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Golf: McIlroy pulls out of PGA event with toothache






PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida: World No. 1 and defending champion Rory McIlroy withdrew from the US PGA Honda Classic during his second round on Friday, saying he was struggling due to pain from a sore wisdom tooth.

McIlroy struggled through the back nine on Friday, his opening nine holes of the round, and hit his approach at the 18th into water. He then walked off the course and quickly departed the grounds with his coach and caddie.

"I sincerely apologise to The Honda Classic and PGA Tour for my sudden withdrawal," McIlroy said. "I have been suffering with a sore wisdom tooth, which is due to come out in the near future."

It was the first time in his career that McIlroy withdrew from a tournament and it comes as the 23-year-old from Northern Ireland struggles to find his form after switching to Nike equipment for this season.

McIlroy is a 6-1 co-favorite with 14-time major champion Tiger Woods in next month's Masters, but the tooth issue could dim his bid to add to a major haul that includes the 2011 US Open and 2012 PGA Championship.

"It began bothering me again last night," said McIlroy. "It was very painful again this morning, and I was simply unable to concentrate. It was really bothering me and had begun to affect my playing partners."

McIlroy gave no hint as to how the injury might impact his plans for playing in the weeks leading up to the year's first major tournament at Augusta National.

He had plans to play next week in a World Golf Championships event at nearby Doral and the Houston Open in the week before the Masters.

Especially gutting for McIlroy was the fact the pain flared as he was trying to defend the title he won a year ago to put himself atop the world rankings for the first time in his career.

"I came here with every intention of defending my Honda Classic title," said McIlroy. "Even though my results haven't revealed it, I really felt like I was rounding a corner. This is one of my favorite tournaments of the year and I regret having to make the decision to withdraw, but it was one I had to make."

McIlroy endured a horror-show start on Friday alongside South Africa's Ernie Els, the reigning British Open champion, and American Mark Wilson.

At the par-4 11th, he nearly put his approach into the water, then chipped across the green on his way to a double bogey.

On the par-4 13th, McIlroy went way to the right off the tee and missed a six-foot par putt.

After a pair of pars, he put his tee shot into the water at the par-4 16th, then took a drop and put his third shot into the water as well on the way to a triple bogey.

At the par-3 17th, the Northern Irishman three-putted from 42 feet for bogey to stand seven-over par for the round through eight holes.

McIlroy, who missed the cut in his first 2013 start at Abu Dhabi and lost in the first round of the WGC Match Play Championship last week, opened with a par-70 on Thursday but admitted he was still working on his timing and adjusting to his new clubs.

"It's hard to commit to the shot that you need to play every time," McIlroy said Thursday. "I felt like I hit the ball OK, not as good as I can, but it's getting there."

-AFP/ac



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Facebook to unveil new News Feed design next week




Get ready for some changes to your Facebook profile.


The social network is unveiling a new design for its News Feed on Thursday, according to an invite sent to journalists today.


The bare-bones invite tells journalists to "Come see a new look for News Feed," at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters next week.


Coincidentally, a new look for Timeline was spotted today in New Zealand, a country where Facebook typically tries out new features. The layout had a single-column for all the posts and updates on your Timeline, instead of two columns.


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Stinkbug Threat Has Farmers Worried


Part of our weekly "In Focus" series—stepping back, looking closer.

Maryland farmer Nathan Milburn recalls his first encounter.

It was before dawn one morning in summer 2010, and he was at a gas station near his farm, fueling up for the day. Glancing at the light above the pump, something caught his eye.

"Thousands of something," Milburn remembers.

Though he'd never actually seen a brown marmorated stinkbug, Milburn knew exactly what he was looking at. He'd heard the stories.

This was a swarm of them—the invasive bugs from Asia that had been devouring local crops.

"My heart sank to my stomach," Milburn says.

Nearly three years later, the Asian stinkbug, commonly called the brown marmorated stinkbug, has become a serious threat to many mid-Atlantic farmers' livelihoods.

The bugs have also become a nuisance to many Americans who simply have warm homes—favored retreats of the bugs during cold months, when they go into a dormant state known as overwintering.

The worst summer for the bugs so far in the U.S. was 2010, but 2013 could be shaping up to be another bad year. Scientists estimate that 60 percent more stinkbugs are hunkered down indoors and in the natural landscape now than they were at this time last year in the mid-Atlantic region.

Once temperatures begin to rise, they'll head outside in search of mates and food. This is what farmers are dreading, as the Asian stinkbug is notorious for gorging on more than a half dozen North American crops, from peaches to peppers.

Intruder Alert

The first stinkbugs probably arrived in the U.S. by hitching a ride with a shipment of imported products from Asia in the late 1990s. Not long after that, they were spotted in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Since then, they've been identified in 39 other states. Effective monitoring tools are being developed to help researchers detect regional patterns.

There are two main reasons to fear this invader, whose popular name comes from the pungent odor it releases when squashed. It can be distinguished from the native stinkbug by white stripes on its antennae and a mottled appearance on its abdomen. (The native stinkbug can also cause damage but its population number is too low for it to have a significant impact.)

For one thing, Asian stinkbugs have an insatiable appetite for fruits and vegetables, latching onto them with a needlelike probe before breaking down their flesh and sucking out juice until all that's left is a mangled mess.

Peaches, apples, peppers, soybeans, tomatoes, and grapes are among their favorite crops, said Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist leading a USDA-funded team dedicated to stinkbug management. She adds that in 2010, the insects caused $37 million in damage just to apple crops in the mid-Atlantic region.

Another fear factor: Although the stinkbug has some natural predators in the U.S., those predators can't keep up with the size of the stinkbug population, giving it the almost completely unchecked freedom to eat, reproduce, and flourish.

Almost completely unchecked. Leskey and her team have found that stinkbugs are attracted to blue, black, and white light, and to certain pheromones. Pheromone lures have been used with some success in stinkbug traps, but the method hasn't yet been evaluated for catching the bugs in large numbers.

So Milburn—who is on the stakeholders' advisory panel of Leskey's USDA-funded team—and other farmers have had to resort to using some chemical agents to protect against stinkbug sabotage.

It's a solution that Milburn isn't happy about. "We have to be careful—this is people's food. My family eats our apples, too," he says. "We have to engage and defeat with an environmentally safe and economically feasible solution."

Damage Control

Research Entomologist Kim Hoelmer agrees but knows that foregoing pesticides in the face of the stinkbug threat is easier said than done.

Hoelmer works on the USDA stinkbug management team's biological control program. For the past eight years, he's been monitoring the spread of the brown marmorated stinkbug with an eye toward containing it.

"We first looked to see if native natural enemies were going to provide sufficient levels of control," he says. "Once we decided that wasn't going to happen, we began to evaluate Asian natural enemies to help out."

Enter Trissolcus, a tiny, parasitic wasp from Asia that thrives on destroying brown marmorated stinkbugs and in its natural habitat has kept them from becoming the extreme pests they are in the U.S.

When a female wasp happens upon a cluster of stinkbug eggs, she will lay her own eggs inside them. As the larval wasp develops, it feeds on its host—the stinkbug egg—until there's nothing left. Most insects have natural enemies that prey upon or parasitize them in this way, said Hoelmer, calling it "part of the balance of nature."

In a quarantine lab in Newark, Delaware, Hoelmer has been evaluating the pros and cons of allowing Trissolcus out into the open in the U.S. It's certainly a cost-effective approach.

"Once introduced, the wasps will spread and reproduce all by themselves without the need to continually reintroduce them," he says.

And these wasps will not hurt humans. "Entomologists already know from extensive research worldwide that Trissolcus wasps only attack and develop in stinkbug eggs," Hoelmer says. "There is no possibility of them biting or stinging animals or humans or feeding on plants or otherwise becoming a pest themselves."

But there is a potential downside: the chance the wasp could go after one or more of North America's native stinkbugs and other insects.

"We do not want to cause harm to nontarget species," Hoelmer says. "That's why the host range of the Asian Trissolcus is being studied in the Newark laboratory before a request is made to release it."

Ultimately, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will decide whether or not to introduce the wasp. If it does, the new natural enemy could be let loose as early as next year.

Do you have stinkbugs in your area? Have they invaded your home this winter? Or your garden last summer? How do you combat them? Share your sightings and stories in the comments.


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Obama, Congress Fail to Avert Sequester Cuts












President Obama and congressional leaders today failed to reach a breakthrough to avert a sweeping package of automatic spending cuts, setting into motion $85 billion of across-the-board belt-tightening that neither had wanted to see.


Obama met for just over an hour at the White House today with Republican leaders House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic allies, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Vice President Joe Biden.


But the parties emerged from their first face-to-face meeting of the year resigned to see the cuts take hold.


"This is not a win for anybody," Obama lamented in a statement to reporters after the meeting. "This is a loss for the American people."


READ MORE: 6 Questions (and Answers) About the Sequester


Officials have said the spending reductions immediately take effect Saturday but that the pain from reduced government services and furloughs of tens of thousands of federal employees would be felt gradually in the weeks ahead.


Federal agencies, from Homeland Security to the Pentagon, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Education, have all prepared to notify employees that they will have to take one unpaid day-off per week through the end of the year.








Obama Warns of Sequester Cuts: 'Pain Will Be Real' Watch Video









Sequestration Deadline: Obama Meets With Leaders Watch Video







The staffing trims could slow many government services, including airport screenings, air traffic control, and law enforcement investigations and prosecutions. Spending on education programs and health services for low-income families will also get clipped.


"It is absolutely true that this is not going to precipitate the crisis" that would have been caused by the so-called fiscal cliff, Obama said. "But people are going to be hurt. The economy will not grow as quickly as it would have. Unemployment will not go down as quickly as it would have. And there are lives behind that. And it's real."


The sticking point in the debate over the automatic cuts -- known as sequester -- has remained the same between the parties for more than a year since the cuts were first proposed: whether to include more new tax revenue in a broad deficit reduction plan.


The White House insists there must be higher tax revenue, through elimination of tax loopholes and deductions that benefit wealthier Americans and corporations. Republicans seek an approach of spending cuts only, with an emphasis on entitlement programs. It's a deep divide that both sides have proven unable to bridge.


"This discussion about revenue, in my view, is over," Boehner told reporters after the meeting. "It's about taking on the spending problem here in Washington."


Boehner: No New Taxes to Avert Sequester


Boehner says any elimination of tax loopholes or deductions should be part of a broader tax code overhaul aimed at lowering rates overall, not to offset spending cuts in the sequester.


Obama countered today that he's willing to "take on the problem where it exists, on entitlements, and do some things that my own party doesn't like." But he says Republicans must be willing to eliminate some tax loopholes as part of a deal.


"They refuse to budge on closing a single wasteful loophole to help reduce the deficit," Obama said. "We can and must replace these cuts with a more balanced approach that asks something from everybody."


Can anything more be done by either side to reach a middle ground?


The president today claimed he's done all he can. "I am not a dictator, I'm the president," Obama said.






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Virtual body double gets ill so you don't have to


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Football: 'Business as usual' for Chelsea after Rafa blast






LONDON: Chelsea insisted Thursday would be just another day at the office despite interim manager Rafael Benitez hitting out at the club's fans and management the day before.

Benitez launched a broadside following his side's 2-0 win at Middlesbrough in the FA Cup fifth round on Wednesday, criticising fans for protesting against him and questioning why he was only appointed on a temporary basis.

His outburst sparked speculation on social media that his position was in immediate danger, but a spokesperson for the club said: "It's business as usual."

Benitez was expected to take training as scheduled on Thursday as the European champions began preparations for Saturday's league game with West Bromwich Albion.

The 52-year-old Spaniard has risked the wrath of owner Roman Abramovich by asking why the club insisted on making him an 'interim' manager when he replaced the sacked Roberto di Matteo in November.

"I have a title. Someone decided the title would be 'interim'. Why? Just in case?" he said on Wednesday.

"If they want to blame me for everything that is wrong and then they say, 'We will put interim just in case,' fine, that is your decision.

"I don't agree, but it's your decision and now everybody has to take responsibility. If we are in the Champions League, I will be the happiest man in the world.

"But next year, I will leave anyway because I have finished my contract, so they (his critics) don't need to be worried about me. What they have to do is concentrate on supporting the team.

"I have a contract until the end of the season, that's it, so they don't need to be worried about me."

Benitez has faced opposition from a core of disillusioned Chelsea fans ever since he arrived at the club but he says those supporters have unrealistic expectations about the current squad.

"It's a team in transition -- they don't realise," said the former Liverpool manager.

"In the past, we had (Didier) Drogba, (Michael) Essien, (Salomon) Kalou. These players, it was a very strong squad, players with experience in the Premier League.

"Now we have a group of players with talent, really good players with talent, but they need time. It's a time of transition.

"But they don't realise it was a time of transition when I came here."

Benitez received support from some of his fellow Premier League managers, with Fulham's Martin Jol expressing sympathy for the Spaniard's predicament.

"I feel for any manager who is not well-liked and he wasn't well-liked from the start, so I feel for him," said Jol.

"He is a professional so he will probably do his job until the end of the season."

Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew agreed that being installed as an 'interim' manager had undermined Benitez from the start.

"The title probably didn't do him any favours," Pardew said.

"It probably didn't help Chelsea, and perhaps even upstairs, they might regret that title, if you want to call it that.

"He's a great manager; they are a great club. They will sort it out."

West Brom manager Steve Clarke, whose side visit Stamford Bridge on Saturday, also spoke out in support of Benitez.

"It is difficult for me to say whether it was a rant or not by Rafa because I didn't hear the interview," said the former Chelsea player and assistant coach.

"I read it and seeing a transcription is different to hearing someone say something.

"But I didn't see a lot wrong in what he said. The script, as it was written down, was OK.

"I think by and large we are all interim. Someone is going to come and take your position at some stage."

"Only Sir Alex (Ferguson) and maybe Arsene Wenger can say they are in it for the long haul, but eventually someone is going to take your job so we are all temporary managers."

-AFP/ac



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A look ahead at next year's Mobile World Congress 2014



The lights are on -- it's time to go home. Mobile industry trade show Mobile World Congress is winding down, with new phones and
tablets and software dominating the headlines. But what does this year's show tell us about what to expect at MWC 2014?

The standout trend of this year's show that has the potential to be fully realised next year is the arrival of new operating systems, to challenge iOS and especially
Android. Mobile manufacturers and carriers have got behind
Firefox and OS as a way to stop Android siphoning your app and downloads cash to Google, with Ubuntu Touch also in the mix.

All three promise new phones this year. Firefox is furthest along, appearing on the Alcatel One Touch Fire and ZTE Open among others. By this time next year all three new operating systems should be ready for primetime, so I'm expecting a range of new phones at MWC 2014 endowed with Firefox OS, Tizen, and -- fingers crossed -- Ubuntu Touch too.

On a related note, Firefox OS and Tizen are aimed at low-end, wallet-friendly devices. As high-end phones head for market saturation and feature phones becoming smarter, there's a lot happening at the budget end. I'm expecting that to continue with more cheap devices -- and I'd be pleased if that has a knock-on effect, lowering the prices of high-end phones, a process already started by the Google Nexus 4.

High-end phones will continue to get more powerful, too. The new Nvidia Tegra 4 chip will be in hardware by this time next year, so there'll be Tegra-powered behemoths chomping through the show next year.

And we'll see more phones that work as hubs for your life, like the incredibly powerful LG phone that streams 4K video to a TV.

Finally, one thing we won't see is a flagship announcement from any of the major players. Microsoft, Apple and BlackBerry all snubbed the show in favour of standalone launches, while Samsung limited its involvement, also holding back its biggest announcement -- the Samsung Galaxy S4 -- until away from the show.

At first glance that might seem like a bad thing, but I'm optimistic: without a heavy-hitting flagship sucking up the attention, we were able to explore other aspects of the show. It's a great opportunity to other manufacturers to step up and steal the glory with something exciting, like Nokia did last year with the PureView 808 -- or come up with something divertingly wacky, like the crazier kit we saw at this year's show.

Whatever we see at MWC 2014, you'll see it too right here in CNET. In the meantime stick with us for more news, reviews and videos than you can shake a stick at. Right, we've got a plane to catch!

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Mars Missions: A Time Line of Success and Failure


Humans have been thinking about visiting Mars—or being visited by Martians—for more than a century. On Wednesday, a group funded by businessman Dennis Tito announced its intention to launch a manned flyby mission to Mars in 2018.

Our awareness of Mars dates back millennia, while our modern picture of the red planet emerged in the 1870s, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to see networks of channels (canali) through his telescope. The Italian word, mistranslated into English as "canals," helped inspire American astronomer Percival Lowell to observe Mars for decades and create detailed maps of a Martian canal system.

Lowell's work popularized the idea of Mars as a dry and dying world with canals constructed by an advanced civilization carrying life-giving water from the polar ice caps. (Related: The Psychology of Deep Space Travel.)

This romantic vision helped spur novels like War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. But in the 20th century, Wells's fantastic sci-fi world of heat-ray-wielding Martian invaders gave way to scientific research on how humans might actually visit the red planet.

German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun was the first to develop a practical plan for a Martian journey. In the early 1950s, while working for the U.S. government, he proposed a massive expedition involving ten 4000-ton spaceships and 70 crew members.

The envisioned Mars trip reflected von Braun's grand dream of winged shuttle rocket fleets, a giant orbiting space station, and a moon base. Beginning in 1952, Collier's magazine published eight articles on this futuristic goal, hiring artists to bring von Braun's plans to life. ("Meet One of Mars Rover Curiosity's Earthbound Twins.")

Working with von Braun, Walt Disney produced a series of television specials dramatizing human trips to orbit, the moon, and finally Mars. Cereal manufacturers introduced toy models of this proposed Martian space fleet.

More than half a century on, the dream that compelled so many Americans still seems, to many, to be just that: a dream.

So why hasn't Martian travel happened yet?

Technology and cost have been the two big sticking points.

Von Braun's plan, for its part, overlooked many barriers—prolonged effects of weightlessness, radiation from solar flares—and was grounded in a poor understanding of Mars, whose thin atmosphere makes it a far more hostile place than he knew.

The costs involved to solve such problems are immense, helping prevent Mars travel so far. But Von Braun's proposals have given rise to more than a thousand schemes from governments, companies, and private groups to reach the red planet. The NASA publication Humans to Mars, written by David S.F. Portree, chronicles these efforts. Here are highlights:

1962: Project EMPIRE. A series of studies by NASA and outside aerospace contractors, Project EMPIRE proposed a Mars flyby using the same 500-day orbit as the planned 2018 Inspiration Mars trip. The flyby was designed to allow astronauts to gain more information about the planet and return to Earth. Later plans envisioned an enormous rocket called Nova—larger than the Saturn V moon rocket—to boost five 450-foot-long (137-meter-long) ships to orbit, carrying a total of 15 crew members to Mars for an extended stay. This and other early plans assumed large manned ships would slow down by skimming off the surface of a thick Martian atmosphere, saving huge amounts of fuel.

1964: Mariner 4. This unmanned probe, the first to reach Mars, revealed a planet with a far thinner atmosphere and higher radiation levels than expected. Lowell's canals and an ancient Martian civilization were missing. Mariner revealed that human travel to Mars would be hazardous and that automated probes might perform many observations more cheaply.

1966: JAG. This plan for a 1976 mission proposed using a nuclear-powered rocket carrying four humans on a flyby around Mars. On approach, an automated probe would descend to the planet's surface, collect soil samples, then quickly rocket up to a manned ship zooming overhead. The crew would return to Earth after a 667-day voyage. Soaring Vietnam War costs killed the project, although the automated lander eventually developed into the unmanned Viking missions that successfully touched down on Mars in 1976.

1969: Post-Apollo. Hoping to exploit the first moon landing, NASA proposed an ambitious follow-on program, pitched in part by Wernher von Braun and echoing his original vision: a winged shuttle, a space station, and a large human expedition to Mars. Faced with Vietnam War costs and waning public interest in space following the moon landing, the plan was rejected, though then President Richard Nixon approved development of the space shuttle. In the following decades, unmanned craft successfully visited Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

1989: Space Exploration Initiative. Developed during the first Bush Administration, the plan provided a framework to complete the space station, set up a lunar outpost, and mount a Mars expedition around 2010. Cost estimates soared to over $500 billion, dooming the effort.

2004: Vision for Space Exploration. This plan, hatched during the second Bush Administration, called for using technology developed for the Apollo and shuttle programs to construct a new crew vehicle, booster rocket, and heavy-lift rocket to return to the moon as early as 2015. New technologies and approaches tested on the moon, the thinking went, would lead to human trips to Mars around 2030. Most of the program was canceled for cost reasons.

2012: Red Dragon. Developed by Elon Musk's Space Exploration company, this plan proposes to send an automated "Dragon" vehicle to land on Mars in 2018, paving the way for an eventual human landing.

2013: Inspiration Mars. Proposed by Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, the idea is to seize on an unusual 2018 planetary alignment to send a male and female astronaut on a 500-day flyby around Mars. The National Geographic Society is exploring the idea of partnering with Tito's group.


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Benedict Departs Vatican for the Last Time as Pope












Pope Benedict XVI bade his final farewell to the faithful today, lifting off from the Vatican in a white helicopter as the first pope to resign in six centuries.


Just before 5 p.m. local time, Benedict, 85, walked out of the Vatican for the last time as pope, waving to a cheering crowd in the Courtyard of San Damaso as he entered a black Mercedes for the short drive to a nearby heliport.


In a tweet sent from Benedict XVI @Pontifex as his motorcade rolled to the heliport, Benedict said, "Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives."


READ MORE: Pope Benedict XVI Delivers Farewell Address


With church bells ringing across Rome, he then embarked on the 15-minute flight to Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence just south of the city and his home for the coming months when he'll be recognized by the church as His Holiness Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus.


When Benedict landed in the gardens at Castel Gandolfo, he was greeted by a group of dignitaries, including the governor of the Vatican City state Giovanni Bertello, two bishops, the director of the pontifical villas, and the mayor and parish priest. Off the helicopter and back into a car, Benedict headed to the palace.






Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images











Pope Benedict XVI's Helicopter Ride to Castel Gandolfo Watch Video









Pope Benedict XVI Says Goodbye to Cardinals Watch Video







In the plaza at Castel Gandolfo, a crowd of supporters, many waving flags or banners, some peering out of windows, gathered to welcome Benedict. When Benedict finally appeared on the balcony, the crowd erupted in applause.


"Thank you for your friendship, your affection," Benedict told them.


Benedict said he was "just a pilgrim starting the last lap of his earthly journey."


After his brief address to the crowd, Benedict waved one last time and walked back into the palace as the sun set around the square.


9 Men Who Could Replace Pope Benedict XVI


In his final remarks earlier in the day to colleagues in the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict had promised "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his eventual successor.


Benedict, in a morning meeting at the Vatican, urged the cardinals to act "like an orchestra" to find "harmony" moving forward.


Benedict spent a quiet final day as pope, bidding farewell to his colleagues and moving on to a secluded life of prayer, far from the grueling demands of the papacy and the scandals that have recently plagued the church.


His first order of business was a morning meeting with the cardinals in the Clementine Hall, a room in the Apostolic Palace. Despite the historical nature of Benedict's resignation, not all cardinals attended the event.


Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, thanked Benedict for his service to the church during the eight years he has spent as pontiff.


Pope Benedict's Last Sunday Prayer Service


For some U.S. Catholics in Rome for the historic occasion, Benedict's departure is bittersweet. Christopher Kerzich, a Chicago resident studying at the Pontifical North American College of Rome, said Wednesday he is sad to see Benedict leave, but excited to see what comes next.


"Many Catholics have come to love this pontiff, this very humble man," Kerzich said. "He is a man who's really fought this and prayed this through and has peace in his heart. I take comfort in that and I think a lot of Catholics should take comfort in that."






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