Morning Edition

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli looks at what comes next for the crippled cruise ship Costa Concordia. The ocean-liner is nearly half submerged after running aground off the coast of Italy on Friday. So far it's not leaking oil but scientists are concerned about its impact on the largest protected marine park in Europe.

Renee Montagne has business news.

Standard and Poor's has downgraded the credit ratings of nine Euopean countries including France. They face exposure to financial troubles in Greece among other places. Zanny Minton Beddoes, global economics editors at The Economist, talks to Steve Inskeep about the latest European financial troubles.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with efforts to streamline the federal government.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: President Obama is asking Congress, today, to give him the power to consolidate certain U.S. agencies. Doing that, he says, will reduce the number of federal jobs and make government more efficient.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The government we have is not the government that we need. We live in a 21st Century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20th Century.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Good morning. I'm David Greene.

We've all heard the rule: Turn off your cell phone. Well, someone broke it this week at a performance of the New York Philharmonic.

(SOUNDBITE OF CELL PHONE RINGING)

GREENE: The iPhone Marimba ring tone had not been written into Mahler's Ninth Symphony. But there it was, chirping from the front row of the audience. The conductor was so incensed, he cut off the performance and waited for the iPhone to stop. The audience member was apparently not offered an audition.