Justice Sotomayor gets personal in memoir

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor says in her upcoming memoir that her lifelong battle against diabetes and the fear that she might die early played a big part in her decision not to have children.

Sotomayor, 58, says in an unusually personal book for a Supreme Court justice that she feels an occasional tug of regret at not having borne or adopted children. "My Beloved World" is being published by Alfred A. Knopf in January. The Associated Press received an early copy from the publisher.

Sotomayor also defends affirmative action, under which she was admitted to Princeton University and Yale Law School, as needed to get disadvantaged students to the starting line of a race to success. She grew up so poor in the South Bronx that her family never even had a bank account.

The book will be published in both English and Spanish. -- AP