Patch #642500 with slight modifications: allow keyword arguments in
dict() constructor. Example:
  >>> dict(a=1, b=2)
  {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
  >>>
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index b248970..86cf16e 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -11,6 +11,12 @@
 
 Type/class unification and new-style classes
 --------------------------------------------
+- dict() now accepts keyword arguments so that dict(one=1,two=2)
+  is the equivalent of dict([('one',1),('two',2)]).  Accordingly,
+  the existing (but undocumented) 'items' keyword argument has
+  been eliminated. This means that dict(items=someMapping) now has
+  a different meaning than before.
+
 - int() now returns a long object if the argument is outside the
   integer range, so int("4"*1000), int(1e200) and int(1L<<1000) will
   all return long objects instead of raising an OverflowError.