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Julian Assange Is Released From Prison After A US Plea Deal
The negotiations will be finalized in a US court in the North Mariana Islands on June 26.
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and former editor-in-chief, has been released from prison in the UK after agreeing to plead guilty to violating the US Espionage Act.
The WikiLeaks account on X, formerly Twitter, revealed the news after Assange was granted bail by the High Court in London. It also tweeted a video appearing to show Assange at London’s Stansted airport boarding a plane.
The controversial figure is expected to appear in a US courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands on June 26 to finalize his plea deal with the US Justice Department. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 62 months, but as Assange has already spent over five years in a UK prison, he won’t be incarcerated in the US and will instead return to Australia — his country of citizenship — straight after legal proceedings.
Assange was editor-in-chief of the WikiLeaks website when it published classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, uncovered by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence officer. By 2010, Sweden had issued an arrest warrant for Assange over sexual assault allegations by two women.
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After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Julian Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He lived there for seven years until being evicted for “discourteous and aggressive behavior,” at which point he was arrested by London’s Metropolitan Police on behalf of the US government.
In WikiLeaks’ announcement of Assange’s release, it stated that he had left Belmarsh maximum security prison “after having spent 1,901 days there”. The organization added that the “global campaign” by “press freedom campaigners, legislators, and leaders from across the political spectrum” allowed “a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice” that led to the successful plea deal.
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LUVED Is A New Curated Preloved Marketplace For The UAE
Sellers keep 100 percent of every sale and AI can build a listing in five seconds — though the app’s smartest tools are still coming.
Secondhand shopping has become mainstream in the UAE, but the experience is still scattered across resale sites, social media and informal group chats. LUVED, a mobile-first marketplace that launched in Dubai this month, is betting it can pull that activity into one place — and that the thing buyers and sellers actually want is not more inventory, but trust.
The app trades in what it calls circular luxury: preloved fashion and lifestyle pieces across men’s, women’s and children’s categories, bought, sold or given away peer to peer. Its main pitch is economics, with sellers keeping 100 percent of every sale under a zero-commission, fast payout model, while buyers are promised vetted pieces at lower prices.
Where LUVED is staking its reputation is verification. Sellers pass a KYC check, and items run through a two-layer authentication system powered by Entrupy that pairs instant AI screening with human expert review for high-value pieces. Authenticity certificates travel with each item, payments sit in escrow, and a buyer-protection package the company calls The Safety Net adds a 48-hour return window and dispute resolution. Door-to-door logistics removes the in-person meetups that make most resale deals awkward.
An in-app assistant called Luvbot — offering selling insights and demand-based recommendations — is soon to be introduced to the platform. Other features include autofill and dynamic pricing that lets users build a listing in as little as five seconds from three photos, plus a swipe-based feed, story-style drops and in-app chat in English and Arabic. Finally, a gifting layer, Luved & Gifted, lets users pass items to others inside the app rather than sell them.
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“After moving to Dubai, I saw how difficult it was to sell or even give things away,” says founder and CEO Shaima Sibtain. The friction is real, and so is the competition. In resale, trust is won transaction by transaction — and that is the test LUVED has set itself.
The app is live on the App Store now, with Google Play to follow. The company also plans to expand across the region, which will be the real test for a marketplace staking everything on trust.
