National News

Normally, the buff-breasted rail is a shy little creature. But on this island out on the Great Barrier Reef, it's become the avian equivalent of a weed. And the island is dotted with other pesky and sometimes (to visitors) menacing birds.

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Normally, the buff-breasted rail is a shy little creature. But on this island out on the Great Barrier Reef, it's become the avian equivalent of a weed. And the island is dotted with other pesky and sometimes (to visitors) menacing birds.

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The central bank says it will cut off a financial lifeline in four days if Cypriot lawmakers can't agree on a deal to raise $7.5 billion to prop up the country's banks.

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Everybody tries to figure out who will win. How about predicting the first surprise? Which teams will get bounced out before they "should" have been?

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For the first time, the American Academy of Pediatrics says it favors civil marriage for same-gender couples. The leading group of pediatricians in the U.S. also supports parents' full rights to adopt or provide foster care regardless of their sexual orientation.

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The United States has declared the use of chemical weapons is a "red line" in the conflict. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said their se is a "crime against humanity."

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Spring has sprung, but in most parts of the country, just-picked vegetables are still months away. In northern Minnesota, growers are experimenting with solar soil-warming techniques to coax spring to appear earlier.

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Youtube announced that it’s reached a billion viewers per month, putting in the same league as Facebook and its parent company Google.

The top trending animal on Youtube this month was the screaming goat (yes one of those is a sheep, but they’ve all become known as screaming goats). The fact that Youtube can conjure up 8 million people to watch a screaming goat, or millions more to watch a screaming goat sing with Taylor Swift is what makes Youtube the world’s biggest video hub even eight years after its creation.  

But it’s unique for another reason: The fact that it’s lasted at all. 

“In industries like this where the market grows rapidly and the technology changes very rapidly, it’s very rare to see these cases,” says Fernando Suarez, a professor at Boston University School of Management. He says most early movers in the Internet age get shoved out at some point.  

“If you enter an industry early, and you don’t have resources to do it right,” Suarez says,  “you lose users like what happened to Friendster.”

There are several reasons for this -- sometimes companies grow so fast, but they don’t have the financing to scale up, so their product becomes buggy or unattractive. 

In the case of technology that’s rapidly changing,  sometimes early movers  can get “locked in to the wrong technology,” Suarez notes.

In the case of Youtube, Suarez says not only did it get solid venture capital early on, the company came at just the right time when streaming video appeared. 

The company has also been able to evolve  ably as time has gone on. Clark Fredricksen, VP of eMarketer, says it’s still evolving even now. 

One of Youtube’s challenges now, he says, is that advertisers still like produced programming over clips from, say, your bachelor party. 

Take the movie-TV streaming website Hulu. “While Hulu’s reach is much, much smaller,” Fredricksen says, “they end up serving far more ads” because large advertisers are much more comfortable near TV quality content.

“That’s why we’re starting to see Youtube run towards studio content, and away from the the cat videos,” he says. 

Though we are still going to have lots of cat videos in the future.

Youtube announced that it’s reached a billion viewers per month, putting in the same league as Facebook and its parent company Google.

The top trending animal on Youtube this month was the screaming goat (yes one of those is a sheep, but they’ve all become known as screaming goats). The fact that Youtube can conjure up 8 million people to watch a screaming goat, or millions more to watch a screaming goat sing with Taylor Swift is what makes Youtube the world’s biggest video hub even eight years after its creation.  

But it’s unique for another reason: The fact that it’s lasted at all. 

“In industries like this where the market grows rapidly and the technology changes very rapidly, it’s very rare to see these cases,” says Fernando Suarez, a professor at Boston University School of Management. He says most early movers in the Internet age get shoved out at some point.  

“If you enter an industry early, and you don’t have resources to do it right,” Suarez says,  “you lose users like what happened to Friendster.”

There are several reasons for this -- sometimes companies grow so fast, but they don’t have the financing to scale up, so their product becomes buggy or unattractive. 

In the case of technology that’s rapidly changing,  sometimes early movers  can get “locked in to the wrong technology,” Suarez notes.

In the case of Youtube, Suarez says not only did it get solid venture capital early on, the company came at just the right time when streaming video appeared. 

The company has also been able to evolve  ably as time has gone on. Clark Fredricksen, VP of eMarketer, says it’s still evolving even now. 

One of Youtube’s challenges now, he says, is that advertisers still like produced programming over clips from, say, your bachelor party. 

Take the movie-TV streaming website Hulu. “While Hulu’s reach is much, much smaller,” Fredricksen says, “they end up serving far more ads” because large advertisers are much more comfortable near TV quality content.

“That’s why we’re starting to see Youtube run towards studio content, and away from the the cat videos,” he says. 

Though we are still going to have lots of cat videos in the future.

That doesn't necessarily mean that China was behind the attack. There is a possibility that North Korean hackers launched the attack from China.

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The Obama administration is considering shifting the armed drone program to the military to mollify critics who say it lacks accountability and transparency.

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Economists said this means progress in the job market, mostly through a reduction in layoffs.

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European markets are lower this morning on the news that Cyprus has until Monday to come up with a new bailout package. The European Central Bank says it will cut off emergency lending to the nation's bank if there's no deal.

Diane Swonk, chief economist with Mesirow Financial, joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to discuss how the situation in Cyprus could affect the global economy.

Cyprus has until Monday to come up with a new bailout package after the parliament rejected the initial plan that called for a controversial tax on the country’s bank deposits. The European Central Bank says it will cut off emergency lending to the country's banks if there is no deal by then.

The BBC's Andrew Walker in Brussels joins Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to discuss what’s next for the troubled island country.

There was a big shakeup this week in the gaming industry when the head of Electronic Arts resigned on Monday after a high-profile debacle involving the new Sim City game.

Ben Johnson of the Marketplace Tech team joins Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson to explain what went wrong with the new game and how the company has responded.

The attacks came just hours before President Obama travelled from Israel to the West Bank, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Obama condemned the attacks, but called for Israelis and Palestinians to return to the negotiating table without preconditions.

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Also: Sam Lipsyte is interviewed by household pets; a new study tracks mood in literature; and Bret Easton Ellis' new book.

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The NCAA men’s basketball tournament kicks off today, and there is big money at stake -- in office pools, of course, and in Washington, where the tournament is a gimmick for politicians raising campaign cash.

At some fundraisers, games will be on TV. Nevada Senator Dean Heller’s political action committee -- Heller High Water PAC -- is hosting a viewing party at The Palazzo in Las Vegas.

Others will be at the games themselves.

“The East Regionals of the NCAA's are happening in Washington, D.C., just blocks from the U.S. Capitol,” Kathy Kieley notes. She’s with the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that pushes for government transparency.

The Sunlight Foundation is collecting invites to March Madness fundraisers. The price of admission? According to Kieley, it’s “anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000.”

Political consultant Katy Faulk, with KLF & Company, says that at tournament-themed fundraisers, donors realize they can kill two birds with one stone.

“They can pay to go to the fundraiser and they can still see the game.”

And another consultant, Elizabeth Blakemore, with Blakemore & Associates, says that’s what donors are there for: The game. And if you’re known for throwing a great March Madness fundraiser, donors will come back year after year. So, this kind of event isn’t the time or the place for politicians to speechify.

“Blessed are the brief, because they’ll be reelected,” Blakemore says. “Or they’ll raise more money.”

This is what she tells candidates: “They already support you. Don’t talk them out of it.”

Pressure is piling onto Cyprus. On Tuesday the Cypriot parliament rejected a bailout plan that would have taxed the country’s bank depositors. Now the European Central Bank has upped the ante. It has warned the small island nation that it will cut off the emergency funding that is keeping Cypriot banks afloat if Cyprus does not agree a new deal by Monday.

“This is an attempt by the ECB to pressure the Cypriot authorities to come forward with a different plan to finance their share of the bailout of the Cypriot banking sector,” says Simon Tilford of the Center for European Reform.

This morning the Cypriot president unveiled his revised plan to the country’s political leaders. The proposals are believed to include a bank tax only affecting accounts worth more than $130,000 and a bond issue tied to the country’s natural gas reserves.

Meanwhile, the Cypriot finance minister is still in Moscow pleading for help from the Russians.  

New Mexican President Peña Nieto has been making waves since entering office by tackling some of Mexico's toughest issues. One of those issues is the telecommunications industry. President Nieto hopes to reshape the country's phone and television service by increasing competition through foreign investment.

"If Congress approves this, [it] will drive down prices in the telephone market," says Enrique Acevedo of Univision News in Miami. "[It] will bring long awaited programming choices to the Mexican audience who have always had only two choices when it comes to broadcast TV."

The reforms may also improve broadband Internet access, which Acevedo says is long overdue.

"Broadband speed in the International Space Station is actually faster than in Mexico," he notes.

Overall, Acevedo sees the telecommunication reforms as a sign of greater economic momentum in Mexico -- a trend that could have a noticeable impact on the U.S. and the ongoing debate over immigration.