--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -12,12 +12,25 @@
     no longer needed to avoid repeated indexing by logical arrays using
     `find' for performance reasons.
 
-** The built-in function equivalents to associative operators (plus, times,
-   mtimes, and, or) have been extended to accept multiple arguments. This is
-   especially useful for summing (multiplying, etc.) lists of objects 
-   (of possibly distinct types):
+ ** The built-in function equivalents to associative operators (plus, times,
+    mtimes, and, or) have been extended to accept multiple arguments. This
+    is especially useful for summing (multiplying, etc.) lists of objects
+    (of possibly distinct types):
    
-     matrix_sum = plus (matrix_list{:});
+      matrix_sum = plus (matrix_list{:});
+
+ ** The default behavior of assert (observed, expected) has been relaxed
+    to employ less strict checking that does not require the internals
+    of the values to match. This avoids previously valid tests from
+    breaking due to new internal classes introduced in future Octave
+    versions.
+
+    For instance, all of these assertions were true in Octave 3.0.x
+    but false in 3.2.x due to new optimizations and improvements:
+
+      assert (2*linspace (1, 5, 5), 2*(1:5))
+      assert (zeros (0, 0), [])
+      assert (2*ones (1, 5), (2) (ones (1,5)))
     
 
 Summary of important user-visible changes for version 3.2: