The Obama administration says some 375,000 people have logged onto the website by noon Monday, testing the limits of the site’s new and improved capacity. As response time slowed, and error rates rose, some users were forced to wait or asked to supply emails so that they could come back later. White House Spokesman Jay Carney says that was by designed. 

 

We absolutely anticipated that on this day in particular, we would see a surge. 

 

The website fell short of its target of accommodating 50,000 simultaneous users, but officials say it should still meet the goal of handling 800,000 users per day. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

 

In New York, some commuters endured the lengthy delays today as crews continue to clear the site of yesterday’s major derailment that claimed the lives of four people and left dozens of others hurt. Investigators say they’ve already been able to retrieve some of the train’s black box information that could help to determine what happened. One thing National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener says they know for sure the train was traveling well above the posted speed. 

 

The preliminary information and let me emphasise this is preliminary information from the event recorder shows that the train was traveling at approximately 82 miles per hour as it went into a 30 mile-an-hour curve. 

 

One hundred and fifty people were on board. The  Metro-North train went off the rails on a bend where Harlem and Hudson rivers meet near the Bronx. Many of those who were hurt are out of the hospital now. Investigators are continuing the probe. 

 

Bank of America will pay $400 million to mortgage giant Freddie Mac  to settle claims over bad home mortgages. NPR’s Chris Arnold reports it’s part of a series of settlements involving many of the nation’s big banks. 

 

These cases essentially involved banks allegedly selling garbage home loans to investors after first telling them the loans were good. This was back during the housing bubble   when this took place.  The government-controlled mortgage firms  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought or guaranteed tens of billions of dollars worth of these loans that went bad. And this latest settlement $400 million is actually smaller potatoes. Bank of America earlier this agreed to pay $3.6 billion in a similar settlement with Fannie Mae. And JPMorgan Chase recently struck a deal with both Fannie and Freddie to pay them about $5 billion for selling loans that were lower quality than the bank said they were. Chris Arnold, NPR News.

 

Huddled with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday in the host of other so-called retail holidays were bombarded with, well, like another one on the list today, Cyber Monday. Most analysts expect upwards of 2 billion in sales today. 

 

Stocks closed lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 77 points; the NASDAQ lost 14 points today.

 

This is NPR.

 

Gay marriages are now underway in Hawaii as part of a new law allowing for same-sex couples to register for a license and to be married on the same day. The process that appeals to tourists who are visiting for just a short time. Six couples at a resort in Waikiki were among the first to be married today exchanging vows side by side in front of a few hundred guests. Just the first few hours of  the new law, Hawaii issued 40 licenses for same-sex marriage. State began accepting applications for licenses on its website at midnight.

 

Farmers are cutting and delivering millions of Christmas trees. But NPR’s Paul Brown tells us there is a growing problem for U.S. Christmas tree farmers, a mould that makes roots rot and trees shrivel. Researchers are trying to breed resistant trees. 

 

When the mould called Phytophthora  contaminants farmers’ Christmas tree fields years of work and waiting can bring only losses. The well-known Fraser fir is acceptable to the root rot, fir trees from Eurasia are not. North Carolina farmer Jeff Poller is experimenting with the Turkish fir. He says it offers good needle retention, strong limbs and pleasant if not great, older.

 

It doesn’t smell as good as a Fraser fir though, I will tell you that. But it’s close.

 

And he says so far, his customers are happy. Breeders are also working to create hybrid Christmas trees from the Fraser fir and the Turkish fir. Paul Brown, NPR News.

 

Amazon apparently has a different proposed use for drone aircraft rather than military or police, delivering packages. The online retailer, according to a report presented on CBS News Program 60 Minutes, is actually working on a project that  could allow for system that'll get purchases to customers in less than 30 minutes due to the use of drones.