Border

Reese Witherspoon is a brunet! The Academy Award-winning actress has gone to the dark side and dyed her signature legally blond tresses brown. Witherspoon was spotted in Nashville over the weekend with the new 'do pulled back in a messy bun and sported her signature wispy bangs. She was photographed with husband Jim Toth, toting around their 6-month old son, Tennessee, according to E! News. The actress most notably went for a darker shade as part of her award-winning role in 2005's "Walk the Line," in which she played Johnny Cash love interest June Carter.

BEIRUT - At least 42 people were reported dead Saturday in a pair of car bombings in the southern Turkish town of Reyhanli, the latest apparent example of spillover violence from the conflict in nearby Syria. More than 140 people were injured, with at least 20 in critical condition, according to Turkish officials and news reports. The blasts reportedly caused panic in the town, where tension has arisen between Syrian refugees and Turkish residents. Reyhanli, in Hatay province, is just a few miles from the Syrian border and has been a magnet for Syrian refugees and rebels.

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Attorney Kwang Man "John" Lee, authorities say, was a man who could make things happen - for a price. For a pound of marijuana and $44,000, the Koreatown attorney allegedly said, he could get an immigrant client a U.S. citizenship. "Price is OK for the risk," Lee told an associate, according to federal authorities. The silver-Corvette-driving attorney, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service agent, allegedly had associates at various stages of the immigration process willing to take bribes and provide favors for his clients.

WASHINGTON - The immigration reform bill crafted by a bipartisan group of senators has deeply split the Republican minority even as lawmakers prepare to take the first votes on the proposal Thursday. Alabama's Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative former prosecutor with a courtly drawl, has emerged as the leading opponent of the bill. He is aiming at his GOP colleagues with unusual zeal, and calls out the architects of the bill as, essentially, dishonest. "Sen. Flake is wrong: It's not a 13-year path to citizenship or welfare," blared one recent missive from Sessions targeting Arizona's Republican senator, Jeff Flake, who helped draft the legislation.

After nine seasons -- that's a lifetime in network TV terms -- "The Office" has finally filmed its final episode. Several members of the cast, including Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski took to Twitter to commemorate the wrap Saturday. Ed Helms wrote , "Last day of shooting on The Office. Oof. Kind of hard to act and blubber at the same time. " While Krasinski couldn't help but echo the sentiments of his old boss, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), with a classic Michael-ism, writing , "It was the greatest honor to be a part of this show!

A dedicated "Star Trek" fan with terminal cancer was granted his last wish with a private screening of "Star Trek Into Darkness" before dying just days later on Jan. 4. Daniel Craft, one of the directors of the New York Asian Film Festival, was able to view a DVD screener of J.J. Abrams' upcoming "Star Trek" movie thanks to Abrams. Craft died of liver cancer, according to fellow NYAFF founder Grady Hendrix. In a post on the "Star Trek" section of Reddit.com, Hendrix thanked the online community for helping getting the story picked up by the media and eventually onto the radar of Abrams, who dispatched a producer to Craft's New York home with a rough cut of the film.

BEIJING -- Think Hong Kong is joking about the baby food? Better think again. Customs officials in Hong Kong arrested 45 people on Friday and Saturday on charges of trying to smuggle baby milk powder across the border into China, multiple media outlets reported. The arrests came after an emergency two-can limit on exports of milk formula, launched in February, was made permanent Hong Kong law on Friday. The South China Morning Post quoted Hong Kong's secretary for security, Lai Tung-Kwok, as saying that customs agents had arrested 26 Hong Kong residents, 18 mainlanders and one foreign passport holder at border crossings.

Philip Hsiang and his wife, Mary Ann, used to pay almost $1,000 a year for a pair of cellphones under a family plan contract. But as recession gripped the economy a few years back, the Davis couple opted for low-cost prepaid phone service and never looked back. They shaved $800 off their annual phone bill, even though Hsiang could easily afford the pricier plan on his salary as an electrical engineer. "As a Chinese immigrant to the U.S., it's a virtue to be frugal," Hsiang said.

'South of the Border' MPAA rating: Unrated Running time: 1 hour, 18 minutes Playing Sunset 5, West Hollywood; Monica 4, Santa Monica; Playhouse 7, Pasadena

In some parts of Koreatown and South Los Angeles, one in three adult residents is in the country illegally, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at USC. Countywide, about one in 10 adults is an immigrant who crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa, the study found. Many of those immigrants have put down roots here: Half have been in the country for more than a decade, and 12% are homeowners. Many are also the parents of American citizens. In Los Angeles County, one in five children has a parent living in the country illegally, according to the study.

WASHINGTON - As a sweeping immigration bill moves forward in the Senate, Republicans are demanding stronger border security measures than those agreed upon during four months of bipartisan negotiation. The process of toughening the bill could win additional votes from the GOP, but there is also a risk of losing Democratic support if the amendments go too far. "If, in fact, the American people can't trust that the border is controlled, you're never going to be able to pass this bill," Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told four officials from the Department of Homeland Security during a hearing Tuesday.

TUCSON - The harsh Sonoran Desert claims the lives of hundreds of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each year. Many of the dead - about 1 in 3 - go unidentified. Now there may be an easier way to put a name to some of the suspected border crossers who died north of the international boundary. On Monday, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner and the human rights organization Humane Borders Inc. started an online system that will allow the public to identify the deceased found in southern Arizona - more than 2,000 deaths over 13 years.

President Obama met in Mexico on Thursday with President Enrique Peña Nieto. Publicly, the two leaders focused on trade. That makes sense given the strong economic ties between the two nations and Peña Nieto's efforts to introduce more competition to Mexico's energy and telecommunications sectors in the hopes of boosting his country's economy. But privately the two presidents will also discuss bilateral security, including Peña Nieto's decision this week to require all U.S. law enforcement contact with federal police to be routed through Mexico's Interior Ministry.

Re "Congress, rethink that wall," Opinion, April 29 Former Mexican President Vicente Fox has spent much of his political career trying to convince us that shipping the poor from Mexico to the United States is a good thing. I wonder what would have happened if he had spent his six-year presidency improving the Mexican economy so that his citizens did not feel the need to flee their country. Additionally, it is hypocritical to condemn our security measures while Mexico stations law enforcement and military personnel on its southern border to prevent illegal immigration from Central and South America.

ARSAL, Lebanon - When Mustafa Ezzedine, a Sunni Muslim from this Sunni border town, wanted to buy some furniture, he undertook a clandestine trip into war-torn Syria rather than face harassment, or worse, from Shiite Muslim security officers or townsmen in nearby Lebanese communities. "Although geographically we are in Lebanon, spiritually we are with Syria," said Ezzedine, 66, who was recently freed after being held hostage along with 10 other Sunnis in reprisal for the kidnapping of a Shiite in Arsal.

Re "Israel finishes main part of border fence," Jan. 3 The fact that so many of the Islamic war-afflicted in Africa seek a haven in Israel should be seen as an indicator of how Israel is perceived on the ground by Africans. It takes either great bravery or desperation to traverse Africa and then survive the harsh Sinai desert to arrive at Israel. Unfortunately, Israel, mostly made up families of Jewish refugees from around the world, cannot absorb these immigrants. That is not to say that there is no official way to enter.

Re "Radar shows U.S. border security gaps," April 4 The Times' article describes how an airborne radar system showed that in a small, 150-square-mile area of the U.S.-Mexico border, there were nearly 2,000 successful illegal crossings over a three-month period last year. This comes as a surprise, since we've been told that our border is finally secure. Rep Michael McCaul's (R-Texas) comment, that "you can't measure what you can't see," is a dead-on description of our border security.

SAN DIEGO - Kathy Gomez estimates that U.S. Border Patrol agents catch 75% of the migrants who try to run through the strawberry fields at her farm near the border with Tijuana. Farther east, Miguel Diaz thinks the number hits 90% at his junkyard near the base of Otay Mountain. But in the San Diego backcountry, rancher Bob Maupin says that, of the migrants who skirt his 250 acres, only 10% get arrested. Across the Southwest, the rate at which the Border Patrol stops illegal crossings has long been the stuff of coffee shop speculation.

LAREDO, Texas - This border city is trying to clear its name. It is so conjoined with its Mexican sister city across the Rio Grande, Nuevo Laredo, that the two are often referred to as "Los Dos Laredos," or simply Laredo. That was great for tourism in happier days. But as drug cartel violence exploded in Nuevo Laredo in recent years, pictures broadcast around the world of gunfights, decapitated bodies piled in abandoned minivans, and severed heads dumped in coolers often bore the same headline: "Laredo.