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


Read More..

Cyclical sectors lift S&P 500 to 5-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cyclical sectors led the Standard & Poor's 500 to a five-year intraday high on Tuesday as traders gobbled up bank and commodity shares on hopes the global economy continues to mend.


The market also gained on signals that Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives aim on Wednesday to pass a nearly four-month extension of the U.S. debt limit. The White House welcomed the move on Tuesday, saying it defuses fears of a U.S. default on its debt.


Adding to the upbeat sentiment, Portuguese 10-year debt yields 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.


"Cyclicals underperformed late last year because of the fear of the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling," said Jack de Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.


He said overall 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.


Gains were limited, however, as investors were cautious ahead of an increase in earnings reports and the S&P 500 was rising for the fifth straight day.


"Not very often do you go very far beyond that in the short term," De Gan said, "so any (bearish) news could turn us down for a day or so."


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 47.43 points or 0.35 percent, to 13,697.13. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 4.18 points or 0.28 percent, to 1,490.16. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 0.25 of a point, or 0.01 percent, to 3,134.96.


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 5.4 percent to $35.44.


Technology shares underperformed as concerns about Apple's ability to continue to grow at hyper speed and a weak outlook from Intel Corp have diminished optimism about the sector's prospects. The S&P technology index <.splrct> was off 0.2 percent.


Major tech companies scheduled to report results after the market's close on Tuesday include Google Inc , IBM and Texas Instruments . Tech bellwethers Apple and Microsoft Corp are set to report earnings later this week.


"Any one of those, if there is a big surprise up or down, could shift the balance in the markets. So investors are being far more cautious than normal, especially with the market averages having broken out to five-year highs," said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co, in Lake Oswego, Oregon.


Four Dow components have already reported earnings Tuesday, and three rose on the results. Insurer Travelers was the standout, climbing 2.1 percent to $77.93.


Blue chips DuPont


, the largest U.S. chemical company by market capitalization, and Verizon Communications also posted revenue that beat forecasts.

DuPont's shares gained 1.6 percent to $47.74 while Verizon's rose 0.4 percent to $42.73.


On the downside, shares of Johnson & Johnson , the diversified health company, slipped 0.8 percent to $72.66 after it forecast 2013 earnings below expectations.


Thomson Reuters data through Tuesday morning showed that of the 74 companies in the S&P 500 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 jumped 11.3 percent to $17.63 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.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Exit Polls Show Netanyahu Lost Ground to Centrist Party


Baz Ratner/Reuters


A polling station on Tuesday in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh, near Nablus.







TEL AVIV — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu performed far worse than expected in Israel’s national elections on Tuesday, according to exit polls, and while he remained likely to serve a third term, a surprise surge by a new centrist party indicated that he would be under pressure to form a more moderate governing coalition.






Pool photo by Uriel Sinai

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel touched the Western Wall on Tuesday in Jerusalem.






As polls closed at 10 p.m., Israeli news channels reported that Mr. Netanyahu’s rightist Likud-Beiteinu list would win 30 or 31 of Parliament’s 120 seats, and the new centrist party, There is a Future, would take 18, followed by left-leaning Labor, with 17. More important, the polls showed a significant tightening between the bloc of right-wing and religious parties, with a razor-thin majority of 61, and 59 for the center-left factions.


“Israelis are asking for a moderate coalition,” said Marcus Sheff, executive director of The Israel Project, an advocacy group. “Israel’s middle class wasn’t asleep as people assumed. The embers of the social protest are still strong.”


The exit polls, which are preliminary, suggested that Mr. Netanyahu’s challengers had a far stronger showing than the prime minister and his aides had anticipated. Two hours before the polls closed, Mr. Netanyahu made an urgent appeal for support from Israelis who had not yet voted.


“The Likud leadership is in danger,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote on his Facebook page around 8 p.m. “I ask you to leave everything and go out now to vote,” he added. “This is very important to guarantee the future of the state of Israel.”


While Mr. Netanyahu’s joint campaign list with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu faction was still expected to win more of Parliament’s seats than the next-largest party, making him the likeliest candidate to lead the next government, a relatively weak showing and a surge for centrist and left-leaning parties could force him to moderate his policies and leave him with a fragile coalition of competing interests.


The Central Election Commission reported that 63 percent of Israel’s eligible voters had cast ballots by 8 p.m., nearly as many as the 65 percent who voted over all in 2009. The turnout was on pace to exceed that in the four previous elections, experts said, though not to reach the 78 percent who voted in 1999.


Noting that there had been an unusually large portion of undecided voters in polls taken in the campaign’s final days, analysts were predicting a surprisingly strong showing for There is a Future and perhaps for the left-leaning Labor.


Erel Margalit, a venture capitalist who as No. 10 on Labor’s list was likely to land in Parliament, described the large turnout as a “protest vote” against the prime minister’s policies on dealing with the Palestinians and the economy, and a follow-up to the social protests that brought 500,000 people to the streets of Tel Aviv in the summer of 2011.


“It’s a clear demonstration of how many Israelis feel like something needs to be done and something needs to change,” Mr. Margalit, a first-time candidate, told reporters at an election-night party. “It was not a fringe phenomenon, it was a mainstream phenomenon. It is moving from the streets into the political arena.”


Polls in recent weeks have consistently predicted a victory for Mr. Netanyahu’s ticket. But the polls have also shown the joint ticket declining in strength, from the 42 seats it holds in the current Parliament to perhaps 32 or 35, and losing support to the Jewish Home, a party further to the right that has been revitalized and energized under the leadership of Naftali Bennett, a charismatic first-time candidate.


The Likud also apparently was losing votes to There is a Future, led by the former journalist Yair Lapid, according to Israeli news media.


Mr. Netanyahu, after casting his vote, went to the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem, and said, “I pray today for the future of Israel, for the sake of our people, I believe in this and I am certain that Israel’s citizens will do all within their power to give strength to the people of Israel in its land and country.”


Jodi Rudoren reported from Tel Aviv, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem.



Read More..

Rumored Xbox 720 specs: 8-core processor, 8GB of RAM, 800MHz GPU







Console gamers frustrated that their Xbox isn’t holding up well compared to high-end gaming PCs can relax a bit, because it looks like the next-generation Xbox is going to be a monster. It seems that website VGleaks has gotten ahold of leaked specifications for the Xbox 720, which it says will include an 8-core 1.6GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, an 800MHz graphics processor, a 50GB 6x Blu-ray Disc drive, and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. The leaked specifications are in line with previous rumors that also gave the next-generation Xbox an 8-core processor and 8GB of RAM, so there’s nothing overly surprising about VGleaks‘ report. The Xbox 720 will likely be announced at the E3 gaming convention this June and will be released in the fall.


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






This article was originally published on BGR.com


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Prince Harry 'Thrilled' Over Royal Pregnancy









01/21/2013 at 02:40 PM EST



Prince Harry is on his way home from the war zone and says he "can't wait" to become an uncle.

"Obviously I'm thrilled for both of them," Harry, 28, says of his brother Prince William and sister-in-law Kate, joking, "It's about time."

In an interview in Afghanistan, where he served since September, the prince says he had chatted to the couple – and didn’t text or send them a letter, despite reports he had done so – when their news was released in early December.

"I spoke to my brother and her, and they're both very well and both very happy obviously," he says. "I think it's very unfair that they were forced to publicize it when they were, but that's just the media for you."

The royal couple revealed the pregnancy prematurely because of Kate's hospitalization due to severe morning sickness.

Harry, in charge of the weaponry on his crew's Apache attack helicopter, was interviewed about 10 days after the pregnancy was revealed, but his remarks were kept under wraps for security reasons, released now because he's returning to the U.K.

"I literally am very, very happy for them," he says, "but I just only hope that she and him – but mainly Catherine – hopefully that she gets the necessary protection to allow her as a mother-to-be to enjoy the privacy that that comes with. I seriously hope that's going to be able to happen."

Now that he's back from his tour of duty, is there some pressure on him to follow his brother and find a wife?

"I don't think you can ever be urged to settle down," he says. " If you find the right person and everything feels right, then it takes time, especially for myself and my brother."

But, as he has hinted before, it is hard to find the right kind of woman who isn’t going to be scared off by everything else that goes with being with a royal.

"You ain't ever going to find someone who's going to jump into the position that it would hold," he says. "Simple as that."

Read More..

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


Read More..

European shares test two-year highs, yen volatile before BOJ

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares inched towards two-year highs on Monday, as a political attempt to break a budget impasse in the United States and expectations of aggressive Japanese stimulus bolstered the appetite for shares.


U.S. House Republican leaders said on Friday they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority in the coming days to buy time for the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a plan to shrink budget deficits.


European shares <.fteu3> were supported by the news <.eu>, but with no clear response from the Democrats and a thin session expected due to a market holiday in the United States, the impact on assets such as bonds and commodities was limited.


By 1500 GMT London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were up 0.4 to 0.6 percent, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 within touching distance of a two-year high and MSCI's world index <.miwd00000pus> steady at a 20-month high. <.l><.eu/>


Expectations that the Bank of Japan will deliver a bold monetary easing plan at the end of its two-day meeting on Tuesday also supported shares and created choppy conditions in the currency market.


According to sources familiar with the BoJ's thinking, the government of new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the central bank have agreed to set 2 percent inflation as a new target, supplanting a softer 1 percent 'goal'.


The yen, which has fallen 13 percent against the dollar over the last two months as the shift in Japanese policy has taken shape, touched a new 2-1/2 year low in early trading but then firmed as traders cut short positions given the BOJ has often fallen short of market expectations.


"Investors are being mindful that the moves we have seen over the course of the last month or two are just worth locking in at least until we understand how the BOJ are really going to play in the future," said Jeremy Stretch, head of currency strategy at CIBC World Markets.


CURRENCY WARS


Japanese equities have surged in recent weeks in anticipation of a more aggressive monetary policy stance, but not everyone is happy.


The slump in the yen has prompted Russia's deputy central bank governor to warn of a new round of 'currency wars' and the medium-term risk of running ultra-loose monetary policies is likely to be a theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which opens on Wednesday.


With little in the way of economic data or debt issuance and U.S. markets shut for the Martin Luther King public holiday, the rest of the day was expected to be a fairly quiet for investors.


As the first European finance ministers' meeting of the year got under way, most euro zone government bonds were trading virtually flat and the euro was steady at $1.3316.


Market pressure on Europe is now less intense thanks to the European Central Bank's promise to prevent a collapse of the euro. Policymakers are set to discuss Cyprus's plight and plans for the euro zone's bailout fund to directly recapitalize banks.


French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said as he arrived at the Brussels meeting that a proper recapitalization strategy was very important.


"Negotiations will be complex, and a final decision is unlikely to emerge soon. Risks for sovereign spreads in the periphery should be limited, but we have some concerns that the long-term solution may fall short of what a real banking union needs," said UniCredit economist Marco Valli.


POLITICAL GAME


The efforts by Republican lawmakers to give the U.S. government leeway to pay its bills for another three months dented demand for safe haven assets and pushed German government bond yields near the top of this year's range.


The U.S. Treasury needs congressional authorization to raise the current $16.4 trillion limit on U.S. debt sometime between mid-February and early March. A failure to achieve that could lead to a debt default.


"This is part of the political game, it remains to be seen whether the Democrats will accept it," KBC strategist Piet Lammens said, adding that investors' working scenario was that a solution to raise the ceiling would be eventually found anyway.


One of the key factors that drove 2-year German yields higher last week was also the prospect of sizeable early repayments of the 1 trillion euros euro zone banks took from the ECB roughly a year ago.


The central bank will publish on Friday how much banks plan to return at the optional first repayment date on January 30. A Reuters poll on Monday showed around 100 billion euros are expected to be repaid although some predict it could be as high as 250 billion.


OIL OVERSUPPLY


German markets showed no reaction after the country's center-left opposition party edged Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives from power in a regional election on Sunday, reviving its flagging hopes for September's national election.


The Bundesbank's latest report delivered an upbeat message on the country's economy, saying a recent slump should be short-lived and may have already bottomed out.


Oil prices took their cues from a report in the United States at the end of last week that showed consumer sentiment at its weakest in a year as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the country's debt crisis.


Concerns about demand overshadowed supply disruption fears reinforced by the Islamist militant attack and hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.


Brent futures were down by 40 cents to $111.47 per barrel by mid-afternoon. U.S. crude shed 43 cents to $95.13 per barrel after touching a four-month high last week.


"The over-riding fundamental feeling in the market is that crude oil is over-supplied in 2013," said Tony Nunan, an oil risk manager at Mitsubishi.


Last week's data showing a pick-up in the Chinese economy helped keep growth-sensitive copper prices steady at roughly $8,056 an ounce. Gold, meanwhile, reversed Friday's losses to stand at $1,688 an ounce.


(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Marious Zaharia and Anooja Debnath; Editing by Peter Graff)



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Syria Opposition Postpones Formation of Transitional Government





BEIRUT, Lebanon — Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria once again failed to form a transitional government in exile on Monday, deciding instead to postpone the step while new proposals are drawn up. The development at a conference in Istanbul was apparently a setback to the opposition’s plans to fill the power vacuum created by nearly two years of ever bloodier civil war.




The National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, the main exile opposition group, gathered in Istanbul on Saturday specifically to try to assemble a transitional government. The organization has won recognition by a number of foreign countries as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, but it has not yet solidified support among rebels fighting on the ground, nor has it begun planning for a post-Assad future.


The Western and Arab nations that pressed Mr. Assad’s adversaries into a reorganization last year have been urging the coalition to select a prime minister, but no candidate has won a consensus.


A statement by the National Coalition on Monday said that it had formed a five-member committee to “lead consultations” with rebel commanders, foreign backers and others seeking Mr. Assad’s ouster, and to draw up proposals for a transitional government within 10 days. After the coalition tried and failed to form a government at a meeting in Cairo last month, it made a similar announcement about creating a committee to work on the idea.


The conflict continued to rage in Syria on Monday, where the government accused rebels of attacking an important power line, blacking out Damascus, the capital, as well as areas to the north and a swath of territory reaching south to the Jordanian border. Power failures have been frequent reminders of the conflict that has engulfed Syria, but the latest one appeared to be the first to affect the entire capital, where Mr. Assad’s forces are still largely in control. The Associated Press reported that power was restored in parts of Damascus on Monday.


The talks over a transitional government were bogged down by a heated debate over a provision in the coalition’s bylaws banning its members from assuming ministerial posts in any future interim government, in an effort to protect the coalition from accusations that its members are merely seeking personal power. Some opposition leaders want to scrap that provision, arguing that it will deny the interim government the benefit of including experienced and respected senior figures, but they met with strong resistance.


“The idea faced an immediate storm of objections and criticism,” said Samir Nachar, a member of the Syrian National Coalition. “We saw that during the meeting, and decided not to change anything.”


Mr. Nachar said the main reason the opposition has failed to shape a transitional government so far is that it is not sure such a government would receive the international recognition and support it would need to function.


“Falling into the trap of forming a paralyzed government will not just be useless, it will be a huge disappointment to Syrians,” he said. “The coalition was promised a lot when it was formed, and none of that materialized.”


Hania Mourtada reported from Beirut, Lebanon, and Alan Cowell from London. Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.



Read More..

Selena Gomez: It Helps Being Friends with Taylor Swift and Vanessa Hudgens















01/20/2013 at 04:00 PM EST







From left: Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens


Stephen Lovekin/Getty; Bryan Bedder/Getty; Javier Mateo/StarTraks


Boyfriends come and go, but Selena Gomez has a few very special – and very, very famous – faces to depend on.

The starlet, 20, counts Taylor Swift, 23, and Vanessa Hudgens, 24, among her inner circle, and she has plenty of compliments for their support along the way.

"It’s helped having Taylor and Vanessa both be older than me," she told PEOPLE at her New York City acoustic concert benefit for UNICEF, the children's rights organization for which she is a goodwill ambassador. "They’ve kind of experienced a little bit more, and at the same time we’re experiencing the exact same things together."

Her pals are just a call away, and "it's nice just to be able to pick up the phone and be like, 'Ugh, I had this person say this and it's annoying,' and have someone understand and really get what you're going through," adds Justin Bieber's on-again, off-again girlfriend. "I think that's [our] main connection. I just enjoy having people in the business in my life because it helps."

She recently worked with Hudgens on Spring Breakers, a comedy following four college gals that arrives in theaters in March. “I feel like I want to be her," Gomez says of her costar. "She’s been such an incredible person, and she’s fantastic in [Spring Breakers]. "She’s a really good friend.”

And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, her feelings on Swift – whom she called "one of the most inspirational, positive, good-hearted people that I know" – were clear by an addition to her concert set-list: a cover of the Red singer's hit, "I Knew You Were Trouble." (Yes, she also learned a dance to her friend's tune, just before the two hit the Utah ski slopes in December with their boyfriends at the time.)

“I met [Swift] when she was 18. This is before [Swift's 2008 album] Fearless came out, and it was absolutely incredible to see someone so successful and so humble," she says. "I think she has been a big part of me kind of staying the way I am too."

Read More..

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 Sinesky, 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 Sinesky, 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."


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


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


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