MILAN (AP) — The IOC elected its first female member from Iran on Wednesday, who became its current youngest representative and opened the Olympic body to scrutiny over the country's record on women in sports.
Soraya Aghaei, who competed for Iran in badminton at the Tokyo Olympics, is now the 107th member of the International Olympic Committee by a 95-2 vote. She is just the third-ever Iranian representative at the IOC and the first since 2004.
The IOC invites prospective members to join an exclusive body that includes former Olympic athletes, leaders of international sports bodies, members of royal families, former political leaders, diplomats, industrialists and an Oscar-winning actress.
Aghaei joins the global Olympic body when it is led by the first female president in its 132-year history, Kirsty Coventry. Women now comprise 45% of the membership, the IOC said.
Coventry was later asked at a news conference how Aghaei's entry to the IOC could link to changing Iran's refusal to send female athletes to the Olympics in sports such as swimming, because of religious dress codes.
“I think she is going to be an incredible asset to the IOC,” Coventry said, without addressing the question of discrimination. She described Aghaei as "an incredible young lady who was a very good athlete and has been a really good coach.”
In Olympic history, Iran won three medals in women's events, all in taekwondo. The first of them, Kimia Alizadeh, took bronze at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games then left the country she criticized for its mandate to wear the hijab headscarf. Alizadeh took bronze in Paris in 2024 competing for Bulgaria after losing to her Iranian former teammate Nahid Kiyani Chandeh.
Aghaei's eight-year term on the IOC will include voting to choose a host for the 2036 Summer Games.
The 30-year-old member of the Iranian Olympic body’s athletes commission became the youngest IOC member at the same meeting 31-year-old Samira Asghari of Afghanistan was reelected for her second term.
When Aghaei competed at the Tokyo Summer Games held in 2021 she was Iran’s first female Olympian in the sport.
The previous Iranian badminton player at the Olympics, in 2008 at Beijing, was Kaveh Mehrabi who is now director of the IOC athletes’ department.
Iran's first IOC member for more than 20 years from 1955 was Gholam Reza Pahlavi, the brother of the then-Shah who was deposed during the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Iranian badminton player Soraya Aghaei Hajiagha, center left, poses with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Kirsty Coventry during her oath ceremony as a newly appointed member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) during the 145th IOC session ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (Daniel Munoz/Pool Photo via AP)
Iranian badminton player Soraya Aghaei Hajiagha speaks during her oath ceremony as a newly appointed member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) during the 145th IOC session ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026 (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — A Delaware man who was briefly married to former first lady Jill Biden decades ago remains in jail on first-degree murder charges as authorities investigate the death of his wife, who was found unresponsive in their home late last year.
William Stevenson, 77, of Wilmington was charged Monday in a grand jury indictment with killing his wife, Linda Stevenson, 64, on Dec. 28. He has remained in jail after failing to post $500,000 bail, authorities said. Investigators have not disclosed a motive.
Police say they were called to the couple’s home shortly after 11 p.m. for a reported domestic dispute and found a woman unresponsive in the living room, according to a previous news release. Life-saving measures were unsuccessful.
Stevenson was charged following a weekslong investigation by detectives in the Delaware Department of Justice. It was not immediately clear whether Stevenson has an attorney. The Associated Press left a voicemail at a phone number and sent emails to addresses associated with him seeking comment. Court records made public so far do not list a defense lawyer, and charging documents detailing the allegations have not been released.
Linda Stevenson ran a bookkeeping business and was described in her obituary as a family-oriented mother and grandmother and a Philadelphia Eagles fan. The obituary does not mention her husband.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Linda Stevenson's daughter Christine Mae described her mother as an avid reader and a dedicated runner. The mother-daughter duo would participate in a monthly 5k to support local charities, she wrote.
“One hug from her and all your worries would disappear,” Mae wrote. “The pain of losing her is paralyzing and the emptiness in my heart is an abyss.”
In her post, Mae also expressed frustration that coverage of the case has focused on Stevenson’s past marriage to Jill Biden rather than on her mother’s life. She said Linda Stevenson “deserves her own story” and should not be reduced to being described in relation to her husband’s former spouse.
Mae was not available for further comment.
Stevenson was married to Jill Biden from 1970 to 1975. Jill Biden married U.S. Sen. Joe Biden in 1977. He served as U.S. president from January 2021 to January 2025. A spokesperson for former U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady said Jill Biden declined to comment on Monday.
William Stevenson founded the Stone Balloon, a popular music venue in Newark, Delaware, in the early 1970s.
In her 2019 memoir, Jill Biden wrote about meeting Stevenson while she was a student at the University of Delaware and marrying him at age 18.
Jill Biden said she fell in love with a “tall ex-football player” who drove a yellow Camaro and who her parents “loved." She described him as charismatic and entrepreneurial and wrote that she believed she had found a partnership “built on loyalty and devotion.”
“Looking back, it may seem like that relationship was a mistake of youth,” she wrote, adding that there was a time when she truly believed they were “destined for each other.”
Jill Biden wrote that the marriage later unraveled as they grew in different directions, calling its collapse “the biggest disappointment of my young life.”
She said she ultimately decided not to “settle for a counterfeit love.” She said that the divorce underscored for her the importance of financial independence, a lesson she said she later passed on to her daughters and to young women she taught.
In the memoir, Jill Biden wrote that she had “absolutely no interest in politics” at the time she married her first husband, but that Stevenson became increasingly engaged in the long-shot 1972 U.S. Senate campaign of Joe Biden. She wrote that she began seeing campaign materials at their home and attended the election-night celebration, where she met Biden’s first wife, Neilia.
In a 2024 interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax, Stevenson criticized Jill Biden and described their divorce as contentious, calling her “bitter” and “nasty.”
FILE - First lady Jill Biden speaks during an event at the White House in Washington, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The home of William Stevenson, the ex-husband of former first lady Jill Biden, is shown in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Stevenson has been charged in the killing his current wife at the home. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
A sign reading "Justice for Linda" is seen in a yard near the home of William Stevenson, the ex-husband of former first lady Jill Biden, in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Mingson Lau)
This undated photo released by New Castle County Police, Del., on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, shows William Stevenson. (New Castle County Police via AP)
