Borders

Staples Center is home to four professional sports franchises, the Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Sparks. Each team has a different set-up on the arena floor. It is up to the crew overseen by the Staples Center operations department to reconfigure the floor for each game. Several times a year they must make the changeover twice or more over one weekend in between games. Last Saturday afternoon, while fans were still heading for the exits after the Clippers' 103-100 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, 65 workers began transforming the arena for the Kings' game against the Calgary Flames that night.

A 6,600-acre Nevada wildfire burning near the California border was caused by people, fire officials announced Wednesday. Though the exact cause of the Topaz Ranch Estates fire is under investigation, it was ignited by humans, said Rita Ayers, Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center's fire information officer. “It was a private residence burning that exceeded the regulatory standards,” Ayers said, suggesting that a bonfire may have been the trigger.

There are just two weeks left in his presidency, but down in San Diego County the heavy machinery is grinding away at one last grand project from the administration of George W. Bush. As The Times reported Sunday, your tax dollars are paying for contractors to move mountains of earth and make canyons disappear at the U.S.-Mexico border. New fences are rising and a no-man's land is being carved into the Earth.

KHARTOUM, Sudan - It has come to this: The Sudanese government is sending out text messages to the population begging for donations to help the cash-strapped military. "Please help support the army," the messages plead. "If you want to contribute 10 Sudanese pounds, send number 10, and if you want to contribute 50 pounds, send the number 50. " This would not appear to an optimum moment to get into a war with its newest neighbor, South Sudan. But pride on both sides of their disputed border is undermining hope of peace, analysts warn, with neither side willing to reach a deal on the oil both depend on. South Sudan independence in July has cost Sudan three-quarters of its oil revenue, paralyzing the nation's economy.

The raging conflict in Syria that has left thousands dead and stymied all international peace entreaties is not just about the fate of President Bashar Assad. Rather, the prospect for regional power shifts, proxy wars and spreading instability — along with a reprise of Cold War-style great-power animosities — goes far beyond Syria's borders. That is the stern warning from international experts including former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who is now engaged in what many view as a last-chance bid to avert all-out civil war in Syria, long a bastion of police state stability in the heart of the turbulent Middle East.

The United States does not need to send troops to the border in response to Mexico's drug war, nor is Mexico in danger of becoming a failed state, law enforcement officials told a congressional panel Monday. Witnesses testifying before members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in El Paso urged the lawmakers to bolster law enforcement in the region, increase aid to Mexico and push to reform institutions whose weaknesses had been exposed by the struggle with drug trafficking gangs.

Arrests of illegal immigrants along the California-Mexico border declined 25% this year as a weak economy and bolstered enforcement efforts appear to be discouraging treks north, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Tuesday. The downward trend is evident across the Southwest border as apprehensions fell to levels not seen since the early 1970s. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested 556,000 people last year, 152,200 of them in California, according to statistics released for the federal fiscal year ending Sept.

With drug-related violence growing along the Mexico border, the U.S. is willing to consider deploying troops to the Southwest -- but only as a last resort -- a Department of Homeland Security official told members of Congress on Thursday. Help might come from the National Guard or even the Army if the deadly threat from Mexico's powerful cartels gets so bad that Homeland Security officials cannot secure border towns, Roger Rufe, the department's director of operations, told a House subcommittee.

We have 37,000 troops in South Korea (Sept. 26)? Aren't 50-plus years of defending South Korea enough? We need our own porous borders secured. Frank Denchak West Hills

We have a virtual police state at our airports, machine-gun-carrying police in our cities, antiaircraft defenses in and around Washington, and now people are emptying stores of duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves. From what? Our enemy has no airplanes, no aircraft carriers and no missiles. What do they have? Let's all shout in unison, loud enough to be heard by the federal bureaucrats: "It's the people you let in and the borders you don't guard, stupid!" Bill Marvel San Pedro

COLUMBUS, N.M. - From a small hill at a state park here, the border town of Palomas, Mexico, can be made out through the desert haze. It lies four miles to the south, but the corruption that roils Palomas and the rest of Northern Mexico may as well be a block away. Last year, black sedans and hatchbacks loaded with federal agents poured into Columbus, a town of 2,000 people, arresting the mayor, the police chief, a city trustee and nine others. They have all pleaded guilty in a gun-smuggling operation that sold about 100 firearms, mostly assault rifles, to Mexican drug cartels.

Five people were shot to death, including a toddler, at a house in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert on Wednesday, and a white supremacist border militiaman apparently was among them. Authorities have not released the victims' identities, but the private militia group U.S. Border Guard reported that one of the dead was Jason "J.T. " Ready, its founder. Members of the organization say they arm themselves and patrol the border with Mexico to try to combat "narco-terrorists. " Ready also advocated putting a minefield on the border.

The number of immigrants coming illegally to the United States has been declining for several years. Demographers have repeatedly said as much, and now a report by the Pew Hispanic Center confirms it - illegal migration from Mexico is virtually at a standstill. Last year, about 6.1 million Mexicans were illegally in the country, down from a high of 7 million in 2007. What accounts for the change after decades of steady increases? A declining birth rate and solid economic growth in Mexico have led fewer people to leave home.

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - The drug runners call it " el mosco ," the mosquito, and one recent evening on the southern tip of Texas, a Predator B drone armed with cameras buzzed softly over the beach on South Padre Island and headed inland. "We're going to get some bad guys tonight, I've got a feeling," said Scott Peterson, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection supervisory air interdiction agent. He watched the drone's live video feed in the Predator Ops room at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, about 50 miles away.

Net migration from Mexico to the United States has come to a statistical standstill, stalling one of the most significant demographic trends of the last four decades. Amid an economic downturn and increased enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border, the number of Mexicans coming to the United States dropped significantly, while the number of those returning home increased sharply over the last several years, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center. "The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill," the report says.

KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan and its southern rival slid toward a ruinous war Thursday, with fighting continuing along their contested border and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir threatening to teach the world's newest country "a final lesson by force. " A protracted war between Sudan and South Sudan, which separated peacefully in July, would almost certainly have a devastating civilian toll and seriously damage the oil sector on which both economies depend. But diplomacy has gotten nowhere, and civilians on both sides were urging their governments not to back down.

In 2007, the Bush administration set out to double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol. It was a tall order and called for some creativity, with the Border Patrol even sponsoring its own racing vehicle at NASCAR events as a recruitment tool. Because recruits were hard to find, Border Patrol - part of the Department of Homeland Security - also lowered its standards and training regimens were relaxed. Individuals without a high school diploma could already join the force, but background checks were also deferred.

House Republicans are backing legislation in Congress to give the Department of Homeland Security control of more than 50 national parks and forests within 100 miles of the U.S. borders. The legislation involves a sweep of land along the frontier with Canada and Mexico, but exempts state land, private property and federal holdings used for mining, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. The new authority would carve through 54 national parks, including Joshua Tree, Saguaro, Acadia and Glacier.