Latest Prisons News

What to know about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the guilty plea that freed him

Jun. 26, 2024 00:05 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The guilty plea by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brings a stunning conclusion to an international saga of the quixotic hacker who exposed government secrets. The deal reached with the U.S. Justice Department came after Assange spent 12 years either in...

WikiLeaks’ Assange pleads guilty to publishing US military secrets in deal that secures his freedom

Jun. 25, 2024 23:38 PM EDT

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange pleaded guilty to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets Wednesday in a deal with Justice Department prosecutors that secures his liberty and concludes a drawn-out legal saga that raised divisive questions about...

Judge considering if ex-gang leader held in Tupac Shakur killing gets house arrest on $750K bail

Jun. 25, 2024 23:15 PM EDT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada judge said Tuesday she wasn't immediately convinced of the legality of an effort by a hip-hop music figure to underwrite a $750,000 bond to free a former Los Angeles-area gang leader from jail ahead of his murder trial in the 1996 killing of hip-hop music legend Tupac...

A timeline of the legal case involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

Jun. 25, 2024 23:14 PM EDT

The drawn-out legal case involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has concluded with his guilty plea to obtaining and publishing U.S. military secrets. In a deal with the U.S. Justice Department, Assange was sentenced Wednesday to the five years he'd already served in a British...

Brazil’s Supreme Court decriminalizes possession of marijuana for personal use

Jun. 25, 2024 22:22 PM EDT

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday voted to decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use, making the nation one of Latin America’s last to do so, in a move that could reduce its massive prison population. With final votes cast on Tuesday, a...

Who is Julian Assange, the polarizing founder of the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks?

Jun. 25, 2024 21:54 PM EDT

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — He emerged on the information security scene in the 1990s as a “famous teenage hacker" following what he called an “ itinerant minstrel childhood” beginning in Townsville, Australia. But the story of Julian Assange, eccentric founder of secret-spilling website...

Belarus human rights group denounces detention of priest who posted Ukrainian flag on social media

Jun. 25, 2024 21:04 PM EDT

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The prominent Belarusian human rights group Viasna on Tuesday denounced an extension to the detention of a Roman Catholic priest who was jailed after displaying the Ukrainian flag in a social media post. Andrzej Jukhniewicz was arrested in early May and...

Star witness in Holly Bobo murder trial gets 19 years in federal prison in unrelated case

Jun. 25, 2024 19:46 PM EDT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee man who was granted his freedom after providing key trial testimony in the case of murdered nursing student Holly Bobo has been sentenced to 19 years in federal prison on unrelated federal weapons charges, authorities said Tuesday. Jason Autry, 49,...

Jury awards $700k to Seattle protesters jailed for writing anti-police slogans in chalk on barricade

Jun. 25, 2024 16:28 PM EDT

Four protesters who were jailed for writing anti-police graffiti in chalk on a temporary barricade near a Seattle police precinct have been awarded nearly $700,000 after a federal court jury decided their civil rights were violated. The Jan. 1, 2021, arrests of the four followed the...

Australian leaders cautiously welcome expected plea that could bring WikiLeaks founder Assange home

Jun. 25, 2024 16:27 PM EDT

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian leaders cautiously welcomed an expected plea agreement that could set free Julian Assange, who was pursued for years over WikiLeaks' publication of a trove of classified documents. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday there was...