The U.S. Justice Department charges two Vietnamese citizens (Quoc Nguyen and Giang Hoang Vu) and a Canadian (David-Manuel Santos Da Silva) with running a massive cyberfraud ring that stole one billion email addresses, then sent spam offering knockoff software products of Adobe Systems Inc with the hacking having occurred between February 2009 and June 2012. The victim breaches include a massive 2011 attack on email marketing firm Epsilon, a unit of Alliance Data Systems Corp. Although the other two are in custody, Nguyen remains at large. The charge against Da Silva is conspiracy to commit money laundering. (Reuters)
A road accident along the highway between Ismaïlia and Cairo in Egypt, east of Cairo, involving a bus that collided with a microbus kills fifteen people. (AP)
Writing in the FIFA Weekly magazine, FIFA president Sepp Blatter calls Iran to end its "intolerable" ban on women attending soccer matches, describing the situation as one that "cannot continue." (CNN)
Health
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the country's first biosimilar drug, Zarxio (Europe: 2009, as Zarzio), made by Novartis. Biosimilars are a relatively new class of drugs designed to pave the way for less expensive versions of the complex biologics drug class, and they are not synthesized from chemicals like other drugs, but are made from living cells. Some well known biologics include Remicade and Enbrel for autoimmune diseases, and Herceptin and Avastin for cancer. Zarxio, used to prevent infection in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, is a close copy of Neupogen, made by Amgen. (The New York Times)
The New Taipei City district court sentences Cheng Chieh to death for the May 2014 knife attack on a Taipei Metro train that left four dead and 22 passengers injured. (AP)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John O. Brennan announces plans for a major restructuring and reorganization, including a focus on digital espionage (through the creation of the CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation). The plan will end some longstanding divisions, and create ten new centers that team analysts with operators, fostering collaboration and focus on a range of new security issues and threats, and replacing geographic division offices with hybrid mission centers modeled on the CIA Counterterrorism Center. (The Washington Post via MSN)
Customs officers at the Shahjalal International Airport catch Son Young Nam, a North Korean diplomat trying to smuggle an estimated $1.4 million worth of gold into Bangladesh. Bangladesh authorities release him but will still seek to press charges. (Reuters)
Madison Police Department officers fatally shoot an unarmed 19-year-old black teenager who was suspected of a recent battery. A struggle ensued between the suspect and an officer, and the teen was fatally shot. (Reuters via MSN)