BY JOSHUA GOODMAN @ APNews

MIAMI (AP) — Allies of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, including his Cabinet chief, have been included in a list of senior officials in Central America deemed corrupt by the U.S. State Department, according to a copy of a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The emergence of the list of purportedly five corrupt officials is likely to heighten tensions with Bukele, who is facing intense pressure from the Biden administration over the removal of several Supreme Court justices and El Salvador’s attorney general. The U.S. has made strengthening democracy one of the pillars of its policy toward Central America, saying that rampant corruption is one of the root causes of illegal immigration.

A copy of the report, which was sent Monday to members of the U.S. Congress, was provided to The Associated Press by a Democrat staffer on the condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.

The list was originally included as a classified annex of a report sent to Congress in April in response to an appropriations request last year pushed by Rep. Norma Torres, a California Democrat who chairs the Central America caucus. That larger list contained the names of 12 Honduran and Guatemalan politicians accused of corruption or believed to have ties to drug trafficking organizations.

The list of five Salvadoran officials deemed to have “engaged in significant acts of corruption” during their terms in offices was declassified May 4, according to the new report. Unlike the bulk of Guatemalans and Hondurans on the list, none of the Salvadorans have been indicted or sanctioned in the U.S. and their inclusion on the list would appear to have no immediate legal consequences.

On November 8, 2023, Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care was released by the American Psychiatric Association’s official publishing house.

We the undersigned strongly support the following Open Letter to the APA. Our letter calls on the APA to explain why it glaringly ignored many scientific developments in gender-related care and to consider its responsibility to promote and protect patients’ safety, mental and physical health.

On Dec 28, 2023, this Open Letter was sent to the leadership of the APA, asking for a substantive response. We invite you to sign below to support our continued efforts to demand medical and mental health excellence from the APA.

We are a group of clinicians, educators, and researchers committed to treating every patient with respect and compassion while upholding excellence in medical and mental health care. We seek an unbiased scientific investigation and discussion of the harms and benefits of all types of care offered to those with gender related distress. We have grave concerns about the American Psychiatric Association’s GAPC textbook. Until those concerns are addressed and the textbook’s errors corrected, we call on the APA for its withdrawal.