According to recent polling, President Obama is holding a narrow edge over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in three key battleground states.

A new NBC News/Marist survey shows Ohio voters choosing the president over Romney 48% to 42%. In Virginia and Florida, Obama's lead is narrower: 48% to 44%.

On Starting Point this morning, DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz discusses these figures and responds to the Starting Point panelists' inquiries about the president's fundraising efforts and his record on immigration and the auto bailout.

Rep. Schultz also defends the Obama campaign's recent political ads, which criticize Romney's record at Bain Capital.

"Romney has made his record at Bain Capital and his experience in the private sector the central premise to American voters that they should elect him president," Schultz says. "As a result, it's entirely fair game to have a close examination of exactly how he's executed practices" at the company.

Tensions are high as the Egyptian ballots are counted and the world waits to see who the country's citizens elect as their new president.

While the Muslim Brotherhood claimed a lead in the historic election yesterday, saying that its exit polls show Mohamed Morsi leading the pack of thirteen candidates on the ballot, Morsi isn't expected to win outright.

If no candidate garners 50% of the vote in the country's first round of voting, a run-off between the two leading contenders will be held June 16-17th.

Responding to concerns that the election of a member of the Muslim Brotherhood would not be in America's interest, Fawaz Gerges emphasizes that the United States "has very little to fear" from the Islamist movement on Starting Point this morning.

Gerges, considered a top expert on the Middle East, acknowledges that the pluralistic democracies to be established in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring will not look like the American system.

Gerges says that countries in the Middle East will develop their own models of democracy, emphasizing that he believes that the Islamists in Egypt are looking to Turkey, not Iran, as a model for the democratic system they'd like to establish.

Gerges calls his new book, "Obama and the Middle East," an indictment of American foreign policy while stressing that President Obama was faced with a "bitter inheritance" in international affairs when he took office.

Responding to various sources that have used his book as a negative referendum on Obama's foreign policies, Gerges stresses that "Obama has gone out of his way to try to repair the damage" to America's international relationships.

A New York teenager is back in school after being suspended this week for making an anti-bullying video for a school project that she hoped would raise awareness about the issue.

Jessica Barba, 15, produced a black and white video showing a 12 year old girl being bullied. Towards the end of the video, a caption appears saying that the fictional girl died by suicide.

Although there was a disclaimer at both the beginning and the end of the video explaining that the events depicted were not real, a concerned parent thought the video was factual and called the school.

Barba was then suspended for five days because the principal said the video caused a disruption in the school.

After an outpouring of support from around the world, Barba's suspension was lifted.

On Starting Point this morning, Barba and her parents discuss the video and tell Christine Romans that they're happy the video is getting attention because it’s spreading the message it was created to send: “Speak up, speak out.”

A Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper in New Orleans will only be printed three days a week instead of daily, and is laying off a third of its staff as a result.

The 175-year-old Times Picayune is merging with NOLA.com to form the NOLA Media Group. The newspaper will be home-delivered and available in stores on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The website, meanwhile, will transform into a 24-hours-a-day news source.

Three Alabama newspapers are undergoing similar restructuring, causing many to wonder whether or not this is the beginning of the end for newspapers.

New York Times reporter Christine Haughney joins the Starting Point panel today weigh in on the difficulties local newspapers are facing in an increasingly digital world.

The NYPD announced Thursday that they've arrested Pedro Hernandez in the death of 6-year-old Etan Patz, who disappeared 33 years ago today.

Hernandez, 51, is a former Manhattan store clerk who lived in Patz’s neighborhood when the boy was killed. Hernandez told detectives he lured Patz into the basement of his store with a soda, choked him and disposed of his body in the trash.

No physical evidence or motive have been revealed at this time. Police say they were acting on a tip, and now have a written, signed confession by Hernandez in addition to 3.5 hours of video-taped statements.

Hernandez is expected to be arraigned later this morning.

The Patz family has been kept up to date with all of the developments. Police say Mr. Patz was surprised but “handled it well” after everything he’s been through.

"After Etan" author Lisa Cohen weighs in on this development in the case on Starting Point today, saying she is not convinced that Hernandez is the killer.

"I'd never heard his name before today," Cohen explains.

Where have all the good men gone? Nikita Duncan, psychologist, artist, and recent author, joins Starting Point today to offer her answer to that question: blame male struggles on video games and porn.

Together with Stanford professor emeritus and fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo, Duncan authored the e-book "The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It," released on Wednesday.

As stated in the book, by age 21, the average guy has immersed himself in approximately 10,000 hours of video games - the equivalent of the amount of time it takes to earn two Bachelors degrees.

Duncan says that the digital era is literally rewiring how the male brain functions and creating a generation with an unprecedented addiction - to arousal.

Unlike drug or alcohol addicts, an arousal addict doesn't merely crave arousal each time, Duncan argues. Instead, he craves novelty: something new, something better, something different.

Duncan stresses that this mindset can be highly damaging to an individual's interactions and relationships.

"If you watch excessive amounts of porn, you're going to find it hard to have real life relationships, because you're developing your sexuality independently of real people," Duncan explains. "You're not going to be stimulated."

Christine Romans and the Starting Point panelists discuss the sixth-grade student who was ordered to turn his Marine Corps t-shirt inside out because the school's staff was uncomfortable by the shirt's anatomically correct bulldog picture.

Indy 500 rookie Katherine Legge is the ninth woman ever to qualify for the big race and she’s taking on a series of female empowerment initiatives as part of her new role.

On Thursday, Legge announced that she will wear the Girl Scouts logo on her helmet and become the organization’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) ambassador, encouraging girls to get into these important fields and follow their dreams.

Legge and her racing team, the first ever all-female team, join Starting Point this morning to talk about these initiatives and to explain how they're preparing for the Indy 500 this weekend.

STARTING POINT PLAYLIST FOR 5/25/12

Today's Starting Point playlist kicked off with a pick from one of our panelists, The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. Ryan picked "Blue Orchid" by The White Stripes. Former Stripes frontman Jack White recently scored his first number one album with his debut solo release Blunderbuss.

Lizza also picked "Wrecking Ball," a song by country great Emmylou Harris. The song, originally written by Neil Young, was chosen as the title track to Harris' 1995 rock album.

Christine Romans filled in for Soledad O'Brien in the anchor seat today, and picked a few songs for today's playlist as well. Up first was "No Brakes," a track from The Bravery's self-titled debut album.  Christine also picked "Make Some Noise" by the Beastie Boys and the Foo Fighters' "My Hero."

Alicia Menendez stopped by our panel this morning and brought along a pretty diverse bunch of tunes. Alicia's first pick was Salt N Pepa's 1993 smash "None of Your Business," followed by the late, great Selena's "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

"P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" from Michael Jackson's legendary album Thriller also made Alicia's playlist today, as well as the current hit "International Love" by Pitbull ft. Chris Brown.

Will Cain also contributed a song to our playlist this morning: "It's Alright" by Big Head Todd & the Monsters. The track is off of the band's platinum 1993 album Sister Sweetly.

This morning, "Starting Point" is live at 7am Eastern. Christine Romans sits in for Soledad O'Brien as host today, joining panelists, TheBlaze.com columnist Will Cain, "The New Yorker" correspondent Ryan Lizza, and co-host of SiriusXM's "Power Play" Alicia Menendez. Our panel will be talking about the following top stories:

* Suspect in killing of Etan Patz expected to make initial court appearance

* Private spacecraft prepares for historic link to space station

* New polls in 3 battleground states give Obama slight edge

Share your comments in the section below. If you're not by a TV, you can watch us here at CNN.com/Live. Let's get started.

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[UPDATED 7:05am ET] "After Etan" author Lisa Cohen explains that she's "not convinced" that Pedro Hernandez killed Etan Patz because at this point, all investigators have is his confession and she doesn't understand the motive or time frame. Cohen says that she's "never heard [Hernandez's] name until today."

[UPDATED 7:17am ET] NYT reporter Christine Haughney discusses cuts made at the Times-Picayune, explaining that newspapers aren't able to finance the same breath of reporting as they used to because papers are stretched thin and producing local coverage is "difficult and costly" work.

[UPDATED 7:39am ET] Fawaz Gerges explains that democracy in the Middle East is not going to look like American democracy and that the various countries will find their own models. Gerges stresses that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not tied to al Qaeda and that "the U.S. has very little to fear from them," as they are looking to Turkey as a model, not Iran. Finally, referencing his new book "Obama and the Middle East," Gerges explains that Obama was faced with a "bitter inheritance"  regarding foreign affairs when he took office, and that the president has "gone out of his way to repair the damage that was in place."

[UPDATED 7:50am ET] IndyCar driver Katherine Legge responds to stereotypes that women are bad drivers, saying "– statistics prove that women aren’t bad drivers but I think men started that rumor a long time ago." She also weighs in on what it's like to be a female driver in a male-dominated sport, saying that "we need more girls at the grassroots level starting but women racers “aren’t a novelty anymore.”

[UPDATED 8:11am ET] DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz insists that it's "entirely fair game" to look at how Mitt Romney executed practices at Bain Capital because the candidate has made his record at the company the central premise as to why Americans should elect him president.

[UPDATED 8:50am ET] Nikita Duncan, author of "The Demise of Guys: Why Boys are Struggling and What We Can Do About It," says that the accessibility of porn is going to create a generation of boys who don't know how to interact with women sexually.