Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — Taking his comedy act to Congress, Stephen Colbert told lawmakers that a day picking beans alongside illegal aliens convinced him that farm work is “really, really hard.” “It turns out - and I did not know this - most soil is at ground level,” Colbert testified Friday. Also, “It was hotter than I like to be.” Still, Colbert expressed befuddlement that more Americans aren’t clamoring to “begin an exciting career” in the fields and instead are leaving the low-paid work to illegal aliens. Staying incharacter as a Comedy Central news commentator, Colbert offered a House hearing his “vast” knowledge, drawn from spending a single day on a New York farm as a guest of the United Farm Workers. As the immigration subcommittee hearing began, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., praised Colbert for drawing a roomful of onlookers and photographers. Then he asked the comedian to leave the room - and to leave the job of testifying to the expert witnesses, including Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez. suffer and have no rights,” Colbert said.

A judge cleared the way for Lindsay Lohan’s release from jail on $300,000 bail after the actress challenged a ruling earlier in the day that would have kept her in jail for nearly a month. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg set the amount Friday evening. Schnegg imposed several restrictions on Lohan’s release, including that she must wear an alcoholmonitoring bracelet. It was unclear when Lohan could be released. Schnegg’s rulingcame after Lohan’s attorney, Shawn Chapman Holley, filed a late-afternoon appeal seeking bail for the star. Holley had been prohibited from arguing for bail during the Friday morning hearing when Judge Elden Fox ordered the actress held until an Oct. 22 hearing. Fox’s decision to jail Lohan came after the Mean Girls star failed a court-ordered drug test roughly two weeks after her early release from rehab last month.