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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

Within the last hour, we have heard that Pope Benedict is resigning at the end of this month. A Vatican spokesman said the pope's announcement, quote, "took us by surprise," suggesting that even the pontiff's closest aides did not know what he was about to do. The last pope to resign was Gregory XII, in 1415.

Pope Benedict announced Monday morning he is retiring at the end of the month. He will be the first pontiff to step aside in six centuries.

(Most recent update: 2:50 p.m ET.)

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It appears that the conflict in northern Mali is entering a new stage — insurgency.

The crisis in Tunisia deepened over the weekend when a secular political party withdrew from the Islamist-led coalition government. The crisis erupted last week when a secular politician and human rights advocate was gunned down outside his home in Tunis.

In Philadelphia in 1972, an immigrant couple of Kalmyk origin gave birth to a boy they named Erdne. A few years later, the Dalai Lama renamed him Telo Tulku Rinpoche and identified him as one in a long line of reincarnations of an ancient Buddhist saint. The boy was then taken to a monastery in the mountains of southern India to learn the teachings of the Buddha.

Telo Rinpoche was one of the first of his kind: someone from the West learning thousand-year-old traditions a world away from his family.

The Chinese table tennis player who was instrumental in the pingpong diplomacy that paved the way for President Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China has died. Zhuang Zedong was 73.

Here's more from the BBC about the 1971 incident that led to pingpong diplomacy: