Artificial Intelligence or AI

Inside Trump’s Effort to ‘Take Over’ the Midterm Election

PUBLISHED 4/13/2026 by and

In the final weeks of the 2020 election, as Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud intensified, a small group of federal officials found themselves in a windowless room at the Justice Department confronting a question that could test the limits of American democracy: Had the vote really been hacked?

The answer, delivered by cybersecurity experts and backed by the FBI, was clear: No. What had happened in Antrim County, Mich., was a clerical error, not a conspiracy.

Attorney General William Barr understood the truth, and also the cost of telling it. Days later, he would resign.

That moment—one of many in which career officials resisted pressure to overturn the election—helped preserve the outcome of the 2020 vote.

But as reporting shows, the people and institutional guardrails that held the line then have largely disappeared. Across the Justice Department, Homeland Security and beyond, dozens of officials have been pushed out or reassigned, replaced by loyalists—many with ties to efforts to reverse the last election—now positioned to influence how future ones are run.

With the 2026 midterms approaching and Trump openly calling for Republicans to “take over” the elections, experts warn the system faces an unprecedented stress test. What was once a series of last-minute efforts to overturn results has evolved into something more systematic: a reshaping of the federal government itself, one that some fear is designed to ensure elections go the president’s way.

Ms. Global: Energy Crisis in Cuba, Feminist Activist Assassinated in Iraq, Gay Asylum-Seeker Deported and More

PUBLISHED 4/8/2026 by and

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to healthcare. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This month:
—Seoul holds the 41st Women’s Strike in South Korea for International Women’s Day.
—Hospital patients suffer during Cuba’s three major blackouts.
—The U.S. is at fault for the missile strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls’ School in Minab, Iran, on Feb. 28, killing 175 people.
—Yanar Mohammed, a leading Iraqi feminist and human rights defender, was killed in an armed attack in Baghdad.
—IOC restricts transgender participation in Olympics.
—Amid widespread displacement, poverty and institutional collapse during the ongoing war in Gaza, families are increasingly turning to child marriage for their daughters.

… and more.

How U.S. Tried but Failed to Wipe Out 70 Years of Global Consent on Women’s Rights

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

The United States set a new precedent at the United Nations annual women’s rights meeting by requesting a recorded vote on the draft conclusions. The U.S. action culminated after weekslong negotiations on this year’s theme, “Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls.”

The move—which failed drastically—reflects the continuing assault of the Trump administration on gender equality worldwide, yet resistance from across the world couldn’t be more profound.

The Grok Generation: The Consent Crisis No One Is Stopping

PUBLISHED 3/10/2026 by

Grok, the AI chatbot used on Musk’s platform X, has been under fire for generating nude or sexualized images of real people, including individuals who are minors. In one estimate, Grok produced one nonconsensual sexual image per minute over a 24-hour period. Prompts such as “put her in a transparent bikini” produced altered images that were then circulated publicly, some accumulating thousands of likes. The targets are real women and underage girls whose images were manipulated without their knowledge or permission.

Elon Musk responded by making a joke, requesting a Grok-generated image of himself in a bikini and reacting with laughing emojis. When the platform’s most powerful figure and one of the country’s most powerful men treats the abuse as a punchline, it sends a message about what is actually harmful versus what he thinks should be considered humor—and provides a tacit granting of consent to young men on the platform to keep making these images.

Much of the public conversation about young people and AI has focused on cheating in school or declining literacy. Far less attention has been paid to what it means when a middle school boy can type a sentence and produce a sexualized image of a female classmate in seconds as a joke or for attention—or to pretend he received it from her for status.

For girls growing up in this online environment, the message is unmistakable: Your image is not protected as yours. Your body can be altered, distributed and consumed for entertainment. Its violation can be dismissed as a joke. 

Teachers, parents, lawmakers and platform leaders are behind. The question is not whether this will shape the next generation’s understanding of power and intimacy—but what we will step in to do about it. 

From DM’s to I Do’s: Five Ways Social Media Is Reshaping Child Marriage

PUBLISHED 3/4/2026 by

As the world goes digital, so does the ancient practice of child marriage. 

More than half a billion women and girls living today are, or were, child brides. Among young adult women aged 20 to 24, one in five was married before age 18.

But that doesn’t mean that child marriage has stayed the same. There has been gradual progress in ending child marriage (around a decade ago, one in four women was married under 18). And technology is playing a growing role, both in cases where girls say “I do” and in cases where they say “I don’t.”

America’s Founding Feminists: Rewriting America’s Origin Story

PUBLISHED 3/2/2026 by | UPDATED 4/21/2026 at 10:22 A.M. PT

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men declared that “all men are created equal,” casting a vision of liberty that has shaped the American imagination ever since.

Yet even as they debated freedom in Philadelphia, women were writing, organizing, governing, resisting and insisting on their place within the nation taking form. Some, like Mary Katherine Goddard, literally set their names in print; others, like Phillis Wheatley, wrote themselves into intellectual existence against a backdrop of enslavement and doubt. Still others left their mark through acts of refusal and flight, choosing freedom when the republic would not grant it.

A new series, Founding Feminists—launching at the start of Women’s History Month—unfolds over two months, twice a week. On this semiquincentennial of the United States, Ms. turns to these “founding feminists” not as anachronistic heroines, but as architects of an unfinished democratic project. There is no nation without women at its core—no democracy without their labor, intellect, resistance and imagination.

From Haudenosaunee matrilineal governance, to Black women’s freedom-seeking acts, from revolutionary manifestos to quiet domestic rebellions, our Founding Feminists series reexamines the past to illuminate our present moment of backlash and possibility.

If the Declaration of Independence set forth a promise of equality, it was women—across race, class, sexuality and nationality—who pressed the nation to live up to it.

Two hundred and fifty years later, their questions remain ours: What does freedom truly mean, and who gets to claim it?

Sundance 2026: The Masculinist and Eugenicist Origins of AI Are Writ Large in Documentary ‘Ghost in the Machine’

PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by

A fast-paced Sundance documentary, Ghost in the Machine traces how modern AI’s obsession with “intelligence” and innovation is rooted in the eugenicist, sexist and racial hierarchies that have long shaped Silicon Valley and its technologies.

(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)

Raped, Recorded, Shared—Then Abandoned by the System: ‘Once It’s on the Internet, It’s Out There’

PUBLISHED 2/3/2026 by and

Survivors of online sexual exploitation and abuse are not just confronting individual perpetrators—they are up against systems that were never designed to protect them.

A new report by Equality Now and the Sexual Violence Prevention Association documents how survivors who report tech-facilitated sexual abuse routinely encounter jurisdictional dead ends, outdated laws and opaque platform policies that leave harmful material circulating indefinitely. For many, the abuse does not end with the assault itself, but continues through repeated viewing, sharing and threats—often with devastating financial, professional and psychological consequences.

The report also makes clear that this harm is not inevitable. Survivors point to concrete policy solutions that could meaningfully change outcomes: consent-based laws governing the online distribution of sexual material, clear and enforceable takedown obligations for tech companies, survivor-centered reporting systems and access to free legal and mental health support.

Accountability is possible, but only if lawmakers and platforms choose to act.

Musk Isn’t Stopping Grok From Creating Explicit Photos of Minors Using AI. Here’s What Can Be Done.

PUBLISHED 1/12/2026 by

Since the end of December, X’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, has responded to many users’ requests to undress real people by turning photos of the people into sexually explicit material. After people began using the feature, the social platform company faced global scrutiny for enabling users to generate nonconsensual sexually explicit depictions of real people.

The Grok account has posted thousands of “nudified” and sexually suggestive images per hour. Even more disturbing, Grok has generated sexualized images and sexually explicit material of minors.

X’s response: Blame the platform’s users, not us.