>> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. these are the stories we're watching for you. >> i want the cash registers to work, i want the checkout linings to be smooth. i want people to be able to get this great product. >> the president says the problems are being fixed. a middle school in nevada. the scene of a deadly shooting. new jersey's governor says he's dropping his opposition to same sex marriage. after the decisions go forward

with outing. >> president obama says there is no excuse for the problems that have plagued the world out of those online health exchanges but he says now he's confident with the issues plaguing healthcare.gov issues will be fixed. i was able to log on with no problems but there was a little drama as the president talked about his signature achievement. >> the per vasive fear that one illness -- you're all right, i gotcha. you're okay. this happens when i talk too long. [ laughter ] >> i white house aide came to the young lady's aid and escorted her out. they have been helped by the program known asking obamacare.

what was his main message? >> he sure did and we might add that that individual who felt faint was the directly recipient of obamacare in a very literal care. the president was a salesman in chief talking about the attributes of obamacare law, talking once again about preexisting conditions you captain be secluded, you can get your preventive care for free, you can stay on your parents plan until you're 26. he ultimately signed that bill some three years ago, and perhaps it's indicative of the problems and issues surrounding this issue, the president still has to do that very much on defense. but at the same time the president at this point no sense talking about the overwhelming demand and interest on the website. they do say some 19 million americans have looked at it and attributing all the problems the website has had to simply volume. it goes much deeper at this

point and the white house is certainly admitting that much. you heard the president say that in the rose garden just a few moments ago. >> the problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not work being the -- working the wait it should be. there's no sugar coating that. people have gotten stuck during the application process and i think it's fair to say nobody's more frustrated by that than i am. >> and the president is distilling it down. nobody agrees with the issues or problems. for the sake of defunding obamacare republicans in congress now turning their attention to the problems that the president has had, the inference being that this is indicative and reinforcing everyone's notion that the government isn't up to running

something this large. there are hearings planned as early as this thursday by republicans in the house. del. >> while the president was speaking we did try to log on the the website. we locked on and off four times successfully. this is the page showing that we did manage to do so. with that backdrop what is the administration doing to fix the site that many felt should be fixed before it was rolled out? >> the president said this is much more than a website and he did offer an 800 number as an alternative. the old fashioned way. i called the 800 number that the president repeated twice and the nice gentleman who answered the phone, and i did get through on the first ring, said i would have to go back online to healthcare.gov, and fill out an application which might prove to

be a problem like other americans have had. they're calling it a tech surge, bringing people from outside and inside the government to work 24-7 as the president has said to rectify the significant problems people are having on the website. del. >> if reporters like us wouldn't be trying to log in all the time maybe the website would work better. mike viqueira thank you very much. gallup said the website, that is about three and a half points lower than his job performance between april and july. and just over four points lower between his approval rating between january and april. put this ought in perspective and it's just a bit higher than george w. bush's approval, bill

clinton approval rating was about 14.5% at the same point higher than his second term in 1987. sparks middle school just east of reason owe, a gunman is among the people who died, the identity of another person who has been killed has not yet been released. authorities are also saying, the two boys who are in the hospital are said to be in critical condition. the abortion battle is back in the courts in texas, texas has some of the toughest laws in the country. they say they want to keep it that way. tough new laws set to go into effect next week. heidi zhou-castro is live. do they think they can stop this

new law from taking place? >> well, del, they are trying to get an injunction against thing law. similar injunctions have been held temporarily from enforcement of these other legal challenges. here in austin, the court has in the past sided with the state on other abortion cases. planned parenthood has said, if these laws go into effect a third of the clinics will have to stop abortions. this will result in an abortion blackout in practical terms in the entire western half of texas. university of texas study citing that 22,000 women would be denied access to abortions next year. now attorneys for planned parenthoods for the aclu are arguing now that this law as a result is unconstitutional. and again, it does take effect next tuesday. now what the part of this law that they're really taking -- that they're really arguing is

the part that says an abortion dork or the must have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a clinic. now these providers say that's difficult because many abortion doctors travel from the major cities to these more rural being areas of texas to provide abortion he. it requires these doctors reside locally and another hurdle is that doctors must have a minimum number of patients who are admitper year. abortion doctors try to keep their patients out of the house. they only go in when something goes wrong. so lawyers for aclu says this rule does not fit with the specialist and that abortion is being singled out. >> the law requires doctors to have admitting privileges but no other medical specialty is required to have these

specifications. >> state's attorneys are arguing that these rules improve women's health and protect unborn life. this has passions on both sides dating back to the summer with the protests at the texas state capitol. these issues won't be settled soon and may be appealed up to the supreme court. >> heidi thank you very much. call it a major victory for same sex couples in new jersey. governor chris christie has told the state to drop its appeal to the ruling allowing gay marriage. same sex couples are now free po wed.

newark mayor and senator-elect cory booker -- did the honors just after midnight. orville bell and joseph panessiei were the first same sex couple to ti >> just after midnight, new jerseying became the 14th state to allow same sex unions. >> if greatly state of new jersey becomes far far greater recognizing all of god's children. >> mayor and senator-elect corey booker had vowed to never marry anyone.. until he could marry everyone in his state -- so this was his first time to officiate a service. >> i'm so ready to jump to the part, i do. as the first of 9 ceremonies began..there were just a handful of protesters outside.. and one who briefly tried to disrupt the first union.. >> this is unlawful in the eyes of god. >> would you please remove that person.

>> reporter: but then many of the couples here will tell you they're used to the protests and the fight for equality. as they understand that even this historic day it is not over. >> the struggle continues, were married ...happy to be so but that's not legal in all states of the united states and there are people even in the states where it's legal who don't believe that it's correct or proper. >> reporter: but that battle will have to come later because in the early morning hours here the ceremonies gave way to celebration. >> butterflies, a lot of butterflies. we're just happy to see all our friends and family. >> reporter: a happiness that many say they fought for, for decades. >> so where does the country stand when it comes to same sex marriage? a recent gallup poll finds 52%

of americans back gay marriage. while 43% oppose it. new jersey is now the 14th state to legalize gay marriage. gay marriages and civil unions are currently banned in 25 other states. there are seven court cases involving gay marriage and civil unions across the country. that includes cases in arkansas, hawaii, michigan, texas, north carolina, virginia and new jersey which says that governor christie has now dropped his option. >> secretary of state john kerry is, new charges again leaked by former nsa contractor edward snowden. phil edner joins us and tell us about these latest accusations. >> del, these latest accusations were published in french daily

lemonde, and the paper that broke the story about nsa edward snowden monitoring the program. not the least of which the announcement that apparently the nsa collect eld phone records on -- collected phone records on 70 million people in just a 30 day period. quite significant there. we have seen things like the u.s. ambassador to be summoned to the french foreign ministry to explain what the nsa mass been up to. del. >> do we expect any fallout from these latest allegations? >> the french foreign minister released a statement saying it was unacceptable, it should stop immediately and cannot be repeated. there is an awful lot of anger coming out of france not the least of which on the french streets. there has been a deep concern about the sheer numbers and volume of the calls that have

been monitored and the e-mails that have been collected by the nsa. we're also hearing deep concern that this doesn't look like it was limited to an anti-terror operation. that some of the e-mails and the phone calls that were being monitored were actually between corporate giants, telecoms organizations, things that really the accusation coming from france has nothing to do with terrorism and has more to do with corporate espionage than anything. a lot of anger coming out of france. del. >> phil thank you very much. five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks will be back in a court in guantanamo bay, this week. >> 17 months after the arraignment of the five men accused of plotting the september 11th attacks there's still no trial date. legal experts say that's due in

part to the amount of time in pretrial hearings in guantanamo bay. >> all sides are worried about the letting mea -- legitimate ms problems. the quirky consequence of that is things are going much closer than possible. calling in question the very legitimacy that this whole thing is supposed to inspire. >> too much time is being wasted on on what they considering pretrial motions, they claim, and defense attorneys are required the do as much as possible to save their clients' lives. bush administration and the cia about the torture they suffered. they want the black sites to be

preserved as evidence. plus the lawyers want the government to stop monitoring their meetings with the defendants. >> i'm bad news. >> and then this request. the defense wants all the information given to the producers of the movie zero dark 30. from if very beginning the dismissed the case because of what they call government bias. but expertle say it's highly un-- experts say given the significance of the case. >> that's part of why this has all taken so long, because we are walking through each issue very, very carefully because i think everyone realize that the eyes of history are upon them. >> trying to balance the rights of the accused with the government's attempts to hold them accountable. no easy feat. rosalyn jordan, al jazeera, guantanamo bay, cuba.

>> still ahead on al jazeera america. >> bart emergency, bart emergency. >> two workers are killed, transportation officials want to see what happened.

>> one of china's largest cities have been entirety shut down because of thick fog. that's about the size of new york and chicago combined. the visibility in some areas is as low as ten yards. craig gleason has word from hong kong. >> we are thousands of miles from harbin and we couldn't see far across the harbor. the particulate matter was at 1,000. to give you some depth of that,

300 is considered hazardous, you can imagine at 1,000 the air was considered not only toxic but deadly in harbin today. most of china is fueled in terms of energy by coal-thermal power stations. people use coal to cook in stoves and ovens which causes very heavy particulate matter and causes a great deal of respiratory issues. it's become an increasing problem which china will have to tackle because this sort of issue also creates a great deal of social unrest. >> the housing market could have been cooling off a bit. sales of existing homes fell in september for the first time in three months.

sales dropping nearly 2%. higher mortgage rates and home prices are blamed for the decline. analysts are warning that this could be the start of a weak trend in the market. >> housing indicators some slowing from the torrid pace that we have witnessed over the course of recent months and quarters with respect to improvements in starts and sales and upward march of house prices and the like. >> some economists speculating that the housing data could be ammunition for the fed, the federal reserve to delay cutting back on that stimulus program. it is not entirely happy in the land of the happy meal. mcdonald's is reporting that third quarter sales were up slightly in the u.s. and europe but fell more than 1% in the middle east, asia and africa. fast food giant blaming the slow down on the economy, warning that october sales worldwide will be relatively flat. it is day 4 of that strike

in the san francisco bay area. the bart, or bay area rapid transit workers are on strike on a number of hieshes, including wages and health benefits. making it worse the accidents that caused the death of two of their workers. trying to determine whether the strike and the accident are related. lisa bernard has our story. >> the train involved in the accident rolled out of here. ntsb investigators are trying to figure out what caused it to plow into two worker workers chg the tracks saturday killing both of them. the train was running in automatic mode. bart says there was an experienced operator at the controls. the ntsb will look at the issue and scrutinize the equipment. >> we do a thorough mechanical

smiks of the train inside and out, wheels, brakes, the third rail, all those things. >> investigators spent four hours sunday on the tracks between two suburban train stops and they'll likely spend the next four to ten days collecting evidence. earlier flowers and a card marked the spot where bart said an employee and a contractor were looking at a reported dip in the tracks when the train hit them. investigators say they will look at the video taken from the camera facing into the cab of the train. they will look for documents photos and sketches. they already have transmissions from the operator of the train at the moment of impact. >> rating at c-53 and c-54 camps let me know when you're ready to proceed. bart emergency bart emergency. bart emergency go ahead central.

>> central, 963. we just struck some individuals at approximately 16.2 on the c-1 track. central be advised it may be bart employees. >> the ntsb says it will consider whether the current strike between the two largest unions had a bearing on the accident. the unions held a candlelight vigil to honor the two employees that were killed here but bart's largest union continues to picket, signs in one hand, memorial candles in another, lisa bernard, al jazeera, walnut creek. >> even if the strike ends immediately, there will still be a few days before the travel could continue. weather after this.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. these are your headlines.

president obama speaking a short time ago touting the affordable care act. saying it's good, regardless of of the number of issues of people trying to sign up on the healthcare.gov exchange. shooter in northern nevada, shooter is among the dead. two people among the wounded. near sparks, reno. new jersey's governor was challenging unions but over the weekend the state's top court refused to delay marriages any longer. today governor chris christie withdrawing his objections, the ceremony starting without him, at midnight. ftc. i'm meteorologist dave warren. a cold morning and even colder morning tomorrow. temperatures dropped to the 30s in minneapolis.

north dakota, south dakota, iowa and chicago. little warm he to the east, big storm here, spinning and pulling up the warm air ahead of it and bringing down the cold air behind it. now these advisors that are in effect are frost and freeze advisoadvisor ies. one meter off the ground you get a freeze warning, that's the bluish color here. free watch may happen around chicago, still some frost forming on surfaces in the midwest. issued one time per season. first time the temperature drops to 32, that could be tomorrow chicago. 28 min jams. cold air coming down through incorporateindianapolis. it will be a little warmer, into new england and through the mid atlantic states. temperatures could climb into the mid to upper 60s. there will be rain approaching,

cooler air, heavier rain in western pennsylvania and western new york. it will develop into ooh colt april storm, that brings rain and wind to new york on wednesday, and then it dries out but is still breezy and a little cool not only from new york but all up and down the east coast especially new england. rain and cooler weather, especially thursday and friday, not warmer but drying out for the weekend. del. >> thank you very much. families are looking for the descendants of a former jewish refugee who left thousands of books in their care. those books total 2,000. the home where the books have been stored is slated to be torn down. they are believed to be belonging to a german jew who fled are germany to avoid persecution. the family is tracking his

descendants. techknow featuring nasa's lab in the sky is next. check us out ating aljazeera.com. >> hello and welcome. i'm phil torrez, here to talk about innovations that are going to change lives. we're testing the intersection of hardware and humanity. rax is a neuroscientist. she has the invocation of bamboo and carbon. mar inkta davidson is a biologist specializing in ecologist and evolution. and i'm phil torrez. i'm an entomologist. but i'm over america for a very bad ride. how ba