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• JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY: Propaganda and the media
  Once upon a time, it was widely believed that one of the greatest sins the U.S. government or its temporary political masters could commit was to turn a propaganda machine loose on the American people.

• SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: There's one more reason to require girls to take PE
  One-third of California's adolescents don't exercise enough. Nearly 10 percent don't exercise at all.

• BRIAN RIEDL: Harvesting even more farm subsidies
  With food prices soaring, it takes some gall to force Americans to pay billions of dollars to millionaire agribusinesses. Yet that's what the latest farm bill would do.

• LINDA P. CAMPBELL: A court-side seat at the constitutional game
  You never would have known that the woman had been pilloried in the national media, found in contempt of Congress and sued by the House Judiciary Committee.

• MARY SANCHEZ: Congressional action the answer to immigration problem
  The federal government has been hard at work in Iowa lately.

• MILWAUKEE JOUNAL SENTINEL: A missed opportunity
  Welfare as we knew it ended years ago. But not for farmers.

• KANSAS CITY STAR: U.S., other nations must act to protect polar bears
  Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It's the first step toward reversing the animals' downward spiral to potential extinction.

• SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: Marriage ruling is a key advance for civil liberties
  The California Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that marrying someone of your own choosing is a fundamental civil right that applies to all. Californians have cause to celebrate this landmark decision.

• MOHAMMAD EHSAN ZIA: Afghan aid that works
  In Afghan areas where the international aid groups fear to tread, the National Solidarity Program (NSP) is one of the country's most successful development initiatives. The community-led approach to reconstruction and to rural infrastructure has made achievements in empowering local people, strengthening democracy, and increasing faith in the Afghan government. Yet it risks being underfunded.

• JOHN DILLIN: What's next for the Ron Paul revolution?
  Ron Paul and his 1 million supporters aren't going away. And that's probably a good thing for America's future.

• CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: A thin-ice way to save polar bears
  Lawsuits are not the best way to force the public into solving planet-size problems such as climate change. In most cases, political consensus - as Al Gore is trying to achieve - brings the most fitting solutions. But the environmentalists who sued on behalf of polar bears likely knew that and shouldn't be surprised at what their suit has wrought.

• INSIDE SOUTH AMERICA BLOG: Some Argentines fear another economic crash
  The 2001-2002 economic crash in Argentina remains a landmark moment in this South American nation, always in the back of people's minds, as in "Could it happen again?" and "Should I be getting ready for the next one?"

• SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS: Bush, Congress must act to quell foreclosure crisis
  Home foreclosures are surging. Housing prices are sinking. And the broader economy is sputtering.

• CHRIS LESTER: McCain, Clinton pander by suggesting gas-tax holiday
  Let's do a gas-tax holiday. That will solve our problems at the pump.

• JONATHAN V. LAST: New 'Grand Theft Auto' next generation of violence
  The video game "Grand Theft Auto IV" arrived in stores April 29, accompanied by the usual outrage. The new game is part of a series in which players control a villain and guide him through a life of crime. Players are rewarded for stealing cars, murdering civilians, killing police officers, and other acts of mayhem.

• WAYNE MADSEN: Clinton needs to make swift, graceful exit
  In the wake of her trouncing in North Carolina and her skin-of-the-teeth win in Indiana, it's abundantly clear that Hillary Clinton should embrace reality and drop out of the Democratic presidential race.

• KAREN HELLER: Childhood today: No work, all play
  Childhood is an elastic concept, fashioned by parents, fostered by societies, mined by the marketplace, and protected by governments. Well, occasionally and then only by some.

• TRUDY RUBIN: Bad policies have left Bush little leverage in Lebanon
  The timing couldn't be worse. President Bush's last trip to the Middle East comes at a time when his Mideast policy is in tatters.

• PEGGY DREXLER: Clinton's fight gives Democrats better chance to survive GOP attacks
  The Democratic Party is starting to wonder if Hillary Clinton is really "in it to win it" or just doin' it to ruin it.

• MIAMI HERALD: The earthquake that shook China
  It is nearly impossible to imagine the enormity of the disaster that struck China on Monday when an earthquake estimated at a magnitude 7.8 shook the Earth to its core. One can only begin to sense the scale of the disaster by its ghastly toll on human life - estimated at more than 15,000 and rising - and its merciless destruction of schools, houses, factories, apartment blocks. Jolts were felt as far away as Bangkok, Thailand, which is 1,243 miles southwest of the earthquake's epicenter in China's Sichuan Province.

• JACK Z. SMITH: Auto industry: Let's play small ball
  In baseball, it's called "small ball" when a team emphasizes speed and strategies such as sacrifice bunts, rather than relying on big home-run hitters. In basketball, "small ball" features smaller, quicker athletes who run the court relentlessly and leave larger, slower opponents in the lurch.

• ROBERTO LOVATO: Undocumented immigrants face Juan Crow
  Immigrants held in immigration detention facilities are not just dying because of bad management, callous guards and understaffing. They're dying because the situation of undocumented people in the United States bears more than a passing resemblance to that of blacks under Jim Crow.

• LEWIS W. DIUGUID: Bill Cosby's message gains strength when put in context
  Actor and comedian Bill Cosby made headlines in 2004 when he slammed "some" black people for how they talk and for squandering opportunities.

• JOEL BRINKLEY: $6 billion down the drain in Pakistan
  What could you buy with $6 billion? You could finally rebuild the New Orleans neighborhoods that Hurricane Katrina destroyed. For almost six years, you could provide a daily meal for every one of the 36 million Americans who live below the poverty line.

• YELENA ZAGORODNYAYA: Will the new Russian government be a surprise?
  The structure and composition of the new Russian government have been largely determined.