One by one, five Republican candidates for president took the stage Tuesday in the state that holds the first presidential contest to pitch themselves as the strongest to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama on voters' top issue: jobs.

Unemployment rates fell in about three-quarters of large U.S. cities in September, a sign that the nation's modest job gains that month occurred across most of the country.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. said Wednesday its third-quarter net income fell 13 percent, and the world's largest maker of generic drugs narrowed its 2011 earnings forecast.

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.

First lady Michelle Obama led peppy toddlers at a New Orleans daycare center in calisthenics and read them a book about a mouse that eats green peas, bidding to get America's children eating better and exercising more.

The number of overdose deaths from powerful painkillers more than tripled over a decade, the government reported Tuesday a trend that a U.S. health official called an epidemic, but one that can be stopped.

It's become a regular exercise in budget brinksmanship. Medicare is again warning that doctors face draconian pay cuts on Jan. 1 unless Congress acts.

Shares of Pharmasset Inc. climbed Tuesday after the company said it is starting late-stage clinical trials of an experimental hepatitis C drug.