In a terrifying incident, a US tourist from New Mexico was killed by an elephant in Zambia after it attacked her vehicle during a safari drive on Wednesday. Officials reported that the elephant pulled Juliana Gle Tourneau, 64, out of the vehicle and trampled her, Metro reported. The incident occurred near the Maramba Cultural Bridge in Livingstone when the group had stopped due to traffic caused by an elephant herd.

She was taken to a clinic in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, where she was declared dead on arrival. According to a police statement, her injuries included deep wounds on the right shoulder blade and forehead, a fractured left ankle, and a slightly depressed chest.

Ms Tourneau died around 5.50 pm ”after being knocked from a parked vehicle which had stopped due to traffic caused by elephants around the Maramba Cultural Bridge”, Southern Province Police Commissioner Auxensio Daka told Zambian station ZNBC on Friday.

Officials did not say whether anyone else was injured or what led to the elephant’s aggression.

This tragic event marks the second fatal elephant attack on a US tourist in Zambia this year. In March, Gail Mattson, a 79-year-old woman from Minnesota, was killed in a similar incident during a game drive in Zambia’s Kafue National Park. An elephant charged and overturned the truck, resulting in her death and injuries to five others. 

In response to these incidents, Zambian authorities have urged tourists to exercise extreme caution while observing wildlife. Similar concerns have been raised in neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe and Botswana, which have also reported increasing elephant populations and deadly attacks in recent years.

According to experts, human deaths are rare in encounters with elephants. ”This is a freak accident. It’s probably just some sort of coming together of unfortunate circumstances that led to this,” Nikhil Advani, a senior director at the World Wildlife Fund, a nonprofit that works on environmental protection and conservation efforts told the New York Times. 

A disgruntled British tourist in Thailand finds himself in hot water over alleged online revenge. 21-year-old Alexander was arrested for supposedly posting fake negative reviews about a Phuket restaurant, according to The Metro.

The trouble began when Alexander, according to reports, tried to use the restaurant as a shortcut to his home but was refused entry for not being a customer. Seeking payback, Alexander is accused of enlisting his friends to flood the restaurant with one-star reviews, causing its rating to plunge from a respectable 4.8 to a concerning 3.1 out of 5 stars, as per the news outlet.

The restaurant owner, understandably upset by the sudden influx of negativity and the potential impact on their business, filed a complaint. This led to Alexander’s arrest by the Central Investigation Bureau at his new Bangkok apartment. The arrest warrant, issued last August, accuses him of a crime with a surprising name: “entering false computer data likely to cause damage to the general public.”

Alexander maintains his innocence but is now facing legal proceedings in Phuket after being transferred to the Sakhu Police Station there.

This isn’t an isolated incident. In 2020, an American tourist in Phuket learned the hard way about Thailand’s strict defamation laws. He was arrested for a negative TripAdvisor review accusing a hotel of “modern-day slavery.” The tourist was eventually released after an apology, but the case serves as a cautionary tale for online critics visiting Thailand, where even seemingly harmless reviews can have serious consequences.

Defamation is a criminal offence in Thailand and carries a punishment of up to two years in prison.