Thundering Harley engines nearly drowned out the Latin recitation of the "Our Father" prayer that accompanied Francis as he greeted the crowd before Mass. Standing in his open-top jeep, Francis drove up the main boulevard leading to St. Peter's Square, blessing the thousands of people in what was a giant Harley parking lot.

Once the service got under way, bikers in their trademark leather Harley vests sat in the square alongside nuns and tens of thousands of faithful Catholics taking part in an unrelated, two-day pro-life rally.

Francis addressed them both afterward, giving a blessing to the "numerous participants" of the Harley gathering.

Tens of thousands of Harley owners from around the world descended on Rome for the four-day anniversary of the American manufacturer.

The main events were Sunday's Vatican blessing and a parade Saturday past the Colosseum and other historic landmarks adding color, traffic and noise to an already colorful day in downtown Rome, thanks to a gay pride march.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that six bikes were involved in a pileup Saturday on the main ring road around the capital, while a Swiss biking couple were killed in a highway crash on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based, Harley gave Francis two white classic Harleys for the Vatican police force to use.

There was something a bit incongruous about the Harley crowd known for its "Freedom" motto, outlaw image and adventuresome spirit taking part in a solemn papal Mass to commemorate a 1995 encyclical on the inviolability of human life.

"Evangelium Vitae" is a roadmap of the church's teaching against abortion, euthanasia and murder. Harley's advertising for its 2013 bike collection reads "Live life on your own terms. More than 30 ways to defy the status quo."

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, noted that there were probably quite a few Catholic riders in the crowd and that regardless, anyone is welcome to a papal Mass.

"I know great people who have big bikes," Lombardi quipped.

In his comments to the pro-life crowd, Francis offered prayers "for every human life, especially the most fragile, defenseless and threatened." But he stayed away from saying anything more polarizing about abortion or contraception.

He then spent a good half-hour after the Mass caressing, kissing and chatting with a few dozen sick or disabled people in the square, including one on a motorcycle wearing Harley garb.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Facebook's statement came hours after Google publicly asked the Department of Justice that it be allowed to disclose the full extent of the secret requests the company receives in order to demonstrate that Google turns over a relatively limited amount of user data.

"We would welcome the opportunity to provide a transparency report that allows us to share with those who use Facebook around the world a complete picture of the government requests we receive, and how we respond," Facebook said in an e-mailed statement.

"We urge the United States government to help make that possible by allowing companies to include information about the size and scope of national security requests we receive."

Facebook, Google and Microsoft are among nine Internet companies that have come under scrutiny following disclosures in The Guardian and Washington Post newspapers of their roles in a National Security Agency data collection program named Prism.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - This time, the Fed is serious.

That's the judgment of U.S. government bond investors who believe the Federal Reserve is close to paring back its $2.5 trillion, 4-1/2-year bond purchase program, and it's causing turmoil in the U.S. Treasury market.

Trading in Treasuries has turned notably more volatile in recent days and volatility may continue as traders try to adjust to a marketplace in flux.

In the last six weeks, benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note yields have surged to 2.19 percent, from 1.60 percent at the beginning of May.

As a result the market has seen a sharp outflow from bond funds and notable lack of demand in Treasury bond auctions. The fund outflows and the rise in volatility offer a worrying glimpse of how markets are likely to behave as the Fed works to scale back its enormous monetary stimulus of the U.S. economy.

"When you see the volumes and the movements developing in different markets, then it shows you that the transition from accommodation to tapering to eventual sideline and then subsequent tightening is going to have a lot of bumps in the road," said Steve Rodosky, head of Treasuries and derivatives trading at Pimco, which runs the world's largest bond fund.

Expectations for future volatility in the government bond market have also jumped. The Merrill Lynch MOVE index , which estimates future volatility of long-term bond yields, jumped to 84.7 on Monday, its highest level in almost a year, from a multi-year low of around 50 at the beginning of May, to 79 on Thursday.

Fighting the Fed has long been seen as a losing strategy. After four years of record monetary stimulus, however, many investors are unsure of what to do when the Fed is not the primary driver of market moves.

Investors have fled from bond funds as rates rise, pulling $10.93 billion from bond funds in the week ended June 5, according to the Investment Company Institute, the biggest weekly outflow since October 15, 2008. Bond flows had previously seen inflows for 21 straight months, according to ICI.

"There is no difference in voice in the market any more. There are a few very large players and every single one of them pretty much follows the Fed, so when the Fed withdraws everyone tried to withdraw at the same time and there's no other side of the market," said Gang Hu, head of U.S. linear rates trading at Credit Suisse in New York.

At the same time, large dealer banks are less able to absorb large debt sales as new rules meant to reduce risks taken by institutions result in smaller bank balance sheets, potentially adding to price volatility. This week's quarterly auctions by the U.S. Treasury of three, ten and thirty year debt have all been notably weak.

"The ability of dealers to warehouse the shedding of risk is much more limited due to the regulatory environment, which argues for an exaggerated price move to these flows," Merrill Lynch analysts said on Wednesday in a report.

INFLECTION POINT

Not everyone sees a Fed pullback from its bond buying program in the near-term, especially with inflation below the Fed's target of 2.0 percent and unemployment above the target of 6.5 percent.

"The markets seems to have gotten an idea that it could be very soon; we think that's a complete misread and is very unlikely," said Michael Schumacher, head of global rates strategy at UBS in Stamford, Connecticut.

But many see the market as nearing an inflection point at which it will either become clear that the Fed's easing has put economic growth on a solid enough track to stop expanding the Fed's balance sheet, or that the benefit of further easing is outweighed by the risk of asset bubbles and market distortions.

"You've got another maybe 12-18 months of (QE) and at that point you should expect rates to go higher," said Tad Rivelle, chief investment officer of fixed income at TCW, where he helps manage $135 billion in assets.

"QE does have enormous power, but that power is not under the precise direction and guidance of the Fed. Lacking the ability to specify exactly where the excess of liquidity ultimately ends up suggests that it can leak out into emerging markets, it can run into the housing market, it can run into the equity market," Rivelle said.

The negative effects of the Fed stepping out of the market have been felt before, between the central bank's earlier quantitative easing or "QE" programs, but they were temporary as the economy sputtered anew and the Fed stepped back in. Many investors believe, however, that this time the economy is better placed to absorb the shock as the Fed stops expanding its balance sheet.

A return to a more normal level of interest rates will result in a zero total return over the next five years for investors benchmarked to the popular Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, said Zane Brown, fixed income strategist at asset manager Lord Abbett & Co LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"May is a microcosm of what we might expect over the next several years because finally people did lose money in fixed income in May," Brown said.

The longer the Fed's purchases continue, meanwhile, the more difficult it may be for traders to adapt to a market without its regular presence.

"The Fed has to somehow manage to take its hand off the market and let the market function again, let the natural supply and demand function again," said Credit Suisse's Hu.

(Additional reporting by Herb Lash; Editing by David Gaffen and Clive McKeef)

(Reuters) - The Chicago Blackhawks are finding out what the Pittsburgh Penguins already knew - that Boston Bruins netminder Tuukka Rask is pretty good.

The ice-cool Finn was unbeatable again on Monday, stopping all 28 shots he faced to backstop the Bruins to a 2-0 win over Chicago and a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals.

It was Rask's third shutout in his last seven games, putting him at the top of the list of Conn Smythe Trophy candidates for the Stanley Cup playoffs most valuable player.

After picking up a pair of shutouts against Sidney Crosby and the high-powered Penguins in a four-game sweep of Pittsburgh in the Eastern Conference final, Rask has been equally as stingy against Chicago, posting a sensational .960 save percentage.

"He's been focused since day one of the playoffs," Bruins coach Claude Julien told reporters. "You watch him on off days, you watch him, he's quiet, focused, calm.

"Right now, all his energy is put towards his game. When the game starts, he's a focused individual.

"I've never seen a guy so calm, obviously confident with the way he's played. Probably quietest I've seen him so far, but in a good way."

The Bruins defense has also done its part, keeping the front of the Boston net clear and forcing the Blackhawks to take most of their shots from the perimeter. But when called upon, Rask has been virtually unbeatable in the last two games.

"They had shots, but most of them came from the outside," Rask said. "We eliminated a lot of those rebound opportunities.

"They shot high shots from off the wing and I was able to just catch a lot of them with my glove.

"Then a few loose pucks were lying around there. Our 'D' (defense) or forwards took care of that."

Chicago coach Joel Quenneville conceded that Rask had been solid but limited his praise, explaining that his team was making life easy for the relaxed Finn.

"We ran up against some of the best goalies in the league here," Quenneville said. "Tonight I thought we made it rather easy on him as far as traffic and finding and seeing pucks.

"I think we got to be better at going to the net in non-puck areas."

(Editing by John O'Brien)

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton achieved a Formula One career first by steering his Mercedes to third place in Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, even if the podium was a bitter-sweet one for the Briton.

In his five previous visits to Montreal with McLaren, the 2008 champion had won three times and crashed twice.

On Sunday, Hamilton found a third way - taking the chequered flag behind Red Bull's race winner Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

For the third time in seven races this year, Hamilton finished third - highlighting the reliability and potential of an improved Mercedes that started the season quick over one lap but hungry for tires.

However his inability to keep up with Vettel in the early stages, and to hold off Alonso at the end when the Spaniard overtook him for second place, underlined how far Mercedes still have to go to be regulars at the top of the podium.

"The car felt fantastic today and I had good grip for the low-speed corners but we just weren't quite on the pace of Seb and Fernando," said Hamilton.

"I was on the maximum that I could possibly drive and we got absolutely everything out of the car today.

"It would have been nice to have kept second place of course but Fernando was very quick today and it was difficult to keep him behind."

Hamilton's German team mate Nico Rosberg, who had taken pole position in the three previous races and won in Monaco, also struggled to keep up with the frontrunners and finished two places behind the Englishman.

"I think fifth place was probably my optimum today," he conceded. "Even if my race had gone perfectly, I wasn't able to match the pace of the guys in front."

Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn, who is at the center of a controversial tire test with Pirelli, was pleased with the overall result but also admitted the car was just slightly off the pace.

"The car performed reasonably well but we still had some anxiety about the tire performance in the high temperatures, so we were managing the situation carefully, particularly in the opening laps of the stints," he said.

"Lewis drove a very strong race although it was a shame that he could not quite hold on to second position in the closing laps.

"However, that wasn't down to him but rather the fact that we still need to find a little more performance from our car to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull."

(Reporting by Julian Linden)

KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda on Monday signed a deal with South Korea's largest telecoms provider KT Corp to roll out high-speed 4G Internet to most of its citizens within three years.

Rwanda, a landlocked central African state and one of Africa's fastest growing economies,, has laid more than 3,000km of fiber-optic cable since 2009 in a bid to develop a service based economy and become a regional leader in information communication technology (ICT). Critics, however, say almost no large investor has come on board yet.

Rwanda's economy expanded by 9.4 percent in the 2011/2012 fiscal year but only around 8.3 percent of the population have internet access at the moment, according to Rwandan officials.

Rwanda said KT Corp will inject around $140 million into a joint venture company, which will be responsible for rolling out a fast 4G LTE broadband network to 95 percent of Rwandans. Debt and vendor financing will also be needed.

"This agreement with KT marks a major milestone in Rwanda's drive to become a modern, knowledge-based economy - and by expanding our information infrastructure, we will create jobs, support social progress and propel economic growth," Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Rwanda's Minister of Youth and ICT, said in a statement.

Rwanda said the government's equity investment in the joint venture, which has a 25-year term, would consist of using its national fiber optic cable, spectrum and wholesale-only operator license.

Kigali also invited other mobile network operators to invest in the project and provide retail access to 4G LTE wireless broadband services to some 12 million Rwandans.

(Writing By Drazen Jorgic; editing by Patrick Graham and William Hardy)

(Rwanda corrected statement to $140 million not $145 million in paragraph 4)

Calls for an autonomous state in the south which was once a separate country have compounded Yemen's many problems as the impoverished nation struggles with a resurgent al-Qaida and a deep political crisis.

U.N. special representative Jamal Benomar told the Security Council on Tuesday that a "national dialogue" aimed at mapping out the country's future must settle the status of the south in order to develop the foundations of a new constitution. He urged southern leaders who are not participating to join the talks.

Since February, he said, there has been a significant increase in the frequency and number of demonstrators flooding the streets.

"Southerners have grown wary of promises unmet," Benomar said. "Organized acts of civil disobedience have been observed weekly, sometimes resulting in injuries and deaths."

Yemen has been struggling with a transition to democracy since Arab Spring protests in 2011 forced longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years as president. A transitional government led by President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi is trying to promote national reconciliation, draft a new constitution and hold elections.

Southerners joined a unified Yemen in 1990, but many protesters are again demanding independence. A 1994 attempt by the south to regain independence was crushed in a three-month civil war.

Benomar said the government's establishment of two commissions to address the unlawful or illegitimate seizure of property in the south and unjust dismissals of southerners from military or civil service was "an important first step in addressing main grievances."

But he said the commissions need much greater resources and without further confidence-building measures by the government or tangible improvements in people's daily lives "the voices of discontent will amplify, narrowing the space for dialogue."

Benomar warned that the security situation remains fragile in many parts of the country and al-Qaida remains "a lethal threat."

Most recently, he said, al-Qaida has been trying to establish a foothold in the province of Hadramawt and control territory again, as it did during political turmoil in 2011 that led to Saleh's resignation.

Benomar also cited an increase in the number of assassinations of mid- and high-level security officials, continued arms smuggling and the amassing of more weapons by key political factions, "creating the conditions for further violence and instability."

While all these issues remain major concerns, Benomar called the national dialogue, which includes delegates from all major political groups as well as women and youth, "a major achievement" that shows the Yemeni people's commitment "to choose dialogue over violence and consensus over division."

This Memorial Day weekend, the hulking metal come-ons are once again glinting and shimmering at night.

The Neon Museum, where Sin City's most iconic signs go to retire, has begun aiming more than 100 multicolored spotlights on its outdoor collection of 150 signs. It's also extending hours for nighttime tours, and a handful of signs have been fully restored with new bulbs.

Since October, visitors have been able to meander past the Silver Slipper, Aladdin's lamp, the Stardust marquee and dozens of other signs saved from the wrecking ball. But the museum closed at 5:30 p.m., meaning that tourists had to squint through the desert sun to glimpse the old guardians of this nighttime city.

For the first time Friday, visitors were able to behold the fully restored signs in all their luminescent glory. The dozens of other markers were bathed in custom-designed spotlights, like true Vegas showgirls.

"The skyline of Las Vegas is a nighttime skyline," said executive director Danielle Kelly, moments before the first afterhours tour came through.

"We stand among the architecture of this city. The notable architecture of this city is its signage. And their illumination is when they came alive," Kelly said.

In a town known for detonating buildings that are beyond their prime, Las Vegas' Neon Museum stands apart in its zeal for salvaging the blinking, glowing memories of the past.

Kelly says time has transformed the signs from commercial emissaries into objects of art.

The hour-long guided tours bend through the artfully cluttered 1.5-acre lot. The excursion offers an alternative to the mega-mall homogeny along the desert metropolis' revamped main drag.

Worn by the beating sun and twisted by desert winds, most of the marquees have lost their flash, some of their bulbs and much of their paint. They tilt toward each other like tombstones in an ancient cemetery. But taken together, they tell a story about the town's glitziest days.

There's the nouveau graveyard's oldest sign: a green and white 1930s relic that marked a restaurant where Hoover Dam construction workers bought fried chicken and bootleg whiskey.

One of the signs with working bulbs a vintage arrow pointing lovebirds to "Marriage Information" alludes to the town's role as the nation's elopement, and divorce, capital.

And the giant marquee that once sat astride the Stardust casino featuring a space-age, deep-red font and cascade of stylized diamonds recalls Nevada's embrace of its role as a test site for nuclear weapons

While only four of the kitschy relics are illuminated, the spotlights play up each sign's attributes and create a feel of pulsating energy.

On Friday, the flashing red lights and blue and purple shadows along with the errant stray cat gave the attraction the surreal, slightly creepy feel of a shuttered theme park.

The museum plans to turn on a few more signs, but facilities director Sam Reza said full wattage would be too dazzling.

"The purpose of the museum is never to have all of the signs fully illumined. We wanted to keep them in the state that they were taken down. To have all of these signs fully lighted up would be overwhelming," she said.

Funding is also a factor; it can cost $100,000 to bring back a single sign.

Art lovers founded the museum in 1996 in a sandy lot outside downtown Las Vegas a few miles north of the Strip as a way to rescue old signs when buildings were demolished or remodeled.

In 2012, curators had the bright idea to open it to the public and began working on a plan to light up the night once again.

Casino bosses began abandoning curlicues of neon in the desert several decades ago, beginning with Steve Wynn's remodel of the Golden Nugget.

Today, major hotel-casinos are built to advertise themselves. The facades and exterior entertainment do the heavy lifting, from the glossy, brown obelisk that is the Wynn Las Vegas, to the fountains that dance outside the Bellagio, to the condensed New York City skyline that frames New York New York.

When signs do crop up, neon has all but surrendered to computerized LED signs.

But most visitors still feel a connection to the town's glittery glory. Most anyone can visualize Vegas Vic, with his checked shirt, perpetually lit cigarette and extended thumb, in their mind's eye.

Sandra Chervinsky, who snapped dozens of pictures during the Neon Museum's inaugural twilight tour, demonstrated her love of vintage Vegas signage by getting full-color tattoo of the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign on her calf.

"When I saw the night tours, I was like, 'I got to do it,'" said Chervinsky, of Montreal. "The light is so perfect, and you're surrounded by all these different eras."

The new tours will run every half hour through 10 p.m., leaving visitors enough time to catch a late show or hit up one of the town's 24-hour bars before heading hotelward.

With the changes and expanded tour capacity, the museum hopes to welcome more than 50,000 visitors this year.

The lot can feel a bit macabre in this youth and novelty-obsessed town, but Kelly said the museum's latest iteration shows that the signs have become key players in a new kind of escapist vision.

"It's not a graveyard," Kelly said. "The signs haven't died. They're just in a new space. And they perform a new function. It's still a fantasy they're selling: the idea of a place."

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Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

The teen pop star is the latest celebrity to sign up for a suborbital flight to the edge of space aboard Virgin Galactic's , joining actors Angeline Jolie, Ashton Kutcher and Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Great to hear @justinbieber & @scooterbraun are latest @virgingalactic future astronauts. Congrats, see you up there!" , Virgin Galactic's billionaire founder, tweeted Wednesday (June 5). (Scooter Braun, Bieber's manager, has also booked a flight.)

Bieber responded with an idea whose seriousness is tough to gauge.

"@richardbranson @scooterbraun @virgingalactic let's shoot a music video in SPACE!! #nextLEVEL," the pop star tweeted to his more than 40 milion Twitter followers.

Police arrested four suspects this week in connection with the killing, originally seen as the most serious homophobic attack in a country that is fairly gay-friendly.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Friday that the motive behind the killing was of a personal nature. He said the suspects intended to shoot someone else at the center. Instead, they opened fire on the two people they killed. Other details of the case are under court gag order.

The two dead were a 26-year-old counselor and a 17-year-old girl. Gay community leaders still claim the victims were killed because of their sexual orientation.