MILAN — When Francesca Lollobrigida collected Italy’s first gold medal of the Milan Cortina Olympics this week, the speedskater immediately looked for her 2-year-old son, Tommaso, so they could celebrate together. She found him but was told he wasn’t allowed to go over to where she was after winning the 3,000 meters.

“So, I said, ‘Fine. I’ll go to him,’ ” Lollobrigida said. She sprinted over to Tommaso and enveloped him in a big hug; soon, he was shushing his mother while in her arms during TV interviews.

“Aside from doing this for me, I did it for him, so one day he will be proud of me. Not just for being an Olympic champion, but for all of the journey we’ve lived together,” explained Lollobrigida, who added another gold in the 5,000 on Thursday. “The message I wanted to show is that I didn’t choose between being an athlete and being a mom.”

Yes, mothers and fathers are part of the fabric of these Olympics, and so, too, are their children who’ve tagged along. The 232-athlete U.S. roster, for example, included nine moms — up from just one at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and from four at Beijing in 2022 — and 17 dads.

They’re as little as 1-year-old River, the son of Swiss curlers Yannick Schwaller and Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann of Switzerland — the kid dubbed the “Curling Baby” for toting a broom twice his size.

River is hardly alone at the curling. Canadian couple Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant have their son, Luke, 2, with them. And Eagan sisters Tabith and Tara Peterson are in Italy with two toddlers, Tara’s son Eddie and Tabitha’s daughter Noelle.

This is the third Olympics for Tabitha and second for Tara, and obviously their first with their children in tow. It certainly hasn’t affected their play. The U.S. team — which also includes lead Taylor Anderson-Heide, third Cory Thiesse and alternate Aileen Geving — is 2-1 after the Americans’ 9-8 victory over Canada on Friday.

“You only have so many hours to dedicate to curling. The rest, I want to be a mother. I also have a day job as well — I’m a dentist — so there’s just a lot of things that we need to balance,” Tara Peterson said.

“As for competition, it just makes it that much more sweet when … you make the big shot, you win the big game, you look over, and there’s a little baby screaming, ‘Mama! Mama!’ ”

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By SUSAN HAIGH

NORWICH, Conn. (AP) — The U.S. State Department has ordered certain public libraries nationwide to cease processing passport applications, disrupting a long-standing service that librarians say their communities have come to rely on and that has run smoothly for years.

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The agency, which regulates U.S. passports, began issuing cease and desist orders to not-for-profit libraries in late fall, informing them they were no longer authorized to participate in the Passport Acceptance Facility program as of Friday.

“We still get calls daily seeking that service,” said Cathleen Special, executive director of the Otis Library in Norwich, Connecticut, where passport services were offered for 18 years but ceased in November after receiving the letter. “Our community was so used to us offering this.”

A State Department spokesperson said the order was given because federal law and regulations “clearly prohibit non-governmental organizations” from collecting and retaining fees for a passport application. Government-run libraries are not impacted.

The spokesperson did not respond to questions as to why it has become an issue now and exactly how many libraries are impacted by the cease and desist order. In a statement, they said, “passport services has over 7,500 acceptance facilities nationwide and the number of libraries found ineligible makes up less than one percent of our total network.”

The American Library Association estimates about 1,400 mostly non-profit public libraries nationwide could potentially be affected, or about 15% of all public libraries, depending on how many offer passport services.

Democratic and Republican members of Congress from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Maryland are pushing back, sending a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio this month asking him to extend the existing program until Congress finds a permanent solution.

“In a time when demand for passports is surging, libraries are among the most accessible passport acceptance facilities, particularly for working families and rural residents,” the members wrote.

The lawmakers’ letter said people will have to travel long distances, take unpaid time off from work or forgo getting a passport when demand is surging due to Real ID requirements. If Republicans in Congress impose strict new voting rules, citizens could need their passport or birth certificate to register. People fearing immigration agents are also increasingly carrying passports to confirm their citizenship.

They said the change is particularly disruptive to their states, where many public libraries are structured as nonprofit entities. They predicted some libraries, which benefit financially from passport processing fees, will have to lay off staff, cut programs or close their doors if not allowed to continue providing passport services.

Public libraries are organized differently in each state. In Pennsylvania 85% of public libraries are non-profit organizations, versus being a department of a local municipal government. In Maine, it’s 56%; Rhode Island, 54%, New York, 47% and Connecticut, 46%, according to the American Library Association.

Pennsylvania Reps. Madeleine Dean, a Democrat, and John Joyce, a Republican, have proposed bipartisan legislation that would allow 501(c)(3) non-profit public libraries to continue to serve as passport acceptance facilities by amending the Passport Act of 1920. A similar companion bill is pending in the Senate.

Dean, who first learned about the policy change from a library in her district that has provided passport services for 20 years, called the State Department’s interpretation of the law “nonsense.”

In Joyce’s rural, south-central Pennsylvania district, the Marysville-Rye Library is one of only two passport facilities serving the 556-square-mile Perry County, according to the letter to Rubio. Now the county courthouse will be the only remaining option.

The State Department noted that 99% of the U.S. population lives within 20 miles of a designated passport processing location, such as a post office, county clerk’s office or government-run library authorized to accept in-person passport applications.

“Should the removal of an ineligible facility affect passport services, we will work to identify new eligible program partners in the impacted area,” the agency spokesperson said.

But Special said the Norwich post office had often referred people to her library for passports when someone needed service outside regular hours or had children who needed to be watched and entertained while their parent filled out the paperwork. Library staff also assisted applicants with language barriers.

“And now the burden falls on them to do all of it and that’s tough on them,” she said of the post office down the street. “I don’t know how they’re keeping up, to be honest, because it was such a popular service with us.”

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.