内容摘要：Local residents wade through flooded water at a broken bridge, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

Local residents wade through flooded water at a broken bridge, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Aung Shine Oo)

The Chinese government has targeted lawmakers over the alliance before. Beijing has sanctioned some members and last year,not to attend the group’s summit in Taiwan. Kenyan lawmakers cancelled their plans to attend but stayed in the alliance. The group was also targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers in 2021, according to

“Foreign legislators are being bullied out of a free alliance between them and other politicians,” said IPAC head Luke de Pulford. “This is clearly a result of Chinese pressure.”In a statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry accused IPAC of “smearing China” and said that “China has never engaged in coercive diplomacy.”Contact AP’s global investigative team at

For secure and confidential communications, use the free Signal appBut a Malawian lawmaker, Ephraim Abel Kayembe, told an IPAC staffer he had been contacted by the speaker of the Malawian National Assembly shortly after he and another lawmaker joined the group at last year’s

, according to the staffer. The staffer declined to be named for fear of damage to their relations with other politicians.

The speaker told Kayembe the Chinese government had threatened to cancel the president’s upcoming visit to Beijing forPicking the most fit athlete is a topic that tends to be a conversation starter. Wrestlers? Endurance runners? Water polo players? Boxers, swimmers, cross-country skiers?

Race car drivers don’t tend to end up high on any of those lists; they just sit and drive ... right?Drivers across every elite series do some kind of physical training, from Newgarden’s cross-fit training to the endurance training and reaction-time exercises of

drivers. Seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson is a fitness buff who hasquestions why anyone might not consider top-level drivers to be elite athletes.