NPR News

President Obama leads Republican Mitt Romney by 8 points nationally — 51 to 43 percent among likely voters — as the race heads into the final stretch, according to a new Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday.

Obama's advantage, particularly among women, blacks and voters younger than 30, puts him "in a strong position compared with past victorious presidential candidates," Pew reported.

The abuse allegations against U.S. Olympic short track speedskating coach Jae Su Chun have escalated with a demand for arbitration and an "open and ongoing investigation" by police.

But while a large group of skaters charge Chun with abuse, another set has issued a statement in support of the coach.

As many of you have no doubt noticed, within the past few hours our technology team has introduced a brand-new commenting system.

The transition should be painless — meaning that there is nothing to do on your end to continue participating in the comments.

The good news is that this new system allows for many modern amenities the other system lacked. Those include: Threaded comments and the ability to use HTML formatting. The new system also allows you to delete your own comments.