In April 2017, [Priscilla] Villarreal, who reports near the U.S.-Mexico border, broke a story about a Border Patrol agent who committed suicide. A month later, she released the surname of a family involved in a fatal car accident. The agency that confirmed both pieces of information: the Laredo Police Department. The agency that would bring felony charges against her six months later for those acts of journalism: the Laredo Police Department.
At the core of Villarreal’s misfortune is a Texas law that allows the state to prosecute someone who obtains nonpublic information from a government official if he or she does so “with intent to obtain a benefit.” Villarreal operates her popular news-sharing operation on Facebook, where her page, Lagordiloca News, has amassed 200,000 followers as of this writing.
H-Bomb Remains Buried at the Beach
On February 5, 1958, a U.S. Air Force B-47 Stratojet bomber collided in mid-air with an F-86 Sabre fighter jet near Tybee Island and Savannah, Georgia. The crew requested permission to jettison the bomb, in order to reduce weight and prevent the weapon from...