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Two brothers armed with a knife and tomahawk were shot by police in Australia on Wednesday after a confrontation escalated when authorities tried to question the pair when they "unexpectedly" saw them at a gas station.

Victoria Acting Assistant Commissioner Clive Rust said at a news conference the men, ages 19 and 30, were taken to an area hospital after the shootings at Barnawartha North, located about 185 miles northeast of Melbourne.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/brothers-knife-tomahawk-shot-australian-counter-terrorism-police?

Three weeks after Facebook refused to remove a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, Mark Zuckerberg is getting a taste of his own medicine: fake footage showing him gloating over his one-man domination of the world.

It’s the latest flap over deviously altered “deepfake” videos as Facebook and other social media services struggle to stop the spread of misinformation and “fake news” while also respecting free speech and fending off allegations of censorship.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2019/06/12/facebooks-zuckerberg-focus-latest-doctored-video/39574513/?

The person who killed three prostitutes before arranging their bodies in a kneeling position likely wanted to punish the women for their profession and establish dominance over them, experts said.

Detroit police chief James Craig said investigators concluded the deaths are the work of a serial killer because of a "signature" linking the crimes.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2019/06/11/serial-killer-experts-say-kneeling-corpses-symbolic/1421603001/

Months after Target pledged to raise its hourly minimum wage for workers to $15, the top retailer said Monday that it would be expanding its paid parental leave and other child care benefits for its part-time and salaried employees.

>One of the benefits the company said it would be expanding for workers is its affordable backup care program.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/448056-target-expands-parental-leave-other-child-care-benefits-for-workers?

Epic Games made billions off of its hit battle royale game Fortnite in 2018 and is estimated to be worth $15 billion. After the launch of its own online games store, it appears the company wants to branch out even further as it begins buying other companies.

Epic acquired Houseparty according to a post on Medium Wednesday. There were no details of the deal provided or any changes coming to the video chat app as a result of the deal.

"Houseparty brings people together, creating positive social interactions in real time," Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, said in the post. "By teaming up, we can build even more fun, shared experiences than what could be achieved alone."

more here:

https://www.cnet.com/news/epic-games-acquires-video-chat-app-houseparty/

Project Veritas has received and published documents from an insider at Pinterest. The documents, which include product code, Slack messages, and internal policies, reveal terms and websites that Pinterest apparently censors.

In an interview, the Pinterest insider who leaked the documents explains how the company censors pro-life and Christian content on the website.

Pinterest is a publicly-traded social media company headquartered in San Francisco that has nearly 300 million active monthly users. In the past, Project Veritas released undercover footage of Twitter employees discussing “shadow-banning,” and also published leaked documents from Facebook which revealed plans to target and demote conservative commentary.

more here:

https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/11/tech-insider-blows-whistle-on-how-pinterest-listed-top-pro-life-site-as-porn-bible-verses-censored/

Just about a week after a 17-year-old girl lost her leg and some fingers in a shark attack off North Carolina, another teen was bit just 150 miles away.

Austin Reed, 19, was surfing at Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina Monday when a shark chomped down on his right foot.

https://www.insideedition.com/shark-attacks-another-teen-north-carolina-beach-53595

Wyoming will receive more than $17 million to support critical state conservation and outdoor recreation projects this year

Cheyenne - Wyoming will receive more than $17 million to support critical state conservation and outdoor recreation projects this year, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is granted this funding annually from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration acts.

The funding is part of more than $1 billion.

https://www.thefishingwire.com/releases/a68cf549-916c-4164-8bae-1f31c8a1d7c3

Officials in North Carolina are trying to set the record straight about a “harmless” but scary-sounding reptile known as the “Zombie Snake.”

North Carolina State Parks and Recreation recently posted images of the “‘famous’ NC snake,” which is officially called the Eastern Hognose. The name comes from its upturned nose, which is used to help dig up toads for eating.

https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2019/06/11/officials-warn-zombie-snake-that-can-roll-over-play-dead/?

States are turning up the pressure on federal regulators to police the biggest tech companies and give consumers more control over their personal data.

Attorneys general in several states have already opened or are preparing investigations into Facebook, Apple and Google over concerns about privacy and anti-competitive practices. They lobbied the Justice Department to take action last fall, and on Wednesday, they are meeting with the Federal Trade Commission in Nebraska to discuss antitrust enforcement.

In a letter to the agency sent Tuesday night, the AGs called for tougher reporting requirements for tech acquisitions and a new clearinghouse for data brokers. The letter was signed by 39 states, along with the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.

more here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/12/states-ramp-up-pressure-on-federal-regulators-to-rein-in-facebook-apple-google.html

Facebook Inc. uncovered emails that appear to connect Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to potentially problematic privacy practices at the company, according to people familiar with the matter.

Within the company, the unearthing of the emails in the process of responding to a continuing federal privacy investigation has raised concerns that they would be harmful to Facebook—at least from a public-relations standpoint—if they were to become public, one of the people said.

The potential impact of the internal emails has been a factor in the tech giant’s desire to reach a speedy settlement of the investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, one of the people said. Facebook is operating under a 2012 consent decree with the agency related to privacy, and the emails sent around that time suggest that Mr. Zuckerberg and other senior executives didn’t make compliance with the FTC order a priority, the people said.

It couldn’t be determined exactly what emails the agency has requested and how many of them relate to Mr. Zuckerberg.

more here:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-worries-emails-could-show-zuckerberg-knew-of-questionable-privacy-practices-11560353829

President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

The claim comes as the House Oversight Committee considers whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents.

In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the Trump administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and said the planned contempt vote was premature.

Democrats fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census and contend the Trump administration has declined to provide them despite repeated requests.

more here:

https://apnews.com/292e6a9a05f345ae83bff304efebf76b

Social media platform Twitter has reportedly temporarily suspended the account of investigative journalism group Project Veritas following its publication of internal documents from Silicon Valley company Pinterest.

According to journalist James O’Keefe, Twitter has limited the account of the investigative journalism group Project Veritas following the group’s publication of internal communications from Pinterest. O’Keefe wrote in a tweet that Project Veritas “has been temporarily suspended from posting for tweeting internal communications from @Pinterest which show them calling @benshapiro a ‘white supremacist’.” The tweet can be seen below along with a photo of a warning

more here:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/12/twitter-restricts-project-veritas-for-expose-of-pinterest-blacklists/

An Instagram influencer known for traveling around the world with her husband said she was nearly abducted and sexually assaulted during their trip to the Dominican Republic.

Cora Smith — who, with her hubby, Jay, runs the Instagram account The_GreatEscape.Blog, which has 26,000 followers — said she felt compelled to paint a rosy picture online of their three-month jaunt to the DR in 2018.

“You feel this obligation to be honest, but a fear of rejection if you are,” Smith said in an interview with Business Insider. “I didn’t tell my story, and I think it’s out of fear.”

The couple from Orlando, Florida, stayed in Airbnbs in Santo Domingo, Punta Cana and Costambar. On their second day in Santo Domingo, Smith was out for a jog while her husband napped when she was approached by a man in a car.

more here:

https://nypost.com/2019/06/12/instagram-influencer-i-was-groped-nearly-kidnapped-in-dominican-republic/

More than a month into the summer movie season, one thing has become clear: Many of Hollywood’s sequels, reboots and reimaginings are falling flat.

Some films have missed analysts’ forecasts by tens of millions of dollars. They include last weekend’s new releases — Walt Disney Co.’s Dark Phoenix and Universal Pictures’ The Secret Life of Pets 2. Though Paramount Pictures’ Rocketman topped studio forecasts, the Elton John biopic came in below outside estimates. Warner Bros.’ Godzilla sequel also missed industry projections.

So far, the shortfall hasn’t claimed any of the summer’s biggest tentpole films. And Eric Wold, an analyst at B. Riley FBR, still expects higher ticket sales through the balance of the year to deliver a record 2019. But the results also show that fans are getting pickier about the glut of sequels that Hollywood studios have force-fed movie moviegoers for years.

more here:

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/hollywood-s-sequel-factory-churns-out-worrisome-duds-this-summer-1.1271994