In what is probably the least surprising news story you'll hear all week, Barack Obama is going to run for a second term. And as things stand, he'll almost certainly win:

Despite shedding some support, polling by the Pew Research Center suggests Mr Obama is in a stronger position at this stage than either Bill Clinton or George W Bush, both of whom went on to win re-election convincingly.

In polling carried out in March, some 47% of registered voters said they would like to re-elect Mr Obama, with just 37% saying they would vote for an as-yet-unknown Republican candidate.

Of course, this news - while utterly unsurprising - does have one significant downside. It effectively fires the starting gun on a contest that is still over a year and a half away. Such is the insanity of modern US electoral politics...