From NPR News

This interview was originally broadcast on March 28, 2011. Justified begins its third season next week.

Timothy Olyphant plays Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens on the FX series Justified.

Maybe even if it weren't a general-election year, President Obama would still be proposing that Congress give him the power to merge federal agencies to make the government smaller and more efficient.

But the fact is it is the year in which the president is seeking re-election, a year in which both the eventual Republican presidential nominee and Obama's GOP opponents in Congress will assert hundreds of times before it's over that he is a big-government Democrat.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Marines Worried About Desecration Video's Impact On Afghan Operations.

-- Reports: Obama To Seek Power To Merge Agencies, Streamline Government.

Comedian Stephen Colbert's "big announcement" last night (which we previewed yesterday)?

Transcript

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.

(A new lede was put on this post at 11:30 a.m. ET.)

Saying "the government we have is not the government we need" and that it's still organized for the 20th Century, President Obama is asking Congress to give him the power to do some streamlining and merging of agencies that overlap.

"I'm calling on Congress to reinstate the authority that past presidents have had" to reorganize the government, the president just said at the White House. He pledged to only use the authority to make the government more efficient and leaner.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with a milestone for immigration. Warina Zaya Bahou becomes a U.S. citizen today in Sterling Heights, Michigan. She's an immigrant from Iran. What makes the ceremony remarkable is the birth date of the new citizen. She was born in 1900. Back then, Iran still had kings and William McKinley was president of the United States. Now at age 111 she becomes the second oldest person to be naturalized as an American. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

The uproar over a video that appears to show four U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of three dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan continues, and as we reported yesterday investigators believe they've identified two of the men and are vowing that if they're guilty of what seems to have happened they will be brought to justice.

Each year, thousands of companies converge on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas hoping to generate buzz for their gadgets. Companies that succeed need luck, good PR and a product that seems cool or useful. HzO, a small company that makes waterproof coatings for phones and tablets, has broken through in a big way.

David Greene has more on the comedy host's announcement.

More than 150 leaders in the conservative evangelical Christian community are getting together Friday and Saturday at a private ranch west of Houston in a last-ditch effort to derail Mitt Romney's march to the Republican nomination.

The meeting, which will feature state and regional leaders as well as prominent pastors and national-profile evangelical stars, is not intended as a Romney-bashing event, says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and a big voice among conservative evangelicals.

As Newt Gingrich campaigned in South Carolina yesterday, there were signs he was beginning to soften his critique of the private equity career of rival Mitt Romney. Gingrich had come under fire this week from fellow Republicans for his attack on Romney.

David Greene talks with NPR's Mike Pesca about this weekend's NFL match-ups. Tim Tebow will lead the Denver Broncos against the New England Patriots in the marquee game Saturday night.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is touring Latin America this week, meeting with the heads of Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Cuba. Steve Inskeep talks to NPR's Juan Forero about the Iranian leader's goals in the region, and how his trip positions him back home.

On Twitter, News Corps. Chief Rupert Murdoch confessed: "We screwed up in every way possible." He added the company learned a lot of valuable and expensive lessons from the purchase of the social networking site.

For almost 70 years, New York City has been home to two opera companies: the well-heeled Metropolitan Opera and its scrappy younger sibling, the New York City Opera. But City Opera has fallen on hard times, and a bitter labor dispute might mean curtains for this beloved institution.

Rick Santorum was fresh off his surprise showing in the Iowa caucuses and fielding questions on a radio program, when a caller challenged the Republican presidential candidate on his overt religiosity.

"He said, 'We don't need a Jesus candidate. We need an economic candidate,' " Santorum recalled later, at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. "And my answer to that was, 'We always need a Jesus candidate, right?' "