In the Nation

U.S. customs officials yesterday disputed claims that Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan was detained for two hours at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, saying he was questioned for a little over an hour as part of the standard process for screening foreign travelers.

Khan, one of the Indian film industry's biggest stars, is in the United States to promote his new film, My Name is Khan, which is about racial profiling. He told the Press Trust of India that he was detained because his name came up on a computer alert list.

The report made top news on TV stations in India. Khan was let go after Indian Embassy officials intervened, the Press Trust of India said.

U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection spokesman Elmer Camacho told the Associated Press that Khan was questioned as part of a routine process that took 66 minutes.

- AP

JACKSON, Miss. - Federal authorities will continue to investigate the 1964 Mississippi killings of three civil rights workers - a case that helped pass landmark legislation - despite the death of a key suspect, the Justice Department says.

Billy Wayne Posey, 73, died Thursday. Federal investigators were looking into his possible involvement in the June 21, 1964, killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, who had been working to register black voters.

Posey's funeral was yesterday in Philadelphia, Miss., the town at the heart of the case.

On Friday, Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar said the death does not "alter our cold-case investigation."

- AP

SALT LAKE CITY - A nationwide "kiss-in" was held yesterday, after gay couples in Salt Lake City and in San Antonio and El Paso, Texas, were recently arrested, cited for trespassing, or harassed by police for publicly kissing.

About 200 people filled a Salt Lake City amphitheater. In Washington, 22 people, many of them strangers, gathered on the National Mall to participate in the national smooch. About 50 people gathered at Piedmont Park in downtown Atlanta and kissed for about five minutes.

National organizers say yesterday's demonstrations were not aimed specifically at the Mormon Church, whose support for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California last year, has turned the faith into a lightning rod for gay-rights activism. But observers say anger at its intervention into California politics will linger.

- AP

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) was released yesterday from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer.

Management of the San Francisco Bay area's commuter rail system and the union representing its train operators and station agents returned to the bargaining table yesterday, hoping to prevent a strike tomorrow.