years; at ages 55 to 64, four years.


—The risk of dying from other lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis is rising in men and women, and the rise in men is a surprise because their lung cancer risk leveled off in 1980s.


Changes in cigarettes since the 1960s are a "plausible explanation" for the rise in non-cancer lung deaths, researchers write. Most smokers switched to cigarettes that were lower in tar and nicotine as measured by tests with machines, "but smokers inhaled more deeply to get the nicotine they were used to," Thun said. Deeper inhalation is consistent with the kind of lung damage seen in the illnesses that are rising, he said.


Scientists have made scant progress against lung cancer compared with other forms of the disease, and it remains the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. More than 160,000 people die of it in the U.S. each year.


The federal government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the cancer society and several universities paid for the new studies. Thun testified against tobacco companies in class-action lawsuits challenging the supposed benefits of cigarettes with reduced tar and nicotine, but he donated his payment to the cancer society.


Smoking needs more attention as a health hazard, Dr. Steven A. Schroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary in the journal.


"More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer. But there is no 'race for the cure' for lung cancer, no brown ribbon" or high-profile advocacy groups for lung cancer, he wrote.


Kathy DeJoseph, 62, of suburban Atlanta, finally quit smoking after 40 years — to qualify for lung cancer surgery last year.


"I tried everything that came along, I just never could do it," even while having chemotherapy, she said.


It's a powerful addiction, she said: "I still every day have to resist wanting to go buy a pack."


___


Online:


American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org


National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/lung


Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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S&P up for sixth day, Apple slip could halt rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 rose for a sixth day on Wednesday after stronger-than-expected profits from IBM and Google but the rally could be halted as Apple's after-hours miss sent its shares lower.


The S&P was just 4.7 percent from its all-time closing high as IBM's and Google's earnings, released after Tuesday's close, followed on the heels of stronger U.S. economic data.


"People were kind of nervous about earnings coming into this quarter but numbers have shown so far strength in earnings," said King Lip, chief investment officer at Baker Avenue Asset Management in San Francisco.


But Apple , still the largest U.S. publicly traded company, fell 8 percent in extended trading after sales of its flagship iPhone came in below analyst targets and quarterly revenue slightly missed Wall Street expectations.


"One thing that stands out is the company's ballooning balance sheet, where they now have $137 billion dollars in cash and investments," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut. "You've got to wonder when they're going to put some more of that to work."


Declining issues beat advancers in both the NYSE and Nasdaq during regular market hours, in a sign the market's rally may be overstretched. The broad Russell 2000 index <.rut> closed the day down 0.3 percent after earlier hitting and intraday historic high just below 900 points.


Shares in IBM Corp , the world's largest technology services company, climbed 4.4 percent during regular market hours to $204.72, providing just about all of the Dow's 67-point gain.


Also helping the tech sector was a 5.5 percent jump in Google Inc to $741.50. The Internet search company reported its core business outpaced expectations and revenue was higher than expected.


The S&P technology sector <.splrct> rose 1.2 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 67.12 points or 0.49 percent, to 13,779.33, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 2.25 points or 0.15 percent, to 1,494.81, and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 10.49 points or 0.33 percent, to 3,153.67.


The benchmark S&P 500 is a mere 0.35 percent away from hitting 1,500, a level not seen since December 12, 2007.


S&P 500 futures fell 4.1 points, or 0.3 percent, while Nasdaq 100 futures fell 20 points or 0.7 percent.


Netflix shares soared 32 percent, above $136, after the video subscription service said it added subscribers in the United States and abroad and posted a quarterly profit.


LED maker Cree Inc jumped 22 percent to $40.85 after it forecast a higher-than-expected third-quarter profit, and reported results above analysts' estimates.


Upscale leather goods maker Coach Inc plunged 16.4 percent to $50.75 after reporting sales that missed expectations.


Clearing a market hurdle, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Republican-led plan to extend the country's borrowing authority until mid May. This delays a confrontation in Congress similar to one in 2011, which generated a stalemate that triggered the first-ever U.S. debt rating downgrade.


Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday showed that of the 99 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings so far, 67.7 percent have topped expectations, above the 65 percent average beat over the past four quarters.


Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings rose 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season.


Top U.S. manufacturers sounded a confident note about their expectations for 2013 on Wednesday as fears of the year-end "fiscal cliff" faded into memory.


In the regular session, about 6.1 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the 2012 daily average of about 6.45 billion.


On the NYSE, roughly 15 issues fell for every 14 that rose and on Nasdaq seven declined for every five gainers.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Diane Craft)



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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

The Lede followed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

At a House Committee hearing last October investigating the attack, as reported on The Lede, State Department officials and security experts who served on the ground offered conflicting assessments about what resources were requested and made available to deal with growing security concerns in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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Racy Victorian divorces online at genealogy website






LONDON (Reuters) – The original Mrs Robinson’s diary and scandalous suggestions about a former heir to the British throne are all part of the latest ancestral revelations to go online.


British genealogical website Ancestry.co.uk said on Tuesday it has put the transcripts of thousands of Victorian divorce proceedings online, which reveal the racy details of an era that most modern Britons consider to have been dominated by imperial duty, a stiff upper lip and formal familial relations.






The UK Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911 date from the year when the Matrimonial Causes Act removed the jurisdiction of divorce from the church and made it a civil matter.


Before this, a full divorce required intervention by Parliament, which had only granted around 300 since 1668. The records also include civil court records on separation, custody battles, legitimacy claims and nullification of marriages, according to the website.


Primarily due to their high cost, divorces were relatively rare in the 19th century, with around 1,200 applications made a year, compared to approximately 120,000 each year today, and not all requests were successful due to the strength of evidence required.


The rarity of such cases, combined with the fact that it was wealthy, often well-known nobility involved, made the divorce proceedings huge public scandals, played out in the press as real life soap operas.


Famously high-profile divorces included that of Henry and Isabella Robinson, the inspiration for the novel “Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace”, by Kate Summerscale.


Henry Robinson sued for divorce after reading his wife Isabella’s diary, which included in-depth details of her affair with a younger married man.


The diary was used as court evidence and when reported by the media became a huge scandal, partly because of the language used within the journal. Isabella, however, claimed the diary was a work of fiction, which led to her victory in court.


Conservative MP and baronet, Charles Mordaunt, filed for divorce in 1869 from his wife Harriet who stood accused of adultery with multiple men.


The case became national news when the Prince of Wales was rumored to be among the men who had had an affair with her. This rumor was never proven and Lady Mordaunt was eventually declared mad and spent the rest of her life in an asylum.


“At the time, such tales often developed into national news stories, but now they’re more likely to tell us something about the double standards of the Victorian divorce system or help us learn more about the lives of our sometimes naughty ancestors,” Ancestry.co.uk UK Content Manager Miriam Silverman said in a statement on Tuesday.


When the divorce laws first came into effect, men could divorce for adultery alone, while women had to supplement evidence of cheating with solid proof of mistreatment, such as battery or desertion.


Despite this double standard, roughly half of the records are accounts of proceedings initiated by the wife. Many of the nullifications of marriages fall into this category, with failure to consummate the nuptials a common reason.


One such example in the records shows a Frances Smith filing for divorce in 1893 under such grounds.


In the court ledgers it is noted that the marriage was never consummated, with the husband incapable “by reason of the frigidity and impotency or other defect of the parts of generation” and “such incapacity is incurable by art or skill” following inspection.


(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Patricia Reaney)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Nicole Richie Chops Off Her Hair!







Style News Now





01/23/2013 at 10:30 AM ET











Nicole RichieCourtesy Nicole Richie


It may be a bob, but don’t expect to see Nicole Richie‘s new ‘do behind the wheel of a minivan anytime soon.


Richie took to Instagram to document her latest hair look — a just-above-the-shoulders crop — Tuesday afternoon, sharing a photo of herself mid-cut with the caption hinting at what the final result would be: “B.O.B.”



It appears that the star took off a few inches in addition to adding some cool, piecey layers. Now excuse us while we call our stylist to book a haircut.


Tell us: Do you prefer Richie with short or long hair?


–Jennifer Cress


PHOTOS: SEE MORE STAR HAIRSTYLES!




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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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