Cheat Sheet - Amazing Grace in the Bronx

Today: Is the HealthCare.gov Fix Too Late to Save Obamacare? , Black Friday Sales Disappoint , Bezos Reveals Delivery Drones December 02, 2013 DERAILMENT 1. Amazing Grace in the Bronx Four were dead and dozens injured in an early-morning New York City train derailment, and firefighters needed help extricating the wounded. There was only one place to turn: the surviving victims of the Metro-North derailment. "It's very hard to ask a civilian who was just involved in an accident to help us," FDNY Capt. James Ellson of Rescue 3 told The Daily Beast's Michael Daly. "They had just been involved in a very bad train accident, and now I'm saying, 'I need your help, I need you to help people who are in worse shape.' I asked everybody, 'Listen, look at the people next to you, and if they need help, help them.' And they did it." Read it at The Daily Beast FINALLY FIXED 2. Is It Too Late for HealthCare.gov? HealthCare.gov finally works: the troubled site apparently now works 90 percent of the time. That should be good news for President Obama—unless the website's failures have already fatally undermined consumer confidence in Obamacare as a whole. The Daily Beast's Ben Jacobs breaks down the flurry of numbers released by the Department of Health and Human Services—and examines whether the fixes came in too late. Read it at The Daily Beast NOT WORTH IT 3. Black Friday Sales Disappoint Does this mean it wasn't worth it for all those employees to have to work on Thanksgiving Day? Consumers spent around $1.7 billion less on Black Friday compared with last year, according to the National Retail Federation. The chief executive of the federation blamed "economic challenges," saying "many are intending to be a little bit more conservative with their budgets." More than 141 million people shopped online or in stores between Thursday and Sunday, but the average each consumer spent went down, dropping to $407.02 from $423.55. But due to the shorter-than-average sale time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, many stores began their sale blitz early, and many retailers had already been warning of a weak holiday season to begin with. That probably didn't make it any less disappointing, though. Read it at The New York Times WELCOME TO THE FUTURE 4. Bezos Reveals Delivery Drones Is this the nail in the coffin for the USPS? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the online marketplace is planning a drone delivery service called Prime Air that will deliver small products to your doorstop within 30 minutes of ordering in the next four or five years. Speaking to 60 Minutes host Charlie Rose, the futurist explained the drones would be autonomous and move packages weighing less than 5 pounds. "I know this looks like science fiction—it's not," he told Rose. Read it at 60 Minutes BONANZA 5. House Takes on Bill Blitz Remember in high school, when you did nothing all semester and then did a ton of work at the end, hoping your teacher wouldn't notice? That's what the House of Representatives is doing right now, as it prepares to take on a flurry of last-minute bills to cap off a historically unproductive year. On their docket right now: a House-Senate conference report on the budget, a farm bill, and a water projects bill. Aides say it's unlikely that all of them will be finished by the end of 2013. Not content to fail at just these bills, House Republicans are also taking up a number of other bills, including the Kids First Research Act, Majority Leader Eric Cantor's legislation that will redirect $126 million from presidential nominating conventions to the National Institutes of Health. Read it at The Hill R.I.P. Walker's Body Can't Be ID'd Due to damage. NEW JOURNALISM 'New York' Cuts Back to Biweekly Magazine is down 9.2 percent in ad pages. RED HOT 'Catching Fire' Wins Box Office Breaks records along with "Frozen." COMING OUT Diver Tom Daley: I'm Dating a Guy Says "I still fancy girls" as well. SCOTCHY SCOTCH Ron Burgundy Co-Anchors Real News To the surprise of TV viewers in Bismarck, N.D. GET The Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of news and must-reads from across the Web. You'll love the featured original stories on politics, entertainment, and more from The Daily Beast's diverse group of contributors. GET Culture Beast Weekly cultural recommendations from The Daily Beast. Saban's Folly by Stuart Stevens Exercise Is the New Coffee by Gregory Ferenstein Key & Peele Laugh at Racism by Sujay Kumar

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