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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Syria Rebels Postpone Formation of Transitional Government

MOSCOW — Russia announced Monday that it was sending two airplanes from its emergency services fleet to Beirut to evacuate around 100 Russian citizens leaving Syria, reflecting Moscow’s assessment that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are losing control of the country after nearly two years of fighting.

It was not clear whether the news signaled the beginning of a large-scale evacuation. Russia has an estimated 30,000 citizens in Syria, including government and military personnel, private contractors and tens of thousands of women married to Syrian men. Around a dozen Russian ships are in the Mediterranean off the coast of Syria for naval exercises and could, officials have said, be used to evacuate Russian citizens.

Irina Rossius,  a spokeswoman for Russia’s Emergency Services Ministry, said two airplanes would fly to Beirut on Tuesday “so that all Russians who wish to can leave Syria,” Interfax reported. She said more than 100 Russians expected to leave. It is now common for people leaving Damascus, if they can afford it, to avoid the contested route to the city’s airport by driving to Beirut and flying out from there.

Ms. Rossius did not say which group was evacuating, but conditions have been deteriorating for diplomats. Last week, Russia announced that it was closing its consulate in Aleppo in the wake of a double bombing that killed 82 people, and security officials told the newspaper Kommersant last month that the authorities were prepared to send 100 armed intelligence officers to help Russian diplomats leave Damascus if necessary. Russian arms manufacturers also have military advisers in place to assist the Syrian military with air-defense systems purchased from Russia.

Russia first formulated plans for an evacuation seven months ago, but delayed putting them into action — in part, analysts said, because it would send a political message that Moscow no longer considered it likely that Mr. Assad would prevail. But Foreign Ministry officials are increasingly concerned about security and have been quietly trying to negotiate the release of two Russian steel workers who were kidnapped last month.

The conflict continued to rage on Monday, with the government accusing rebels of attacking an important power line, causing a blackout in 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.

In Istanbul, the main exile opposition group once again failed to form a transitional government, deciding instead to postpone the step while new proposals are drawn up. The delay was a setback to the opposition’s plans to fill the power vacuum created by the ever bloodier civil war.

The opposition group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, 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 to reorganize last year have been urging the new 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. The statement was similar to one the coalition made last month, after failing to form a government at a meeting in Cairo.

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.”

The coalition announced that it was sending $250,000 in emergency aid to Daraya, a Damascus suburb that has been hit hard recently with artillery and airstrikes, and forming committees to aid refugees and the wounded and to coordinate with armed opposition groups inside Syria. The coalition has been under pressure to show that it can offer real help to Syrians inside the country.

But providing aid is complicated, as the government still plays a role in coordinating international aid. The coalition also said it was forming a committee to pressure the United Nations to stop all aid to official Syrian institutions, a move that could further hamper the delivery of aid that is already challenged by the dangers of moving around the country. Syrian employees of quasi-official agencies currently transport much of the United Nations’ food aid to displaced citizens, John Ging, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, noted in a news conference in Damascus by a high-level United Nations delegation. Mr. Ging thanked the Syrian Arab Red Crescent for its bravery, Syria’s state news agency reported.

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

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Putin orders Russian computers to be protected after spy attacks

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian authorities to protect state computers from hacking attacks, the Kremlin said on Monday, after an Internet security firm said a spy network had infiltrated government and embassy computers across the former Soviet bloc.

Dubbed Red October, the network used phishing attacks – or unsolicited emails to intended targets – to infect the computers of embassies and other state institutions with a program designed to harvest intelligence and send it back to a server.

Putin signed a decree on January 15 empowering the Federal Security Service (FSB) to “create a state system for the detection, prevention and liquidation of the effects of computer attacks on the information resources of the Russian Federation”.

State computer and telecommunications networks protected by the cyber security system should include those inside Russia and at its embassies and consulates abroad, according to the decree, which was published on a Kremlin website on Monday.

The Russian Internet security firm Kaspersky Labs said last week that the computer espionage network, discovered last October, had been seeking intelligence from Eastern European and ex-Soviet states including Russia since 2007. (http://r.reuters.com/mag45t )

Many of the systems infected belonged to diplomatic missions, Vitaly Kamluk, an expert in computer viruses at Kaspersky Labs, said last week. He declined to name specific countries.

Kamluk said last week that the network was still active, and that law enforcement agencies in several European countries were investigating it.

Kaspersky Labs said the infiltrators had created more than 60 domain names, mostly in Russia and Germany, that worked as proxies to hide the location of their real server.

The FSB declined immediate comment last week when asked whether Russia had taken action to bring any suspected members of the espionage network to justice, or acted to improve Internet security in light of the discovery.

The FSB – the main successor agency of the Soviet KGB – requested a written query, to which it has not yet responded. The Kremlin declined immediate comment on Monday when asked whether Putin’s decree was linked to Red October.

(Reporting by Steve Gutterman and Thomas Grove; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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President Obama: I Love Michelle's New Bangs

01/21/2013 at 04:20 PM EST

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama

Matthew Cavanaugh/EPA/Landov

First Lady Michelle Obama's new do has the approval of a very powerful man.

Following his official swearing-in ceremony on Sunday, President Barack Obama attended an Inauguration eve gala at the National Building Museum, where he complimented his wife's fresh look.

"To address the most significant event of the weekend, I love her bangs," Obama said, according to USA Today. "She looks good. She always looks good."

The First Lady debuted her cut in a photo released on her 49th birthday last Thursday – and showed it off (along with her Thom Browne dress) again at the Inauguration on Monday.

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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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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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Prime Minister David Cameron to Reschedule Europe Speech Soon

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who postponed a much-awaited address on his country’s future relations with Europe because of the Algeria hostage crisis, will deliver the speech in the next few days, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday.

“It will happen this week,” Mr. Hague told the BBC, but he said the date and location would not be announced until Monday.

His remarks coincided with one more sign of American public displeasure that Mr. Cameron may move Britain closer to leaving the 27-nation European Union when he gives the address, which was initially scheduled for Friday in the Netherlands.

Last week a White House spokesman quoted President Obama as telling Mr. Cameron in a telephone call that “the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity and security in Europe and around the world.”

That theme resurfaced Sunday when the American ambassador in London, Louis B. Susman, told Sky News that “we cannot imagine a strong E.U. without a vibrant partner in the U.K.”

“That is what we hope will come about, but it is up to the British people to decide what they want,” Mr. Susman said, according to the Press Association news agency.

On Friday, after Mr. Cameron postponed the speech, his office released excerpts suggesting that he had planned to deliver an explicit warning that Britain might leave the European Union unless the bloc changed the way it is run.

Mr. Cameron planned to say that there was “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”

“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit,” Mr. Cameron planned to say. “I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it.”

Mr. Cameron is under pressure from members of his own Conservative Party to promise a referendum on Europe, and he has signaled his readiness to hold one, although the precise question to be asked has not been made clear.

Mr. Hague, the foreign secretary, said Sunday that there was a strong case for seeking “fresh consent” about the relationship between the European Union and Britain, which held a referendum approving membership in 1975.

“We want to succeed in the European Union — we want an outward-looking E.U. to succeed in the world, and for the United Kingdom to succeed in that,” he said.

“But we have to recognize that the European Union has changed a lot since the referendum of 1975, and that there have been not only great achievements to the E.U.’s name but some things that have gone badly wrong, such as the euro,” Mr. Hague said, referring to the protracted crisis over the bloc’s single currency. Britain does not participate in the single currency.

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Notre Dame football star says he was not in on hoax – ESPN

(Reuters) – Notre Dame football star Manti Te’o has denied ever being in on an elaborate hoax, telling ESPN he had believed his relationship with a woman who turned out to be an online fabrication was real.

The tragic story of his girlfriend and her injuries from a car accident and death from leukemia was one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports stories last year as Notre Dame made a drive toward the national championship game.

“I wasn’t faking it,” Te’o told ESPN in an off-camera interview on Friday, excerpts of which were posted on ESPN.com. “I wasn’t part of this.”

When asked whether he had made up the tale to support his chances of winning the Heisman Trophy, the highest individual honor for a college football player, Te’o replied: “Well, when they hear the facts they’ll know. They’ll know that there is no way that I could be part of this.”

The interview was Te’o's first since the sports blog Deadspin.com on Wednesday exposed the heart-wrenching tale of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, and her death as a hoax and that a friend of Te’o's named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo was behind it.

Te’o told ESPN that Tuiasosopo called him on Wednesday and admitted he was behind the hoax and it was then Te’o was sure the woman had never existed.

“I don’t wish an ill thing to somebody,” Te’o said of Tuiasosopo, according to ESPN. “I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough.”

Outside Tuiasosopo’s home in Palmdale, California, on Thursday, a member of his family who did not identify himself told reporters they had no comment.

Te’o acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that he had never met the woman in person, though he considered her his girlfriend and said he had been duped.

In the ESPN interview, Te’o said he tried to video chat with her several times, but she could never be seen on the other end. He also said he intentionally told people stories about her in a way that would make people believe they had met in person.

“I even knew that it was crazy that I was with somebody that I didn’t meet,” Te’o said.

NATIONAL PROMINENCE

ESPN said the interview was held at a training facility in Florida where Te’o has been preparing for the National Football League draft. The star linebacker was expected to be a high draft pick before the hoax was revealed.

Te’o sprang to national prominence last fall when he led Notre Dame to a victory over Michigan State within days of learning his grandmother and girlfriend had both died. The grandmother’s death was real.

The story grew to become a big feature in coverage of the team, which went undefeated in the regular season and reached the national championship game. Alabama defeated Notre Dame in the title game on January 7.

Notre Dame, one of the most powerful institutions in U.S. collegiate athletics, held a news conference within hours of the Deadspin.com article to say that Te’o had been duped.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said on Friday the Indiana university was comfortable, based on a private investigation it launched and on four years experience with Te’o, that he was the victim and encouraged Te’o to speak publicly.

(Reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Eric Beech)

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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 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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