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FRONTeras Magazine Vol. 1 No. 2 Issue

That person calling you an idiot in the comments section might not even be a person. Cybersecurity firm Imperva dropped a bombshell in its 2025 report: for the first time in a decade, automated bots surpassed human activity, accounting for fifty-one percent of all web traffic in 2024. Machines now outnumber humans online. Bad bots alone comprise thirty-seven percent of all internet traffic, reaching their highest level since tracking began in 2013. These aren't just spam acco

MAGA women have a look. Heavy foundation several shades too dark. Severe contouring that photographs like war paint. Aggressively blonde hair. Exaggerated lashes clumping together like spider legs. Lips pumped full of filler. Spray tans that stop at the jawline. This isn't accidental or incompetence. This isn't a regional beauty trends gone rogue. This is deliberate. This is look is optimized for one specific audience: conservative men. The phenomenon has earned its own Wikip

"My name is Sam Vale. In addition to owning and operating a private port of entry that the rent you pay could support all the others for 1,000 years, it is something we feel efficiencies at the ports are of utmost importance to our border security." Samuel F. Vale delivered those words in 2009 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Chuck Schumer had invited him to testify about securing America's borders and points of entry. Vale spoke with authority about customs po

Kanye West has issued a very public apology. In a recent Vanity Fair interview, the artist formerly known as Ye addressed skepticism surrounding his apology letter, insisting the gesture stems from genuine emotional distress rather than commercial strategy. "This, for me, as evidenced by the letter, isn't about reviving my commerciality," West stated. "This is because these remorseful feelings were so heavy on my heart and weighing on my spirit." The statement raises an uncom

Block Walking "Good afternoon," she greeted the man. "My name is Letty Garza-Galvan. I am running for Starr County Judge." Simple. Humble. To the point. The man took a sticker and a concha from the candidate. He politely nodded his head as she explained her platform. Political campaigns have become lazy. Somewhere between crafting the perfect Instagram story and tracking TikTok analytics, candidates forgot that voters exist in three dimensions. They have doors. Those doors ca

ICE agents dined at a family-run Mexican restaurant in small-town Minnesota, paid their bill, then returned hours later to detain three hardworking employees. The January 14 operation at El Tapatio in Willmar illustrates the expanding reach of immigration enforcement under President Trump's intensified crackdown. Beyond the immediate arrests, it affects the very contributions of workers who sustain our communities, tamale wrappers, salsa stirrers, and table bussers whose labo

The Rio Grande Valley is running out of digits, and the cultural implications cut deeper than logistics. The 956 area code, synonymous with Valley identity since its 1997 assignment, will exhaust its available number combinations by early 2027, according to the North American Numbering Plan Administration. State regulators plan to announce a new overlay code sometime in 2026, forcing the region into a telecommunications identity crisis that residents never requested. The mech

Federal lawsuits are piling up against ICE agents, Customs and Border Protection, and Kristi Noem. The constitutional violations aren't ambiguous. Quick civics refresher for anyone who slept through high school: The Fourth Amendment says the government can't search you, seize you, or break into your house without a warrant signed by a judge. Not a suggestion. Not a guideline. A constitutional requirement. The ACLU just filed a federal class action in Minnesota. The defendants

Congressman Vicente Gonzalez delivered an impassioned defense of immigrant construction workers during a January 21 hearing, emphasizing their indispensable role in America's housing market. The next day, he voted to fund the very agency responsible for deporting them. The contradiction speaks volumes about the performative nature of border district representation. "We have to be honest about that because while we talk about immigrants, 30% of construction workers in this cou

Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar appeared in federal court Thursday to answer charges that he transformed his law enforcement office into a personal profit center during the pandemic. The five-term sheriff faces allegations of conspiracy, theft of federal funds, and money laundering stemming from a scheme prosecutors say ran for more than two years. According to federal prosecutors, Cuellar and his assistant chief, Alejandro Gutierrez, launched Disinfect Pro Master in April

Americans worship college degrees like they mean something beyond passing tests and writing papers. A diploma hanging on the wall supposedly proves intelligence, leadership ability, critical thinking. During election season, this assumption becomes genuinely dangerous when candidates treat their educational résumés as qualification enough for public office. Education and intelligence share a relationship, but they are not the same thing. Research shows schooling can improve c

As Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem now presides over one of the most powerful bureaucracies in the federal government. An agency tasked with security, law, and human consequence. What a show. Kristi Noem is not governing so much as managing a lie that has grown too large to control. It is the lie that toughness is leadership, that cruelty is clarity, and that repeating something loudly enough—no matter how false—eventually turns it into truth. Her administration d

Thousands of people rang in 2025 standing on the Brooklyn Bridge in freezing temperatures, phones out, waiting for fireworks that were never going to happen. The show they came for existed only in their feeds. Days before New Year's Eve, TikTok and Instagram accounts flooded social media with videos showing spectacular fireworks exploding over the Brooklyn Bridge. Some footage was pure AI fabrication. Other videos recycled genuine clips from Fourth of July celebrations, repac

A data broker called Gravy Analytics compiled a list of 1,238 applications that feed location data into its surveillance apparatus. The spreadsheet, obtained by 404 Media and Wired through a Freedom of Information Act request, exposes the mundane reality of modern surveillance infrastructure. Jigsaw puzzles, weather apps, and Muslim prayer time calculators all participate in the same data harvesting operation that helps government agencies track American citizens without warr

American history education operates on a foundation of convenient mythology. Teachers perpetuate these fabrications with the confidence of people who've never fact-checked a textbook. Generations of students recite historical fiction as gospel truth. Take July 4th. The entire country shuts down every year to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence on a date when nothing was actually signed. The document went to print on July 4th, 1776, but signatures didn't a

In January 2019, fifteen hundred private jets flew into Davos so the world's richest people could hear Sir David Attenborough talk about climate change. Nobody seemed to notice the problem with that. Dutch historian Rutger Bregman attended the World Economic Forum for the first time that year. The annual gathering brings together political leaders, CEOs, and billionaires to discuss global issues. He watched them spend days talking about participation, justice, equality, and t

George Strait is a Republican. He is. Not on paper, of course, because that would mean accountability, but in all his actions, Strait has been very obvious about who he supports, and it's not the people who listen to his music. The King of Country stood next to Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center. He smiles in photos with Greg Abbott, the governor who has turned the Rio Grande into a deadly obstacle course of buoys and razor wire. Strait doesn't hide his politics—he just doesn

Congress just authorized federal agents to examine the naked bodies of children. Alone. Without their parents. They're calling it the Kayla Hamilton Act. H.R. 4371 passed the House 225-201 on Monday. Seven Democrats handed Republicans the margin they needed. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Laura Gillen of New York, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Adam Gray of California, and Marie Glusenkamp Perez of Washington decided invasive body exam

Rose Benavidez boasts about billions. The president of Starr County Industrial Foundation touts figures that would make most economic development directors weep with envy. Over four billion dollars in investments across the past decade. Six thousand jobs created. Wind farms, solar projects, and retail developments transforming one of the poorest counties in America into an emerging powerhouse. The numbers sound staggering despite Starr County maintaining the highest unemploym