• "Judge Sonia Sotomayor once described herself as 'a product of affirmative action' who was admitted to two Ivy League schools despite scoring lower on standardized tests than many classmates, which she attributed to 'cultural biases' that are 'built into testing,'" reports the New York Times. "Those comments were among a trove of videos dating back nearly 25 years that shed new light on Judge Sotomayor's views."

• "Sotomayor told a senator Thursday that she would follow a historic ruling affirming Americans' right to own guns for self-defense, but pro-gun activists said they still believe she'd work to limit gun rights if confirmed for the high court," the AP reports.

• Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., "accused Republicans Thursday of engaging in a 'Machiavellian delay' to buy time to dig up dirt on" Sotomayor, Politico reports. Republican Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., "shot back that senators were sounding like 'squabbling spouses' and should 'stop calling each other names.'"

• "Republicans may have a window of opportunity to turn public opinion against" Sotomayor, "but a new poll finds that such a campaign could hurt their party's already weak standing with Americans, especially Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing voter group," McClatchy Newspapers reports.

• "During a media call" yesterday "put together by Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary, a coalition of Hispanic law professors supporting the confirmation of" Sotomayor "repeatedly described her as a moderate judge who relies heavily on precedent when she decides cases," the Blog of Legal Times reports.

• The National Law Journal examines Sotomayor's ruling in a child pornography case, United States v. Falso.

• The Washington Post profiles CRC Public Relations, the firm representing many of the conservative groups working against the Sotomayor nomination, including the Judicial Confirmation Network.

• The Post reports that Sotomayor has more total years of experience (six years at the district level and 10 years on appellate bench) than any Supreme Court justice since 1910.

Top Commentary

• "As the Sotomayor hearings approach, Republicans need to continue [to] do what they first did when protesting George W. Bush's aborted nomination of Harriet Miers: take the judiciary as seriously as the Democrats do," The American Spectator's W. James Antle, III writes.

• In the Los Angeles Times, New York University professor Jonathan Zimmerman examines the term "Hispanic," and asserts that Sotomayor should be confirmed on her judicial credentials and not her ethnicity.

• "One of the ironies of the Sotomayor nomination is that her 'identity' has been seen as the exclusive product of her ethnicity and gender," Ellen Goodman. "Other pieces of identity -- the child of public housing, the first non-mother, etc. -- are discounted."

• Stuart Taylor Jr. re-examines the New Haven firefighters case.