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Pope Benedict XVI leaves office this week, the second pope to resign voluntarily. The first was Celestine V, a hermit who quit in 1294, after a brief and disastrous stint. Some scholars say Dante damned Celestine as a coward in his Inferno. Yet his example, legally and spiritually, played a major role in Benedict's departure.

The U.S. military called its Oak Ridge, Tenn., facility "Site X." During World War II, thousands of workers there enriched uranium for the first atom bomb — even if they didn't know it at the time. Author Denise Kiernan's new book, The Girls of Atomic City, follows some of the women who worked there.

Britain's most senior Catholic cleric has resigned just before he was to attend the conclave to select a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Keith O'Brien is alleged to have behaved inappropriately with three priests and a former priest who filed complaints with the Vatican. The allegations date back to the 1980s. Audie Cornish talks to Philip Reeves.

Reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, who covered Bulger for years for The Boston Globe, have a new book out about the career criminal. Bulger was wanted for 19 murders when he was captured by the FBI in 2011. He faces trial in June.

Fourteen-year-old Doug Swieteck has the weight of the world upon him — no friends, an alcoholic father and a brother who has just been injured in Vietnam. But the protagonist of this NPR Backseat Book Club book finds solace in an unlikely place — the pages of Audubon's Birds of America.

Pope Benedict XVI leaves the church in the midst of change: American Catholics' social views tend to diverge from the Vatican's, and the church now sees much of its support in South America and Africa. One former member of the College of Cardinals says the next pope will have to be aware of the church's needs in South America.

In a new novel, the 1920s writer known for her sharp wit becomes resident ghost and adviser to a modern woman struggling to find her own voice. And the two women — spirit and flesh — come to depend on each other.

This year, statisticians are hoping to predict who will win big at the Oscars by using the same methods they used to predict the 2012 presidential election. Host Jacki Lyden gets the latest number-crunching Oscar predictions from Conor Gaughan from Farsite.com. We'll also hear from David Rothschild from Microsoft Research and Joel Windels of Brandwatch.

As sequestration looms over Washington, D.C., it seems to have transformed from dire threat to foregone conclusion. Host Jacki Lyden speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about how lawmakers are bracing for what feels like the inevitable.

The art of sabrage, or knocking open a bottle of Champagne with a sword, probably started during the time of Napoleon. A sword is handy but not necessary; a kitchen knife can also work, according to a Champagne expert.