The Morning Report -- Sunday February 17, 2013

Pope Nears Retirement -- Dorner Hid In Unoccupied Condo -- Mother Presses Congress -- Obama Gets Golf Lessons -- Draft Bill For Illegal Legal Immigrants -- Russian Meteor Largest Since 1908 -- Apple/Samsung Plans 'Smartwatch' -- Google To Open Retail Stores -- Rubio Beats Obama To Israel

POPE NEARS RETIREMENT, SAYS "PRAY FOR ME AND NEXT POPE"

Reuters

(Reuters) - Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, addressing a crowded St. Peter's Square in his penultimate Sunday address before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.

The crowd chanted "Long live the pope!," waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window. The 85-year-old Benedict, who will resign on February 28, thanked them in several languages.

DORNER WAS HIDING IN UNOCCUPIED CONDO DURING MANHUNT

Associated Press

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- It didn't take ingenuity for Christopher Dorner to elude authorities for six days. He simply opened an unlocked door.

As law enforcement swarmed a mountain neighborhood searching for the fugitive ex-cop, Dorner hid in a condo 100 feet across the street from a command post and a short distance from where he left his burned-out truck.

SLAIN TEEN'S MOM PRESSES CONGRESS

Associated Press

The mother of a 15-year-old Chicago girl slain a week after performing at President Barack Obama’s inauguration is appearing in a new gun control public service announcement that calls on Congress to enact “common-sense reforms.”

“When my daughter Hadiya performed at the President’s inauguration, it was the happiest day of her life,” Cleopatra Cowley-Pendelton says in the commercial, paid for by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. “A week later, she was murdered. Gunned down near her school. A piece of my heart is gone. Congress is debating how to fix our gun laws. They can start with background checks for all gun sales. Tell Congress to support common-sense reforms so no more innocent children are killed. And no parent has to go through this heartbreak.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA GETS GOLF LESSONS FROM TIGER WOODS' OLD COACH

PALM CITY, Fla. — President Obama is spending his President’s Day weekend in this upscale coastal community for a golf getaway with friends. But he isn’t spending his three days in the Sunshine State idly teeing off: The president received golf lessons today from the former coach of none other than Tiger Woods himself: Butch Harmon.

A veteran of the PGA Tour, Harmon is renowned today for his series of “Ultimate Golf” training videos. He flew to the area with his son, Claude III, to give the president personal tips.

OBAMA DRAFT BILL WOULD CLEAR PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

Reuters

(Reuters) - A draft of a White House immigration proposal would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years, USA Today reported on Saturday.

The plan, obtained by the newspaper, also would provide for more security funding and require businesses to check the immigration status of new hires within four years. Illegal immigrants could also apply for a newly created "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa, under the draft bill, it said.

RUSSIAN METEOR IS LARGEST SINCE 1908

A meteor that exploded in the skies above Russia’s Ural Mountains was the largest since the Tunguska blast in Siberia in 1908 and released about 33 times the energy of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Before hitting the Earth’s atmosphere yesterday, the object was about 17 meters (55 feet) and had a mass of about 10,000 tons, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said in a statement.

SAMSUNG PLANS SMARTWATCH

Above: Apple's Potential iWatch

Apple and Samsung may extend their smartphone and tablet battle to the wrist. New images have appeared online that are believed to be screenshots of the Samsung Altius, a smartwatch that will arrive later this year. The Altius could go head-to-head with Apple's own iWatch. Have the smartwatch wars begun?

The Altius screenshots leaked less than a week after both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal ran articles suggesting that Apple -- Samsung's main competitor in a variety of markets -- is working on a wearable product, probably a watch.

APPLE'S NEW iAD CAMPAIGN PROMOTES 300,000 APPS

Apple's initial ad campaign for the new iPad mini simply presented it next to the full size iPad both playing a duet in GarageBand, or alone in a user's hand to highlight its smaller size. 

The new ads present both a full size iPad and iPad mini, depicting both running one of a series of creative applications. Each ad has a simple headline that highlights a particular category or type of apps, such as "Ear Opening" for music related titles, "Elementary" for educational titles, "Well Versed" for music notation and ebooks and "Mind watering" for visually graphic apps.

RUMOR: GOOGLE PLANNING TO OPEN RETAIL STORES

Google opening up a retail store or two? That's this weekend's big rumor, with a few unknown sources letting slip that the search giant might be looking to open up stand-alone shops around the U.S. in a bid to get more Google products — tablets, phones, and all the other fun things cooking at Google HQ (glasses, anyone?) — into consumer hands.

It's a move that makes complete sense, given that competitors Microsoft and Apple both have retail stores of their own for pushing out product. And while Google's tested the retail waters a bit with some "store-within-a-store" setups at various Best Buy locations across the United States, the company has yet to go the full nine yards and establish broader retails presences that could focus more on selling instead of showing, as9to5google's Seth Weintraub suggests.

AHEAD OF OBAMA, MARCO RUBIO HEADS TO ISRAEL

As President Obama prepares for his first trip to Israel since assuming office, the man some hope will succeed him leaves Saturday for his own visit to the Jewish state.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and an oft-mentioned potential 2016 presidential candidate, departed for Israel and Jordan.