GLOBAL SNAPSHOT

Rape suspect held

LOS ANGELES: A security guard who was arrested after a prostitute fell out of his car is suspected of raping more than a dozen women or girls as young as 15 at gunpoint in Los Angeles County, police said. Ferdinand Ervin Flowers, 35, of Long Beach, pleaded not guilty yesterday with kidnapping to commit rape, robbery and assault. He was being held on more than $1 million bail.

Trump ‘Stalinist’

WASHINGTON: On the same day that Donald Trump unveiled the winners of his much-touted “Fake News Awards”, maverick Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, himself a Republican, accused the US President of employing Stalinist language to “slur” and to undermine the free press in America.

New cave record

TULUM: Archaeologists and divers on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula have found a passage connecting two underwater caves, creating what they say is the world’s longest continuous flooded cave. The discovery has revealed a combined cave about 347km long.

IS still a threat

MOSUL: Barely a month after Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State group, the jihadists could still recapture areas of Iraq, officials say. Ali alBayati, a commander of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary units which fought alongside Iraqi security forces in a gruelling battle against the group, said the Nimrud region of northern Iraq could “fall at any time because security there is fragile”.

Earth in high-res

KAGOSHIMA: Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency yesterday successfully launched a new Earth observation satellite, equipped with X-band radar capable of obtaining highresolution terrain images.