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President Barack Obama's campaign-style drive for another batch of economic stimulus spending is facing defeat yet again at the hands of Republicans in the Senate.

Federal health officials have approved a first-of-a-kind artificial heart valve that can be implanted without major surgery, offering a new treatment option for patients who are too old or frail for the chest-cracking procedure currently used.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday acknowledged that the pace of economic growth is likely to be "frustratingly slow," after the Fed downgraded its forecast for the next two years.

The Federal Reserve is holding off on any new actions to help the economy because stronger growth is giving it time to gauge the impact of steps it's already taken.

Stock indexes rose Wednesday after a steep two-day drop as international leaders scrambled to save a week-old plan to prevent a financial crisis in Europe. Strong corporate earnings and a bump up in hiring by private companies also helped turn markets around.

New projections by the state of Vermont say a public, universal health care system would cost between $8.2 billion and $9.5 billion a year roughly $13,000 to $14,000 per resident by 2020, but that sticking with the current system based on private insurers would cost even more.