diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 93579bfd03..b59f5b191d 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 
 - the Markdown table generated from `kable()` will use the width of characters to decide how many spaces are needed for padding, which can be useful for wide characters such as CJK characters (normally of width 2 per char) (thanks, @yutannihilation, #985)
 
+- for language engines, the syntax of R Markdown code chunk headers can be ```` ```{lang, option=value} ```` now (e.g. ```` ```{python} ```` and ```` ```{Rcpp} ````), which is equivalent to ```` ```{r, engine='lang', option=value} ```` (thanks, @JanSchulz, #963)
+
 - if you set `options(knitr.duplicate.label = 'allow')` before calling `knit()`, duplicate labels will be allowed, and an incremental suffix will be appended to the duplicate label, e.g. when there are two non-empty chunks with the same label `foo`, the second label may be converted to `foo-2` automatically; please use this feature only if you understand the consequences (e.g. the plot generated by a chunk `foo` might be `foo-2-1.pdf`, which can be surprising) (thanks, @khughitt, #957)
 
 ## BUG FIXES