Portal:Current events/2015 March 5

March 5, 2015 (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

A knife-wielding assailant injures the American ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, in the South Korean capital city of Seoul. Authorities report that the injuries on his face and wrist are not life-threatening. (Yonhap News) (BBC)
Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013)
- Separate attacks in Baghdad kill at least eight people. (AP)
Hong Kong-based luxury hotel chain Mandarin Oriental confirms that credit card data has been stolen in a hack attack on the company's network. (BBC)

Arts and culture

The Indian government censors the documentary India's Daughter depicting a December 2012 gang rape and murder due to perceived incitement to violence that the outrage about the film might cause. Nevertheless, the BBC telecasts the film. (Daily Mail) (The Times of India)
The American Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will phase-out the inclusion of elephants in their performances by 2018. (AP)
His Eminence, Edward Cardinal Egan, the immediate past Archbishop-Emeritus of New York, dies in New York City at the age of 82. (The New York Times)

Business and economy

American pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc buys leukemia drugmaker Pharmacyclics Inc for $21 billion. (AP)
A New York state appellate court in Manhattan rules to approve in its entirety the 2011 settlement by Bank of America with 22 institutional investors including BlackRock Inc, MetLife Inc, and Allianz SE's Pacific Investment Management Co to resolve claims over $174 billion of mortgage securities issued by the former Countrywide Financial Corp. in a $8.5 billion settlement. (Reuters)
Dublin-based generic drugmaker, specialty drug supplier, and medical imaging agent producer Mallinckrodt Plc increases its presence in U.S. hospitals by buying privately held Ikaria Inc, a maker of a respiratory drug and its delivery system, for $2.3 billion from a group of investors led by private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC. The deal includes INOmax, which is the only approved product to treat hypoxic respiratory failure in infants through nitric oxide. (Reuters)
Energy-rich Kazakhstan suspends Russian fuel and gas imports to protect its domestic market from a surplus due to a weakened ruble which has sent ripples of economic uncertainty through Central Asia. (The Times of Central Asia)

Disasters and accidents

Tanzanian flooding kills 42 people near Lake Victoria in the Kahama District. (AP)
A Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-88 aircraft attempting to complete a snowing landing, veers to the left side off of a recently-plowed runway, thereby missing the end of runway emergency arresting device, and skids onto the edge of water embankment at LaGuardia Airport, New York, United States. (The Aviation Herald) (AP)
American actor Harrison Ford is in stable condition after he crash-lands his 1942 Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR single-engine World War II-era training plane at the Penmar Golf Course, in Venice, Los Angeles, California, just west of the Santa Monica Airport. (AP via MSN) (CNN)

Health

Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa
- Liberia's last known ebola patient is discharged from a treatment center in Monrovia. The country now needs 42 days without a subsequent diagnosed infection to be declared disease free. (The New York Times)

Law and crime

The manufacturer of a medical instrument for endoscopic procedures, Olympus Corp, lacked US FDA clearance to sell the current version when it caused an outbreak of infections, including two deaths, from an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria, "superbug" Carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center between October 2014 and January 2015 (see February 19). (AP)
A Phoenix, Arizona jury deadlocks in a second trial allowing convicted murderer American Jodi Arias to be spared the death penalty. She will be sent to prison for life for killing her lover in 2008. (AP)
The U.S. Supreme Court schedules oral arguments for hearing cases regarding the bans by states of gay marriage on April 28, 2015. (Reuters via MSN)
A mob storms the central jail in Dimapur, India, and kills Farid Khan, an undocumented migrant from Bangladesh in custody as a rape suspect. The mob ransacks and destroys over 20 shops and torches ten vehicles including a police jeep. (The Hindu)