RATE CUT...
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Reserve, which began the year aggressively fighting a severe credit crunch and economic weakness, may push the pause button after delivering perhaps one more quarter-point cut in interest rates.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues were to wrap up a two-day meeting Wednesday and financial markets widely expected that the discussions will end with an announcement that the Fed will cut a key interest rate by a quarter-point.

That would be the seventh reduction in the federal funds rate since the central bank began battling against the credit squeeze and the growing possibility of a recession last September.

The Fed delivered two three-quarter-point moves and one half-point cut over an eight-week period from mid-January to mid-March that represented the central bank's most aggressive rate cuts in a quarter-century.

However, the central bank is expected to respond with a less aggressive quarter-point move at this meeting, in part because the financial turmoil seems to have eased and because there are growing concerns about inflation.

While there is some thought that the Fed might decide to forgo a rate cut, most analysts believe that the greater likelihood is a quarter-point move.

``My best guess is that they want to buy a little more insurance against an economy that looks like it is in recession,'' said Lyle Gramley, a former Fed board member with the Stanford Financial Group.

A quarter-point cut would move the funds rate to 2 percent, a full 3 percentage points below where it was on Sept. 18 when the Fed started cutting rates.

A quarter-point move would trigger a similar reduction in banks' prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans, which now stands at 5.25 percent.

The Fed's rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, composed of Fed board members in Washington and regional Fed bank presidents, is split into two camps. One group is concerned that the severe credit crisis and prolonged housing slump could be pushing the country into a deep recession while a smaller faction is worried that the Fed could be running the risk of letting inflation get out of control even as the economy slows.

Whatever the Fed does at the conclusion of this week's meeting, private economists believe it will leave the door open for further rate cuts, seeking to avoid the mistake made at the October meeting when it sent a pause signal, only to have to backtrack.

``They made a big mistake after the October meeting, implying that they would pause, and then had egg all over their face when they had to begin cutting rates aggressively because the economy weakened more than they thought and the credit crisis turned out to be more severe,'' said David Jones, head of DMJ Advisors, a private economic consulting firm.

While leaving the door open this time for further rate cuts if needed, the Fed may well be done, many analysts believe, if financial markets continue to improve and the economy starts to rebound with the help of the previous Fed rate cuts and 130 million economic stimulus payments, which started showing up in Americans' bank accounts this week.

While many economists believe the country is in a recession, the expectation is that it will be a short one ending this summer. If that turns out to be correct, the Fed may hold rates steady for the rest of this year with the next move being a rate increase sometime next year when the economy is on sounder footing.

``The Fed won't start raising interest rates until the unemployment rate has peaked and started coming back down,'' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. He said he was looking for the jobless rate, now at 5.1 percent, to climb to 6 percent early next year before starting to fall.

HEALTH AND HAPPINESS...
WASHINGTON (AP) - Staying healthy and happy is a struggle for about half of Americans, according to a massive survey that attempts to measure the nation's general welfare, much like the Dow Jones Industrial Average portrays the health of the stock market.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on interviews of more than 100,000 people so far, shows that 47 percent of Americans are struggling and 4 percent are suffering. Forty-nine percent of respondents are reported to be thriving based on a personal assessment of how they feel about their lives at the time of the survey, and where they think they'll be in five years.

Pollsters asked people to imagine where they would put themselves on a ladder with 10 steps. Those said they were on step seven or above are listed as thriving. Those at four or below are suffering. In between are the strugglers.

Those who are thriving tend to have higher incomes, more education and less illness. Those who are suffering have trouble meeting their basic needs, including food, shelter and medical care, said James Harter, Gallup's chief scientist for workplace management and well-being.

Just as the U.S is not No. 1 when it comes to health measures, it also is not No. 1 in well-being, he said. For example, 83 percent of the residents of Denmark are classified as thriving versus 1 percent who are suffering.

Researchers hope the findings, which can be broken down by occupation, commute time and exercise habits, will help employers better understand what they can do to create happier and healthier workers.

Eventually, they said, the data could even be used to compare health and happiness by ZIP code, creating quite a measuring stick for future generations of politicians.

``There's never been anything quite like it,'' said Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner in economic sciences.

``You're getting details about what it's like to live in this country,'' said Kahneman, a Princeton University professor brought in by Gallup to discuss the potential uses for the data. ``What is the experience of the weekend? What is the experience of the weekday for someone who is sick and has to go to work in the morning? We are going to learn a great deal about what are the determinants of actual happiness.''

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that the United States invests more on health care than any country, but that its health care system ranks 37th.

``That doesn't sound like we're getting the best value from the investment we're making,'' Gerberding said. ``That fundamentally is something we as a nation are waking up to.''

The research has implications for employers who want to stay on top of problems confronting a particular work force.

The survey shows that manufacturing or transportation workers are most likely to report a negative work environment - 29 percent. Those who report a negative work environment tend to miss more days of work. A worker with up to three chronic conditions and a negative work environment will miss an average of 6.6 more days of work a year than a similar worker who likes his or her work environment, the survey found.

The survey said a negative work environment includes job dissatisfaction, an authoritative boss, lack of trust and lack of focus on individual strengths.

Among all workers, two-thirds reported one or more chronic diseases or recurring conditions. More than a quarter reported back or neck problems; 23 percent cited high cholesterol and 22 percent had high blood pressure. More than one in 10 said they suffered from depression.

Nearly two-thirds of workers reported body mass indexes indicating they could be obese or overweight.

Healthways, which works with companies to improve the health of workers, partnered with Gallup to pay for the survey. The cost of maintaining the index is projected at more than $20 million annually. More than 1,000 are being interviewed daily.

TOWN MERGERS...
TRENTON, NJ (AP) - A top New Jersey lawmaker wants to make it tougher for lawmakers and voters to reject town mergers.

A new state commission is weighing which towns should merge to try to cut the nation's highest property taxes, but the Legislature can reject the commission's recommendations.

Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts Jr. said Tuesday that he wants to amend the law to make it impossible for the Legislature to override the commission's proposals.

Roberts also said the state should be able to chop state aid from towns that reject mergers.

``We need to give real teeth to the commission's work so its recommendations are not simply dismissed out-of-hand,'' said Roberts, D-Camden.

New Jersey property taxes average $6,800 per homeowner, or twice the national average. The state has 21 counties, 566 municipalities and 616 school districts.

The commission mulling town mergers held its first meeting earlier this month. Its goal is to find ways to save money by reducing the number of local governments.

``Choosing to continue ignoring these problems will eventually leave us with hundreds of municipalities that are as charmingly colloquial as they are wholly unaffordable,'' Roberts said.

Local officials said they oppose stripping aid from towns that reject mergers.

``We must oppose a proposal which would, on the one hand, allow the voters to express their will, but, on the other hand, inform those voters that they will be punished if their will does not comport,'' said Bill Dressel of the state League of Municipalities.

History shows New Jersey voters often balk at merging communities.

Voters in South Orange and Maplewood rejected studying whether the two Essex County municipalities should merge. Princeton Borough and Princeton Township voters rejected a merger three times.

The state has had only two town mergers since 1952, when Vineland and Landis merged. Pahaquarry and Hardwick merged in 1997 simply because Pahaquarry was down to seven residents and couldn't run a government.

AMERICAN AUTOS...
DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp. struggled to a $3.3 billion first-quarter loss, due in part to a weak U.S. market, a strike at a major supplier and plummeting sales of sport utility vehicles and pickups.

The loss reported Wednesday for the January-March period amounted to $5.74 per share and also reflected one-time charges. Without the charges, it appeared GM's adjusted results beat Wall Street expectations.

GM said a two-month strike at American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. has cost it $800 million and 100,000 vehicles. The strike has affected 30 GM plants.

GM's loss included a $1.45 billion charge to reflect a change in the value of GM's interest in GMAC Financial Services and $731 million to increase GM's liability in Delphi Corp.'s ongoing bankruptcy.

Excluding the one-time items, GM lost $350 million, or 62 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected a loss of $1.60 per share.

The automaker had earned $62 million, or 11 cents a share, a year ago.

GM's revenue slipped to $42.7 billion from $43.4 billion a year ago. GM said revenues were up 20 percent outside North America thanks to strong growth in China, Russia, Brazil and India, but were impacted by the slowdown in North America and losses at GMAC.

GM lost $276 million in the first quarter due to its minority stake in GMAC.

``We continue to leverage our global product portfolio to take advantage of tremendous growth in key emerging markets, while at the same time taking the appropriate actions to deal with the challenging economic conditions in the U.S.,'' GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said in a statement.

THE FLASH...
NEW YORK (AP) - He's so fast, he can even outrun death: Barry Allen, aka The Flash, is speeding back to life 23 years after being killed off.

Allen was the second man - though not the last - to don the trademark red costume decorated with a lightning bolt as DC Comics' ``Fastest Man Alive.''

His death in 1985 became legendary among comic book fans. He was vaporized preserving the universe.

Now he joins the tradition of super-heroes like Captain America and Superman who have died only to be resurrected later on.

 Yet, unlike his revived peers who were dead just a few issues, Allen was gone so long that his rebirth comes as a surprise.

Grant Morrison, who along with Geoff Johns is responsible for resurrecting The Flash in the last panel of ``DC Universe #0,'' said comic book characters don't have to stay dead.

``We can do anything with them, and we can make them come back and make them defy death,'' Morrison said.

Allen's incarnation of The Flash was first introduced in 1956 and helped lead to a revitalization of super-heroes in comic books during a time when westerns and war themes dominated.