BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Press freedom in the Americas suffered a “dramatic deterioration” in 2025, a regional watchdog said on Tuesday, following an assessment of conditions for the profession in 23 countries across the Western Hemisphere.
“This has been one of the worst years in the region, with homicides, arbitrary arrests, and impunity” for crimes committed against journalists, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said in its annual report.
The Miami-based group has been publishing an annual freedom of speech list, known as the Chapultepec index, since 2020. It evaluates how the United States, Canada and Latin American countries do when it comes to protecting media freedoms.
The 2025 index ranked Venezuela and Nicaragua as nations “without freedom of speech,” while Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, and El Salvador fall into the “high restriction” category. Other democracies including Canada, Brazil, Chile and Panama were ranked as countries with “low restrictions” on freedom of speech.
The United States ranks as a nation with “restrictions” on freedom of speech, the IAPA said, noting that there were 170 attacks against journalists there in 2025. The report added that attacks during coverage of procedures undertaken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had raised concerns about journalistic freedoms.
The researchers found that in the U.S. “there was poor government action against disinformation, as well as government actions aimed at limiting free expression and access to information.” U.S. President Donald Trump and other White House officials have “stigmatized” media outlets that are critical of the administration, they added.
The IAPA notes that attacks on journalists have increased in the region as “authoritarian presidents” emerge in different countries. It said that in Venezuela, “self-censorship” became the norm among local media outlets, which provided almost no coverage of the Nobel Peace Prize granted to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, fearing government reprisals.
In Nicaragua censorship is “institutionalized,” the report said, with a constitutional reform that put all branches of government under the control of the presidency.
The report classifies El Salvador as a country with “high restrictions” on freedom of speech, noting that government officials try to intimidate journalists with lawsuits and criminal investigations. It said that 180 attacks against media workers were recorded in the Central American country between May and July.
There were 290 acts of aggression against journalists in Ecuador last year, including four murders, committed allegedly by criminal gangs. One journalist was also shot in the shoulder by police while broadcasting a protest organized by an Indigenous community.
Haiti was included for the first time in the annual report and was ranked as one of the countries with the least press freedom in the Americas. It noted that two journalists were killed in 2024 by gang members who attacked the reopening ceremony of a hospital in Port-au-Prince.
Furthermore, the report said that crimes against journalists go unpunished in Haiti, where gangs control large swaths of the capital city, and have waged an intimidation campaign against media workers and local residents.
The IAPA has more than 1,300 member news organizations and promotes press freedoms throughout the Americas.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Journalists take photos and videos of a car carrying the remains of who authorities identified as the late Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, alias "El Mencho," to Recinto de Paz cemetery in Guadalajara, Mexico, Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Refugio Ruiz)
NEW YORK (AP) — The FBI said it found explosive residue in a Pennsylvania storage unit as part of an investigation into two men charged with bringing homemade bombs to a protest outside the home of New York City’s mayor.
Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, told police after their arrests Saturday that they were inspired by the Islamic State group, according to law enforcement officials and a criminal complaint.
The men live in the Philadelphia suburbs and traveled together to New York City to carry out the attack near Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, officials said.
Overnight Monday, FBI bomb technicians conducted controlled detonations of the explosive residue found at a public storage facility in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, near where Balat’s family lives, according to social media posts.
The explosion resulted in “several loud bangs,” the Middletown Township Police Department said Tuesday, adding that there was no threat to residents. The FBI said Monday that it had conducted multiple searches in connection with the investigation.
Much remains unknown about the motives, planning and relationship between the two young men accused of carrying out the attack.
Court documents show Emir Balat’s father, Selahattin Balat, is a native of Turkey who was granted asylum in the United States in 1998 and later became a U.S. citizen. In a 2009 bankruptcy filing, he listed his occupation as painter and said he had three children.
Emir Balat is a senior at Neshaminy High School in Langhorne. A school spokesperson said he enrolled in a virtual program in September and had not attended in-person classes since.
His lawyer, Mehdi Essmidi, said his client had “complicated stuff going on” in his personal life, without elaborating. Essmidi said he did not believe the two young men had known each other for long.
Kayumi is from Newtown, about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) north of Langhorne. He graduated in 2024 from Council Rock High School North, according to a school spokesperson.
His attorney did not speak during a court hearing Monday and declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press.
Prosecutors, police and FBI officials say Balat and Kayumi drove to New York City on Saturday and joined a throng of counterprotesters at a small, anti-Muslim rally organized by the far-right Christian nationalist Jake Lang.
Journalists photographed Balat hurling a device, smoking with a lit fuse, that was later found to contain the explosive TATP. The object, which also contained nuts and bolts, extinguished itself without harming anyone.
Balat then dropped a second object near some police officers and tried to run, but was tackled and arrested, according to a court complaint.
Balat and Kayumi were being held without bail after their court appearance on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction. They were not required to enter a plea.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Monday there were no indications that the attack was connected to the ongoing war in Iran.
After Balat was arrested, police officers asked him whether he was aiming to accomplish something akin to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people.
“No, even bigger,” Balat replied, according to a criminal complaint.
Jake Lang demonstrates outside Gracie Mansion after a news conference by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani , Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a news conference at Gracie Mansion, Monday, March 9, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Emir Balat, left, and Ibrahim Kayumi, far right, are escorted into Manhattan federal court in New York, Monday, March, 9, 2026, for arraignment on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction after they were arrested for bringing and throwing explosives at a protest two days earlier. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
From left, defense attorney Mehdi Essmidi, defendant Emir Balat, defense attorney Michael Arthus and defendant Ibrahim Kayumi wait for the start of arraignment proceedings in Manhattan federal court in New York, Monday, March, 9, 2026, on charges that include attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction in New York after Balat and Kayumi were arrested for bringing and throwing explosives at a protest two days earlier. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Police detain Emir Balat after he attempted to detonate an improvised explosive device during a counterprotest against far right influencer Jake Lang staging an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, Saturday, March 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Julius Constantine Motal)
