First Thing: Trump targets midterm legitimacy with lawsuits and a cash bounty

US president in unprecedented offer of $1m reward for reports of voter fraud as DoJ acts against states. Plus, everything you need to know about Israel’s crucial election Good morning. The Trump administration’s assault on the legitimacy of the midterm elections has continued, with the US president announcing a $1m reward for reports of voter fraud, amid several legal actions by the Department of Justice to limit voting. Donald Trump said the bounty payment was contingent on the arrest and conviction of those responsible. He did not disclose how he would pay for the rewards. Trump’s comments follow his repeated and unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud. What action is the administration trying to take against Washington state? The administration has asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship. The request marks the third time this month that the justice department has brought a direct state challenge even as voting is under way. What is the latest in the battle over California voters? A US federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens. Why is Vivek Ramaswamy facing criticism over an advert? The Republican nominee to be the governor of Ohio ran an ad featuring his opponent’s mother, who said she would not vote for her daughter. As Moira Donegan explains in this excoriating opinion piece, the estrangement between Amy Acton is decades long and stems from the sexual abuse Acton survived as a child. What are the key takeaways from the investor prospectus? The document reveals the AI research lab’s financials and the risks – more than 90 pages of them – that might negatively impact its business. Johana Bhuiyan has identified these four key takeaways. What has Anthropic’s model recently been accused of? Anthropic’s Claude model accessed voter data in the US state of Georgia, the AI company has confirmed, in the latest example of unauthorised behavior by the technology. The AI model managed to bypass a paywall to reach data that is publicly available but is typically accessible only after paying a fee. Continue reading...