Tonga's King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, a towering figure in the tiny Pacific Island nation for four decades, died in a New Zealand hospital, the Tongan government announced Monday, He was 88. His death came at the end of a long but unspecified illness in a hospital where the king had spent most of the past several months, and plunged the remote country into a mourning period expected to last for months, according to The Associated Press. Tonga's acting Prime Minister Viliami Tangi said on radio and television broadcasts that the king passed away shortly before midnight,
