Python & in url string

Today I updated my env to python 3.8.2 Suddenly all URL strings have & rather than &.

I have tried to do the following:

import urllib.parse

params = {'pam1' : '1', 'pam2' : 2}
encoded = "https://someURL?" + urllib.parse.urlencode(params)

but the output is still the same

'https://someURL?pam1=1&pam2=2'

Is this new expected behavior? I have never encountered this and it worked fine before.

I am using the Jupyter lab.