Technologies

Julian Assange wins right to seek appeal against extradition to the US

The WikiLeaks founder is granted the right to petition the UK’s top court for an opportunity to appeal a decision to have him extradited.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange scored a small win in court in London on Monday, when a judge granted him the right to appeal to the UK’s Supreme Court over his extradition to the US.

The High Court ruled that Assange has points that Supreme Court justices may want to consider ahead of the UK extraditing him. Assange will now petition the UK’s Supreme Court for a hearing, but there is no guarantee his request will be granted. As his case proceeds through the courts, his extradition will continue to be stalled and Assange will remain in Belmarsh Prison, where’ has been held since leaving the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in 2019.

«Today we won — but Julian continues to suffer,» said Stella Moris, Assange’s fiancee, speaking outside the court on Monday. «Julian must be freed.»

Monday’s decision follows a ruling by a High Court judge in December granting the US permission to go through with the extradition. It overturned a previous decision by a District Court judge that blocked Assange’s extradition on mental health grounds. The WikiLeaks founder has raised a legal question about the circumstances in which the High Court received assurances from the US over the treatment he would receive in prison.

Assange is wanted in the US on espionage charges and faces an 18-count indictment accusing him of conspiring to hack military databases to publish classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If convicted, Assange could receive a 175-year jail sentence, although the US government has said he would likely face a sentence of between four and six years.

Assurances made by the US include a promise not to hold Assange at ADX, a supermax prison in Colorado, or to make him subject to «special administrative measures.» The US has also agreed that if Assange is convicted it will consent to an application from Australia for him to serve his sentence there (Assange is an Australian citizen). Finally, the US has guaranteed that if he is held in the US, Assange would receive appropriate clinical and psychological treatment.

In a statement issued Monday, Amnesty International said it welcomes the High Court’s decision, but remains concerned over the limitations of the appeal.

«The Supreme Court should have had the opportunity to deliberate and rule on all of the points of law raised by Assange at this crucially important point but the High Court has limited its scope to do so. If the question of torture and other ill-treatment is not of general public importance, what is?» said Amnesty International’s Deputy Research Director for Europe Massimo Moratti. «We now hope that the Supreme Court will grant leave to appeal on the certified issue concerning at what stage in extradition proceedings should such assurances be submitted and considered.»

Technologies

Major Amazon Prime Benefit Faces Crackdown Next Month

Amazon plans to end its Prime Invitee program soon. Here’s how this could affect your deliveries.

If you’re using a friend or family member’s free Prime shipping and you don’t live in the same household, you might need to pay another monthly cost. According to Amazon’s updated customer service page, first reported by The Verge, the retail giant is ending its Prime Invitee benefit-sharing program on Oct. 1.

Amazon isn’t the first company to prevent membership sharing between family and friends. The e-commerce giant is just the latest to follow Netflix’s account-sharing crackdown. We also saw it done with Disney-Plus last year. While it’s unclear whether this change will work for Amazon, Netflix gained over 200,000 subscribers following its policy change.

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Amazon’s Prime Invitee program is being replaced by Amazon Family, which includes many of the same benefits. However, Amazon Family only works for up to two adults and four children living in the same «primary residential address» — a shared home. While you’ll still be able to use free shipping to send gifts elsewhere, your Prime Invitees will no longer be able to use the perk.

Read more: More Than Just Free Shipping: Here Are 19 Underrated Amazon Prime Perks

What this means for you

If you’re the beneficiary of someone else’s Prime Invitee benefits, you have one more month to take advantage of the current program before the changes take effect.

Starting in October, you’ll have to get your own Amazon Prime subscription in order to benefit from the company’s free shipping program. First-time subscribers get a year of Prime membership for $15, but you’ll be stuck shelling out $15 a month to maintain your subscription thereafter.

Read more: Your Free Pass to Prime Day Deals (No Membership Required)

Why is Amazon ending the Prime Invitee program?

This move follows shortly after Reuters reported that Amazon’s Prime account signups slowed down recently despite an extended July Prime Day event. While the company reported blowout sales numbers, new Prime subscriptions didn’t meet internal expectations. In the US, they fell short of last year’s signup metrics.

According to Reuters, Amazon registered 5.4 million US signups over the 21-day run-up to the Prime Day event, around 116,000 fewer than during the same period in 2024, and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics.

By forcing separate households to have their own subscriptions, Amazon could be looking to attract more Prime accounts after previously failing to do so.

The new Amazon Family program (previously known as Amazon Household) offers Prime benefits to up to two adults and four children in a single home, including free shipping, Prime Video, Prime Reading, Amazon Music and more. The subscription also includes benefits for certain third-party companies, such as GrubHub.

Impulse Buys Under $25 on Amazon That Make Surprisingly Great Gifts

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Technologies

Premiere Pro for Free: How Adobe’s New iPhone App Will Let You Edit Videos at No Cost

Adobe Premiere users will only have to pay for extra AI credits and cloud storage.

Thanks to social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, everyone is an video editor these days. And soon you won’t have to sit down at a laptop to use one of the most popular video editors on the market.

Adobe announced on Thursday that it is releasing a new video editing iPhone app named Premiere on Sept. 30. You can preorder the app now in the Apple App Store, with an Android app currently in development.

The iOS app should feel familiar to Premiere users, with its multitrack timeline and preview screen. The app can be used for all your usual video editing: trimming clips, overlaying audio and adding synchronized captions. You can also use Adobe’s new voice-to-sound effects tool and record voiceovers.

Premiere should be a big upgrade for Adobe users who have only used Premiere Rush, a barebones version of its video editor. As more content creators become mobile-first, Adobe is hoping to draw them in with revamped mobile apps.

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You should be able to use the Premiere iOS app for free. Adobe says you may need to pay for generative AI credits and additional storage, like through Adobe Creative Cloud, though more pricing info is expected closer to the Sept. 30 launch. This is very different from the desktop app, which starts at $23 per month.

A truly free Premiere mobile app would be a win for content creators, especially for anyone who wants to explore editing in Premiere but doesn’t want to pay for another subscription.

In an era of mobile-first content creators, tech companies have raced to introduce user-friendly mobile editing apps. TikTok creators use the ever-popular CapCut, with Meta adding its own contribution, a new app called Edits. Adobe has long been the industry standard for professional content creation and editing, but its mobile offerings were usually less feature-packed versions of its flagship programs under different names.

That changed this year as Adobe released true mobile versions of Photoshop and Firefly AI. The new Premiere app helps Adobe make a competitive entrance in a crowded market, in addition to giving loyal Adobe users a new way to access their tools on the go.

Adobe has also been focused on integrating generative AI into its software. Premiere Pro got its first-ever AI tool, generative extend, which uses AI to add a few extra seconds to clips you upload. It’s meant to help smooth transitions between clips, particularly when you might have turned off the recording a smidge too early and need a few extra seconds of film.

AI is a contentious issue among creators, with some voicing concerns over the training and deployment of AI models. Adobe’s Firefly AI has been fully integrated into the new Premiere iOS app, though the company’s AI guidelines state that it never trains on customer data and that its AI-generated content is commercially safe.

For more, check out what to know about the iOS and Android Photoshop apps and good alternatives to CapCut.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Sept. 6

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Sept. 6.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword is extra-long, as usual on Saturdays. And a couple of the clues were stumpers! Need answers? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.