By JUAN A. LOZANO

HOUSTON (AP) — Nine people, including a former mayor and city council member and the chief of staff to a state representative, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to felony charges brought forth in a rural Texas county by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton as part of a widening elections investigation that is being criticized by Latino rights activists as being politically driven.

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The nine people appeared either in person or by Zoom during a court hearing in Pearsall, Texas, before state District Judge Sid Harle.

All of the nine people, who were indicted in late June, have been charged with what is known in Texas as vote harvesting, a felony that often involves payment for collecting and dropping off other people’s absentee ballots.

In May, six other people, including Frio County Judge Rochelle Camacho, the top elected official in the county, were indicted as part of Paxton’s investigation.

One of the individuals who pleaded not guilty on Wednesday was Juan Manuel Medina, who is the chief of staff for state Rep. Elizabeth Campos. Medina is also former chairman of the Democratic Party of Bexar County, where San Antonio is located.

Medina’s lawyer, Gerry Goldstein, declined to comment on Wednesday. “I’m going to do my talking in the courtroom,” Goldstein said.

On Wednesday, Goldstein filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Medina, who is accused of providing compensation as a third party to two people for vote harvesting in February 2024.

In the motion to dismiss, Goldstein said the vote-harvesting statute is overbroad, vague and “restricts Constitutionally protected rights to speech and to participate in the election and voting process in violation of the First Amendment.”

Goldstein said in the motion that the vote-harvesting statute “would appear to punish a broad range of protected speech, including non-coercive voter assistance and core political expression, without requiring any actual voter fraud, coercion, or intimidation.”

“This indictment charges Medina in a capacity that is not a crime and the indictment should be dismissed,” Goldstein said in his 20-page motion.

The vote-harvesting charges are third-degree felonies and carry up to 10 years in prison. The other people who were indicted in June are: Cecilia Castellano, a former candidate for state representative; Frio County Commissioner Raul Carrizales; former Dilley Mayor Mary Ann Obregon; former Dilley City Council member Inelda Rodriguez; Petra Davina Trevino, a former candidate for Pearsall city council; Pearsall school district trustee Mari Benavides; Susanna Carrizales; and Rachel Leal.

Attorneys for Raul Carrizales, Susanna Carrizales, Castellano, Obregon and Rodriguez did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Attorneys for Benavides, Leal and Trevino could not immediately be reached for comment.

Paxton’s office and 81st Judicial District Attorney Audrey Gossett Louis, whose office presented the case to a grand jury with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, did not return a call or email seeking comment.

Last month, Paxton said that any elected official “trying to cheat the system will have to answer for it.”

“Under my watch, attempts to rig elections and silence the will of the voters will be met with the full force of the law. I will continue to fight to ensure Texas has free and fair elections,” Paxton said in a statement.

The indictments were the latest development in an investigation that Paxton started after the 2020 election to root out voter fraud, which is rare and typically occurs in isolated instances. Texas has tightened its voter laws in recent years and increased penalties that Democrats and opponents say are attempts to suppress turnout among Black and Latino voters.

A federal appeals court last year upheld the state’s law that tightened voter restrictions and increased penalties for vote harvesting.

Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s attorney general on Wednesday sued the parent company of the Zelle payment platform, months after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau abandoned a similar case as the Trump administration was gutting the agency.

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Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, sued Early Warning Services in New York state court, alleging that the company, which is owned by a group of U.S. banks, had failed to protect users from fraud by not including critical safety features in Zelle’s design.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this year dropped a similar case after President Donald Trump fired the agency’s leader and his administration halted nearly all the bureau’s work, closed its headquarters and moved to fire many of its workers.

In a statement, James’ office noted that its suit was filed after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau abandoned its lawsuit following a “change in the federal administration.”

“No one should be left to fend for themselves after falling victim to a scam,” James said in a statement. “I look forward to getting justice for the New Yorkers who suffered because of Zelle’s security failures.”

James has been a leading antagonist of Trump, a Republican, and has sued him dozens of times. Last week, The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that the Justice Department has subpoenaed James as part of an investigation into whether she violated Trump’s civil rights, according to people familiar with the matter.

James’ case against Early Warning Services alleged that Zelle, which allows users to send and receive near-instant money transfers, failed to include adequate verification processes. Her office said scammers were able to access peoples’ accounts or trick users into sending money to bogus accounts that posed as official businesses.

In one instance cited by the attorney general’s office, a Zelle user got a call from someone posing as an employee of the utility company Con Edison who told the user that his electricity was going to be shut off unless he sent them money through Zelle. The user then transferred about $1,500 to a Zelle account named “Coned Billing” and then realized he had been scammed but was told by his bank that he could not get his money back, James’ office said.

In a statement issued through a spokesperson, Zelle called James’ lawsuit “a political stunt to generate press, not progress.”

“The Attorney General should focus on the hard facts, stopping criminal activity and adherence to the law, not overreach and meritless claims,” the statement said.

By DAVID CRARY

The leader of the small Baha’i community in Qatar was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for social media posts that allegedly “cast doubt on the foundations of the Islamic religion,” according to court documents obtained by an international Baha’i organization monitoring the case.

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A three-judge panel of Qatar’s Supreme Judiciary Council issued the verdict against Remy Rowhani, 71, who has been detained since April, according to documents provided to The Associated Press by the Baha’i International Community office in Geneva, Switzerland.

The judges rejected a defense request for leniency on grounds that Rowhani suffered from a heart condition, according to the documentation.

Saba Haddad, the Geneva office’s representative to the United Nations, depicted the verdict as “a serious breach and grave violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief and an attack on Remy Rowhani and the Baha’i community in Qatar.”

Haddad’s office, in a post on X, called on the international community “to urge Qatar’s government to uphold international law and ensure Mr. Rowhani’s immediate release.”

There was no immediate response from Qatar’s International Media Office to AP’s queries about the case.

The verdict came just two weeks after a group of U.N. human rights experts expressed “serious concern” about Rowhani’s arrest and detention, which they depicted as “part of a broader and disturbing pattern of disparate treatment of the Baha’i minority in Qatar.”

“The mere existence of Baha’is in Qatar and their innocuous presence on X cannot be criminalized under international law,” they said.

Rowhani — former head of Qatar’s Chamber of Commerce — had been arrested once previously, accused of offenses such as routine fundraising related to his leadership of Qatar’s Baha’i National Assembly.

The latest charges, filed in April, involve the Baha’i community’s X and Instagram accounts, which contain posts about Qatari holidays and Baha’i writings.

According to the documentation provided by the Geneva office, Qatari prosecutors alleged that these accounts “promoted the ideas and beliefs of a religious sect that raises doubt about the foundations and teachings of the Islamic religion.”

Rowhani’s daughter, Noora Rowhani, who lives in Australia, said via email that the five-year verdict is “so unfortunate and so shocking.”

“My eye condition is deteriorating and in five years, even if I meet, him I will most probably not be able to see him anymore,” she added.

The Baha’i faith — a small but global religion with an interfaith credo — fits comfortably into the religious spectrum of most countries but in several Middle East nations, Baha’i followers face repression that is drawing criticism from rights groups.

The abuse is most evident in Iran, which bans the faith and has been widely accused of persecuting Baha’i followers, human rights advocates say. They also report systemic discrimination in Yemen, Qatar and Egypt.

Advocates say Iran’s government has pressed for repression of the Baha’i followers in countries where it holds influence, such as Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi rebels control the northern half of the country, and Qatar, which shares with Iran the world’s largest natural gas field.

The Baha’i faith was founded in the 1860s by Baha’u’llah, a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by his followers. Muslims consider the Prophet Muhammad the highest and last prophet.

From the Baha’i faith’s earliest days, Shiite Muslim clerics have denounced its followers as apostates. That repression continued after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when many Baha’i followers were executed or went missing.

There are less than 8 million Baha’i believers worldwide, with the largest number in India.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By DASHA LITVINOVA

Russian authorities announced Wednesday they were “partially” restricting calls in messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp, the latest step in an effort to tighten control over the internet.

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In a statement, government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor justified the measure as necessary for fighting crime, saying that “according to law enforcement agencies and numerous appeals from citizens, foreign messengers Telegram and WhatsApp have become the main voice services used to deceive and extort money, and to involve Russian citizens in sabotage and terrorist activities.”

The regulator also alleged that “repeated requests to take countermeasures have been ignored by the owners of the messengers.” There was no immediate comment from either platform.

A Whatsapp spokesperson said in a statement that the encrypted messaging app “defies government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication, which is why Russia is trying to block it from over 100 million Russian people.”

Russian authorities have long engaged in a deliberate and multipronged effort to rein in the internet. Over the years, they have adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that won’t comply. Technology has been perfected to monitor and manipulate online traffic.

While it’s still possible to circumvent restrictions by using virtual private network services, those are routinely blocked, too.

Authorities further restricted internet access this summer with widespread shutdowns of cellphone internet connections. Officials have insisted the measure was needed to thwart Ukrainian drone attacks, but experts argued it was another step to tighten internet control.

Russia’s Digital Development and Communications Ministry said this month that along with internet providers, it was working on a “white list” of essential websites and services users could access during shutdowns.

In Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian-installed officials said Wednesday that shutdowns of cellphone internet may last indefinitely.

FILE – Police detain an activist protesting a bill that punishes online searches for information that is deemed “extremist” outside the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in Moscow, Russia, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo, File)

The government adopted a law last month punishing users for searching for content they deem illicit and threatened to go after WhatsApp — one of the most popular platforms in the country — while rolling out a new “national” messaging app that’s widely expected to be heavily monitored.

Reports that calls were being disrupted in WhatsApp and Telegram appeared in Russian media earlier this week, with users complaining about calls not going through or not being able to hear each other speak.

According to Russian media monitoring service Mediascope, WhatsApp in July was the most popular platform in Russia, with over 96 million monthly users. Telegram, with more than 89 million users, came a close second.

Both platforms had their run-ins with the Russian authorities in the past. The Kremlin tried to block Telegram between 2018-20 but failed. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government blocked major social media like Facebook and Instagram, and outlawed their parent company, Meta, that also owns WhatsApp, as extremist.

In July, lawmaker Anton Gorelkin said WhatsApp “should prepare to leave the Russian market,” and a new “national” messenger, MAX, developed by Russian social media company VK, would take its place.

MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported.

Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX.

The Digital Development and Communications Ministry said access to calls via WhatsApp and Telegram may be reinstated if the platforms “comply with Russian legislation.” It clarified that the partial restrictions, announced by Roskomnadzor, applied only to audio calls.