By OLIVIA DIAZ, Associated Press/Report for America

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — An au pair who schemed with her employer-turned-lover to kill his wife and another man received a 10-year sentence on Friday.

Prosecutors had recommended immediate release for Juliana Peres Magalhães in exchange for her guilty plea to a downgraded manslaughter charge in the February 2023 killing of Joseph Ryan. She testified that she fatally shot Ryan as Brendan Banfield was fatally stabbing his wife, Christine, in the couple’s bedroom.

Instead, the judge delivered the maximum possible sentence to the woman from Brazil.

“I know my remorse cannot bring you peace,” Magalhães said to the victims’ families. “I lost myself in a relationship, and left my morals and values behind.”

Fairfax Chief Circuit Court Judge Penney S. Azcarate showed little mercy.

“Let’s get it straight: You do not deserve anything other than incarceration and a life of reflection on what you have done to the victim and his family. May it weigh heavily on your soul,” the judge said.

Magalhães had remained silent for months before agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in their case against Brendan Banfield, who was convicted by a jury this month of aggravated murder in the deaths of his wife and Ryan. Prosecutors said they continued their affair for months after the killings.

At his trial, Magalhães testified that she and Banfield, an IRS agent, had created an account in the name of his wife, a pediatric intensive care nurse, on a social media platform for people interested in sexual fetishes. Ryan connected with the account and agreed to meet for a sexual encounter involving a knife.

Magalhães said she and Brendan Banfield took the couple’s 4-year-old child to the basement, and then entered the bedroom, where she said Brendan Banfield shot Ryan and was stabbing his wife in the neck. When she saw Ryan moving, Magalhães said, she fired the second shot that killed him.

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She wasn’t arrested until eight months later, and didn’t talk with investigators for more than a year, until she changed her mind as her own trial date approached.

Banfield’s attorney scrutinized the former au pair’s motives during his trial, arguing that she was only saying what prosecutors wanted to hear.

As part of her plea deal, her attorney and prosecutors agreed to end her time behind bars at her sentencing hearing. Chief Judge Penney Azcarate could still reject that agreement. In Virginia, manslaughter is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

By JESSICA HILL

PAHRUMP, Nev. (AP) — Nevada is the only state where people can legally purchase sex, and now sex workers at one of the state’s oldest brothels are fighting to become the nation’s first to be unionized.

“We want the same things that any other worker wants. We want a safe and respectful workplace,” said a worker at Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada, who goes by the stage name Jupiter Jetson and asked that her legal name not be used for fear of harassment.

Prostitution is legal at licensed brothels in 10 of Nevada’s rural counties. That doesn’t include Clark County, home to Las Vegas, though Sheri’s Ranch is about an hour’s drive away. The majority of the brothel’s 74 sex workers submitted a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board last week under the name United Brothel Workers, represented by the Communications Workers of America.

Jetson said the drive was spurred by a new independent contractor agreement issued in December that would give the brothel power to use the women’s likeness without permission, even if they no longer work there.

“This is how you end up the face of a Japanese lubricant company without ever having signed a document,” Jetson said. “This is how you end up finding yourself on a website offering AI companionship without ever seeing a penny.”

Sex work, and the employment rights of the those who do it, remains a largely taboo topic worldwide. Prostitution is only legal in a handful of countries, including Germany, and organizing efforts vary. In Spain, where prostitution is unregulated, the government approved a union for sex workers in 2018 but a court quickly outlawed it, saying it made the exploitation of prostitutes legal.

“All workers are guaranteed certain human decencies and dignities, and the right to organize is one of those,” said Marc Ellis, state president of the Nevada Communications Workers of America.

Sheri’s Ranch respects the right of workers to “express their views on workplace structure,” Jeremy Lemur, the brothel’s marketing and communications director, said in an email. The business’s focus is on providing a “safe, lawful and professionally managed environment.”

The process could go back and forth for weeks, but the brothel could choose to recognize the Communications Workers of America as the sex workers’ representatives and begin negotiating a new contract immediately, according to union attorneys.

Concerns over contract terms

The workers at Sheri’s Ranch, who call themselves courtesans, were given a new contract in December that would give the brothel control over their intellectual property and power of attorney. The contract, viewed by The Associated Press, said the brothel will have the “irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license” to distribute the women’s material.

Another worker, who goes by the stage name Molly Wylder, said the terms would make it harder for courtesans to leave the industry and pursue other opportunities. For Wylder, sex work is a temporary job to help pay for her student loans. Like Jetson, she asked that her legal name not be used.

“It was never my plan to stay forever,” Wylder said.

When the women brought their concerns to management, they were told to sign or leave, they said. The women requested more time to decide, while some signed under duress, Jetson said. The dispute remains ongoing. Lemur did not respond to questions about the women’s concerns.

Jetson said she and two others were fired after the brothel learned about the unionization effort. The Communications Workers of America is fighting for them to be rehired. Lemur did not respond to questions about Jetson’s employment.

Independent contractor vs. employee

Sex workers are typically classified as independent contractors, said Barb Brents, an expert in Nevada’s sex industry and retired professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Independent contractors do not get as many legal protections as employees, but they usually get more freedoms. The success of their unionization could come down to a debate between whether they are considered independent contractors or employees.

The independent contractor status is fundamental to the workers’ autonomy, said Lemur.

But the women argue they are treated as employees. They have set schedules, they can’t work from home and they are required to charge a minimum of $1,000 per hour to their clients, Ellis said. Sheri’s Ranch gets 50% of what they earn.

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“In our dream scenario, we would like to be recognized as employees because we would like the full rights and bargaining power that employees have,” Jetson said.

With many of the women making their own online content, they want their intellectual property protected. They also said they want to negotiate over their dress code — they were recently told they can only wear denim shorts, not pants — and they’d like to see a fairer wage contract.

Wylder said she’d also like to negotiate for health insurance, which they are not provided.

Other workers in the sex industry have seen success. In Los Angeles, dancers at the topless bar Star Garden became the only unionized group of strippers in the U.S. The Lusty Lady, a San Francisco strip club, was pioneering when its workers unionized in 1997, though it’s now closed.

Brents said the Sheri Ranch courtesans’ effort is significant in a stigmatized industry in which its workers historically lay low and stay quiet.

“It’s pretty amazing and heartening to see so many sex workers standing up for their rights,” she said.

(Ben Sargent)

To see more political cartoons from Ben Sargent, visit our Loon Star State section. Find Observer political reporting here.

The post Loon Star State: The Texas Republican Olympics appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

BEIJING (AP) — It’s not just people — in China, the robots are also getting ready to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

Friday was dress rehearsal day for four cute humanoid robots, each about 95 centimeters (3 feet) tall at a mall in western Beijing. Curious onlookers stopped to watch.

Each robot got a colorful lion costume and within minutes the moves started: Bend the knees, up, to the left, to the right, shake the mask, and do it all again!

Ahead of the Lunar New Year celebrated next week, and as part of different “fairs” and activities around Beijing, some venues have been busy setting up their stages and props.

For a second year in a row, one of the fairs will be devoted to technology and — yes, again — robots will take center stage.

People will see them dancing and also them stacking blocks on top of others to make a little tower, skewering hawthorn berries onto a stick — coated with a syrup, a popular sweet snack — or playing soccer.

“This year, the number of our robots has increased a lot,” said Qiu Feng, a member of the organizing committee. “They will perform dance, martial arts, Peking Opera, poetry and soccer.”

“Some events were also available last year but the finness of the actions and the high-tech vibe are stronger” this time, Qui added.

China has been scaling up its efforts to develop better robots that can perform different activities, powered by artificial intelligence and with less human intervention.

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But though they can now do things that were difficult to imagine a few years ago, humans are still needed to help them — for example, to dress them or move them when they stop in the middle of a mini-soccer field.

“Technology is developing faster and becoming more advanced every day,” Qui also said. “As long as we keep up with this trend, our … fair will continue to evolve and rise with the times.”

The robots performing at the mall were developed by some Chinese startups, like Booster Robotics. The company will display around 20 humanoid robots, which will also dance and play soccer.

“It is an AI environment, which means, once the whistle sounds, the remote control will all be put aside and all its decision-making and motion control are made by the robots themselves,” said Ren Zixin, director of marketing at Booster Robotics.