A US bankruptcy court has said that a man committed defamation just by forwarding an email with links in it to online material that was defamatory. The court said that the man published the blog to his email recipients.

The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas was dealing with the bankruptcy of William Perry. It examined Perry's sending of an email with links in it to a blog. Perry had not commented on or added to the links, US pressure group the Reporters Committee For Freedom Of The Press (RCFP) said.

The sending of those links was enough to constitute publication under Texas defamation law, the Court found, in a ruling which has alarmed free speech activists including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the RCFP.

[W]hen Perry 'published' the Blog, he acted with actual malice or, alternatively, with reckless disregard of the truth, said the Court, according to the RCFP. Therefore, this Court concludes that Perry committed defamation in 'publishing' the Blog to certain individuals.

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When Christian school teacher Jarretta Hamilton informed her employers that she was pregnant, she expected to have a discussion about maternity leave.

Instead, she was asked when her baby was conceived, and, after admitting it was three weeks before her wedding, she was fired.

Hamilton is now suing Southland Christian School, in St Cloud, Florida, over the loss of her job in April 2009, and for emotional stress caused when the school released details about why she was dismissed.

In a pending lawsuit, the couple also claim the school's principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton's privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.

When they let me go, they told the entire staff in a staff meeting that I had been fired and the reason why they let me go. And then they called all of my parents to my fourth-grade students and told them as well, Hamilton said.

The school, which has strict morality rules, which ban teachers from fornication before marriage, said Hamilton was informed of the values when she was hired as a fourth-grade teacher in January 2008.

Suzanne Corona faces prosecution under the rarely used adultery laws after she was caught with Justin Amend.

The pair were arrested on suspicion of having sex on a picnic table in a park in the small upstate New York town of Batavia.

They were charged with public lewdness but Corona was also maliciously hit with an additional charge of adultery because the arresting officer said he knew she was married. Amend was not charged with adultery because he said he did not know Corona was married.

Under a law enacted during the early 1900s, adultery is a criminal offence punishable by a fine and prison sentence. The law has rarely been used but remains on the statute books of ten U.S. states. Section 255.17 of the New York State penal law states: A person is guilty of adultery when he engages in sexual intercourse with another person at a time he has a living spouse, or the other person has a living spouse. It is now considered a Class B misdemeanour and is punishable by a £350 fine and 90 days in jail. adultery story

Legal experts said Corona was only the 13th person in New York in the past 40 years to be charged with adultery.

Corona and Amend were spotted by police sitting on a picnic table in full view of people in the park. When officer Matthew Baldwin approached the couple, they insisted they were just talking. Corona was fully clothed but Amend's shirt was off and his trousers were unbuttoned as Corona sat on his lap.

Corona denied they were having sex and said they had chosen a picnic table out of the view of others in the park. She later made a brief appearance at Genesee County Courthouse where she arrived with her husband. Corona did not enter a plea but instead said she planned to challenge the constitutionality of the laws making adultery a crime.

Her husband of six years said he planned to stand by his wife and help her fight the adultery charges.