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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. If you walk into any clubhouse in organized baseball, from Yankee Stadium to a rookie-league park, you'll see a large poster that specifies the prohibitions against gambling, and they'll specify the penalty. There is only one: a lifetime ban.

When the boyish Kim Jong Un assumed power in North Korea barely a year ago after his father's passing, speculation was that he might strike out a more open and less provocative path.

Figuring out what is or isn't going on in North Korea has long been an exercise in reading tea leaves, and no one predicting a thaw in the hard-line hereditary regime did so without qualification.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, you probably heard that girls are now getting the majority of Associate's, Bachelor's and Master's degrees. We'll talk with a scholar who says that that is in part because the educational system is failing boys in a big way. And we'll hear from parents too, coming up later in the program.

Not only might North Korea's third underground explosion of an atomic device be a sign that it is closer to having a weapon that's light enough to be put on a missile, it seems to be a not-so-subtle message aimed at the U.S.

The Catholic church continues to grow in Africa, and analysts say that there is a good chance the next pope will be from Africa. In Mexico, Catholicism remains the predominant religion though the percentage is falling.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest in the U.S. and Latinos make up a majority of its parishioners. Latino Catholics there are hopeful a new papacy will bring an end to the child sex-abuse scandals that have rocked the archdiocese.

Since Monday's announcement by Pope Benedict that he will step down, the world has been abuzz. Catholics and the rest of the world are grappling with the implications of the pope's stunning announcement that he will resign on Feb. 28.

North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted a third nuclear test. It's an important step toward North Korea's goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile that could reach United States.

Catholics reacted to the surprising news that Pope Benedict announced his resignation Monday morning. We spoke to a few of them after the noon mass on Monday at St. Peter's Catholic Church.

Kevin Barto says his coworkers and friends have been asking him all morning about what this means for the Catholic Church. He says it's not easy to say what Pope Benedict's legacy will be because he was in the role for such a relatively short amount of time.