Auburn alumnus killed

The CIA agent killed while interrogating Taliban prisoners before the Mazar-e-Sharif uprising last week was a graduate of Auburn University, the Alabama school where students celebrated Hallowe'en this year by dressing up in Ku Klux Klan robes and re-enacting a lynching.

Mike Spann, a 1992 graduate who majored in criminal justice and law enforcement, was the first acknowledged United States combat death in Afghanistan.

A state judge has ordered the university to reinstate ten students suspended after the incident. The students are suing the university for $100 million (£70 million) in damages for defamation and violating their constitutional right to free speech by punishing them for wearing offensive costumes.