The state of Texas has shut down four Planned Parenthood abortion facilities in San Antonio that were operating without licenses.

Clinic officials say it is a matter of miscommunication, claiming that they were told no licenses were needed because they do not conduct surgical abortions. Jonathon Saenz of Free Market Foundation does not accept that.

"The Department of State Health Services has made it very clear," Saenz points out. "They conducted an investigation. They're aware of the law and how it works and how it should be applied, and they've made a clear finding that Planned Parenthood is in violation of the law."

The Vermont Legislature is considering a bill that would legalize so-called "sexting" between teenagers.

Sexting refers to the exchange of explicit photos and videos via mobile phone. Under current laws, participants can be charged with child pornography, but lawmakers are considering a bill to legalize the consensual exchange of graphic images between two people 13 to 18 years old. Passing along such images to others would remain a crime.

Supporters told The Burlington Free Press they don't want to condone the behavior but they don't think teenagers should be prosecuted as sex offenders for consensual conduct.

The bill passed the state Senate earlier this month. The House Judiciary Committee will hear testimony on it this week.

A Government-funded charity was at the centre of a row last night after a magazine it publishes for children appeared to depict Christians as Islamaphobes who regard Muslims as terrorists.

In a cartoon strip, a boy wearing a large cross around his neck is shown telling a friend that a smiling Muslim girl in a veil looks like a terrorist.

He later confronts her and shouts: ‘Hey, whatever your name is, what are you hiding under your turban?’

She replies that the garment is called a hijab and it is part of her religion, ‘like that cross you wear’.

A questionable alternative to a night of binge drinking has been canceled at the University of Maryland.

The student union at the University of Maryland-College Park planned to show a triple-X film starting at midnight Saturday. According to an article in The Baltimore Sun, university officials say the film was offered as an alternative to late-night binge drinking and other dangerous activities.

The theme of the St. Louis, Missouri, John Burroughs School prom is "The Seven Deadly Sins." According to the head of the school Keith Shahan, the sins were not to be glamorized but instead to be parodied.

"The class was trying to make fun of the sins for the prom theme. They were going to parody things like gluttony and sloth," he explains. "They were actually going to call the food table gluttony and the place where you rest sloth, and so forth."

But the theme was not necessarily the problem. The prom invitations actually sparked the controversy.

"It was sent out unauthorized by the school. No one took a look at it, and the sponsor was more concerned about getting it out on time than what it actually said," Shahan notes. "And the student who did it thought he was being funny, but obviously it was (sic) extremely disturbing images on it that he took from the Internet."

A Pennsylvania district attorney is threatening to charge three students with distribution of child pornography for sending indecent photos of themselves via cell phone.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of the three girls who sent "scantily clad and naked" pictures of themselves to male students, who then traded them on their cell phones, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Pat Trueman, special counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, says charges have actually been filed in other parts of the nation. "This has become quite an issue in our country because we find out that a large percentage of kids are actually sending this material, which in fact is child pornography," he notes.

He also disagrees with ACLU's stance. "The ACLU claims the kids have a constitutional, First Amendment right to produce and distribute this kind of child pornography," Trueman points out. "This is unheard of, and I hope that the ACLU does not get their way."