ECUADOR – “Yesterday I was killed.” So begins a Facebook post, now spreading virally, that’s written from the perspective of two Argentinean female backpackers killed in Ecuador. “I refused to be touched, and they smashed my skull with a stick,” the post, written by Paraguayan student Guadalupe Acosta, goes on. “They stabbed me and I was left to bleed to death. Like trash, they put me in a black polythene bag, wrapped with duct tape and threw me on to a beach, where hours later they found me.”

Media reports say Maria Coni, 22, and Marina Menegazzo, 21, were sexually assaulted and killed in February while traveling in Ecuador. The pair were reportedly killed by two men who had offered them a place to stay. The post written in their name has now had more than 730,000 shares over the past two weeks. It’s also sparked a social media debate over victim-blaming and women’s right to safely travel alone.

(CNN)…[+]

NIGERIA – More than 130 people are suspected to have died from a Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria, according to statistics from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The disease can cause fever and hemorrhaging of various parts of the body and can be spread through contact with an infected rat. Person to person transmission is also possible, albeit less common. West Africa as a region is seeing a flare-up of the disease, but Nigeria is experiencing much higher mortality rates than usual. On average, Lassa fever is deadly in 1% of all individuals infected, with higher rates of 15% morbidity among people hospitalized for the illness, but the current outbreak in Nigeria has seen more than 50% of those affected dying from their infection. According to NCDC’s latest report, dated 14 March 2016, the total number of reported cases is 254 and the total number of deaths (suspected, probable and confirmed) is 137, with a Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 53.9%. Lassa fever outbreaks occur most years in West Africa. Each year, the virus infects an estimated 100,000 to 300,000 and is responsible for 5,000 deaths in the region as a whole.(CNN)…[+]

USA – Meet Rambo, a gentle alligator whose Florida owner says he “eats at the dinner table, sleeps in my bed and follows me around like my dogs.”

But now his owner, 55-year-old Mary Thorn, is fighting to keep him since she was recently denied a permit for the 125-pound gator. Thorn told ABC News today that she’s had a permit to keep the 15-year-old alligator ever since she rescued and brought him home more than seven years ago, when Rambo was just a little over a foot long.

However, the gator has since grown to be over 6 feet long, and a recently added condition for a permit says that gators over 6 feet need to be kept on a property with at least 2.5 acres of land, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC) spokesman Gary Morse.(goodmorningamerica)…[+]