Wednesday's news in 5 minutes.

Warning: This article contains information about suicide and sexual assault which may be distressing for some readers.

1. Netflix show ’13 Reasons Why’ triggered suicides of two 15-year-old girls, parents claim.

The parents of two teenage girls – Bella Herndon and Priscilla Chiu – are blaming popular Netflix show 13 Reason Why for triggering their suicides.

The 15-year-old girls, who were not known to each other but lived in the same area near San Francisco, took their own lives just days apart, with their families saying they had both been watching the controversial television series in the lead-up to their deaths.

Both were known to be suffering from depression at the time of their deaths.

The show – which tells the story of teen Hannah Baker, who records tapes to tell her classmates the reasons why she ended her life – has come under fire since it premiered earlier in 2017, with many claiming it ‘glorifies’ and ‘glamourises’ teen suicide.

Bella was found dead by her parents just three days before her 16th birthday, on April 18.

She was kept in hospital for a week, before her parents made the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life support.

Just four days later, Priscilla, who lived with her uncle Peter Chiu, was found dead in similar circumstances.

Speaking to Californian news station KTVU, Bella’s father John Herndon said he had “no words” to describe the “contempt” he felt for those behind the show.

“You can’t convince me that they were trying to attract people’s attention to the issue of suicide by showing a little girl killing herself,” he said

“There’s nothing positive about that.

Netflix released a statement to KTVU in reaction to the girls’ deaths, stating their “hearts go out to these families during this difficult time”.

“We have heard from many viewers that 13 Reasons Why has opened up a dialogue among parents, teens, schools and mental health advocates around the difficult topics depicted in the show,” the statement said.

“We took extra precautions to alert viewers to the nature of the content and created a global website to help people find local mental health resources.”

If you or someone you know needs help, you are urged to call Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyondblue 1300 224 636.

2. Teen left ‘crying for her mother’ after gang rape at a Blue Mountains house party, court hears.

A NSW teenager, who was allegedly gang raped, cried and asked for her mother to be called after being found in a dishevelled state in a room with two boys, a Sydney court has heard.

Christian Dickens, 22, Aaron Jensen, 23, and two 21-year-old men, who were underage at the time and therefore can’t be named, are accused of attacking the 15-year-old girl at a Blue Mountains house party in 2012, AAP reports.

The girl’s former friend told their trial on Tuesday that a group of boys in the doorway of the room laughed when she asked: “Where is (the 15-year-old)?”

She said there were two boys still in the room when she entered and her friend’s tights and underwear were “dishevelled”.

“I need to go home, I need to go home, someone ring my mum,” the victim said, according to the witness in her evidence to the Downing Centre District Court.

The friend giving evidence on Tuesday, who was 16 and drunk at the time of the alleged attack, admitted her memory of the night was “patchy” and that she talked to two other former friends about the night’s events before testifying.

She was repeatedly questioned about differences between her various police statements.

The woman was asked whether it was possible the alleged victim was with her in the kitchen at some stage rather than in the room where the alleged gang rape took place.

“Anything is possible if I don’t remember,” she said.

Crown prosecutor Belinda Baker has previously said the jury would hear the victim was told “shut up, you love it slut'” during the alleged assault.

A man who attended the party said he jumped through a window to find himself in the room where Jensen was allegedly assaulting the girl.

The witness said he asked the teenager for a “gobby” but started making his way out of the room after she said no in a slurred manner.

He said four youths were in the room as he stood in the doorway for a few minutes. One was forcing the girl to give him oral sex while another was making her give him a “hand job”, he said.

The trial continues.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, please call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800 RESPECT.

3. The Oxford dictionary has a new ‘last word’ and you probably won’t be able to pronounce it.

The Oxford English Dictionary has a new “last word” with tropical weevil zyzzyva bringing up the rear in the latest edition.

Zyzzyva, a genus native to South America, takes the title from zythum, an ancient Egyptian malt beer.

It is among a variety of new words to be added, which also include hygge, a Danish term described as “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being”.

While other words have been given new definitions, including “woke” which is used as an adjective to mean “alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice”, and “thing” when used to express disbelief, as in “How can that be a thing?”

Also among the tranche of new words are 50 new terms relating to tennis, such as forced error, chip and charge and career slam.

Tennis mum and tennis dad – terms to describe parents who encourage their children to play the sport – have also been added to the book which contains 829,000 words.

Speaking about how a word qualifies for inclusion, the OED said: “(We) require several independent examples of the word being used, and also evidence that the word has been in use for a reasonable amount of time.”

4. Tiahleigh Palmer’s foster father has been committed to stand trial over her murder.

The man accused of killing Queensland schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer has been committed to stand trial over her murder, AAP reports.

Rick Thorburn is accused of murdering 12-year-old Tiahleigh, whose decomposing body was discovered on the banks of a northern Gold Coast river six days after she went missing in October 2015.

The 57-year-old, who was the girl’s foster father, successfully applied for a registry committal application at Beenleigh Magistrates Court on the murder charge on Tuesday.

He was also committed to stand trial on a count of misconduct with corpse by interfering.

Thorburn was arrested and charged in September 2016, just under a year after Tiahleigh’s body was found on the banks of the Pimpama River in the northern Gold Coast.

No further date for his matter has been fixed yet.

5. USA issues warning over ‘preparations’ for another chemical weapons attack in Syria.

The United States warned Syria’s leadership against staging a chemical weapons attack after Washington detected what appeared to be active preparations at a Syrian airfield used for such an attack in April, US officials said on Tuesday.

Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main international backer, denounced the warning and dismissed White House assertions that a strike was being prepared as “unacceptable,” raising the tension between Washington and Moscow over the Syrian civil war.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the United States had recently seen activity at Shayrat airfield, the same base targeted by a missile strike on April 6, AAP reports.

Davis said the activity was from “the past day or two.” He did not say how the United States collected its intelligence.

“This involved specific aircraft in a specific hangar, both of which we know to be associated with chemical weapons use,” Davis said.

The White House said on Monday it appeared the Syrian government was preparing for another chemical weapons attack and it warned Assad that he and his military would “pay a heavy price” if it went ahead.

The US strike on the Shayrat airfield followed the deaths of 87 people in what Washington said was a poison gas attack in rebel-held territory two days earlier. Syria denied it carried out the attack.

The White House said the recent preparations in Syria were similar to actions before the April attack. But Russia challenged the US intelligence.

“I am not aware of any information about a threat that chemical weapons can be used,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.

Russian officials have privately described the war in Syria as the biggest source of tension between Moscow and Washington, and the April cruise missile strike ordered by US President Donald Trump raised the risk of confrontation between them.

The Syrian military and foreign ministry did not immediately comment on the White House statement though a Syrian state-run television station, al-Ikhbariya, said the White House’s allegations were fabricated.

6. Google has been hit with a massive $3.59 billion fine in Europe.

The European Commission handed down a record 2.42 billion euro ($A3.59 billion) fine to Google on Tuesday for breaching EU antitrust rules after a seven-year investigation prompted by complaints from both sides of the Atlantic.

The fine represents 3 per cent of Alphabet/Google’s turnover in 2016. The biggest fine prior to that was US chipmaker Intel’s 1.06 billion euro penalty in 2009.

The Commission found that Google had systematically given prominent placement in searches to its own comparison shopping service and demoted those of rivals in search results, AAP reports.

The Commission wants the company to stop that, or face additional payments of five per cent of Alphabet’s average daily global turnover.

The action came after a seven-year long investigation prompted by scores of complaints from rivals such as US consumer review website Yelp, TripAdvisor, UK price comparison site Foundem, News Corp and lobbying group FairSearch.

Google may choose to appeal in EU courts but faces a long wait. It remains under Commission investigation in two other cases. These concern its Android mobile operating system and Google’s “AdSense for Search” platform.

Google and other US-based internet companies face increasing scrutiny and regulation from the EU regarding user privacy and data storage, most recently on messaging, email and voice services.

The EU also expects greater cooperation from tech companies on cyber security and counter-terrorism.

The Commission has a number of ongoing cases involving technology giants, notably Qualcomm which was accused in 2015 of using financial incentives and predatory pricing to force out competition.

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