10 things you need to know today: December 2, 2013

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last updated 8 January 2015

1. Investigators search for clues in deadly train derailment

Commuters from New York City's northern suburbs face delays on Monday as the National Transportation Safety Board begins an exhaustive investigation into Sunday's train derailment that killed four people and injured 63 others. The train will be flipped upright to search for more victims. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the track appeared sound, leaving speed a suspected cause. The train's operator reportedly said the brakes failed. [Fox News, New York Times]

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Skeptics from both parties say the Obama administration has more work ahead to fix HealthCare.gov, despite a White House report saying that the ObamaCare website is working 90 percent of the time thanks to upgrades implemented ahead of a December 1 deadline. Insurers warn that glitches in the back-end systems that deliver customer information to insurers still haven't been fixed, so some people will be unable to enroll for coverage. [Washington Times, New York Times]

Heavy discounting dented the haul at stores over Thanksgiving weekend, according to the National Retail Federation. At $57.4 billion, total sales were down 3 percent from 2012 despite record crowds. The trend should continue through the holiday season, with stores offering profit-busting bargains to attract budget-conscious consumers — beginning with new deals on Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day every year since 2010. [Reuters, CNN]

Early Monday, China successfully launched a rocket carrying a robotic rover to explore the surface of the moon. In two weeks, the Chang'e 3 probe will attempt to touch down on the moon's Bay of Rainbows in what would be the Chinese space program's first soft-landing anywhere in space, then deploy the six-wheeled, solar-powered "Jade Rabbit" rover. China plans to send another probe in 2020 to prepare for landing its first astronauts on the moon. [USA Today]

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Monday rejected an ultimatum from protesters to resign. Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said Sunday that he had met with Shinawatra and told her she had two days to "return power to the people," although he didn't say what would happen if Shinawatra didn't bend. Four people have died in eight days of protests. Police have started using tear gas to contain crowds demanding a "people's coup." [Bangkok Post, BBC News]

A 50-member committee in Egypt approved 247 articles in a new constitution — one by one — on Sunday, state-run Nile TV and al-Ahram Online reported. The draft now goes to Egypt's interim president, Adly Mansour, who is expected to ratify it on Tuesday and set a date for a popular referendum to approve it. The document would ban religious parties and give more power to the military, which ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July. [CNN]

Croatians overwhelmingly approved a ban on same-sex marriage in a referendum on Sunday. While Americans are warming to gay marriage, two-thirds of the Croatians who cast ballots backed changing the country's constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Hundreds of gay rights supporters rallied against the measure on Saturday, but a Catholic group drew up a petition supporting it that more than 700,000 people signed. [BBC News]

Sea stars are dying off in unprecedented numbers off America's East and West coasts. Marine scientists say the creatures, commonly known as starfish, are being turned to goo by an unknown wasting disease. Researchers aren't sure what's going on. "These kinds of events are sentinels of change," says Drew Harvell, a Cornell University expert on marine diseases. "It's pretty important to figure out what's going on." [Washington Post]

The National Zoo revealed the name of its baby giant panda on Sunday. The cub — the second surviving cub to be born at the Washington, D.C., park — will be called Bao Bao, which means "precious" or "treasure." The little panda's name was one of five Mandarin options, and people around the world cast 123,000 votes. The name was announced 100 days after the cub's birth, in accordance with Chinese custom. [New York Times]

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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