Video saved the K-pop stars: Brave Girls reborn via YouTube

The fan-led ascent of the Brave Girls is a reversal of the usual K-pop model, where bands are usually assembled, trained intensively and launched by record companies

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  • What the papers say – April 10

    Philip’s death features on many Saturday front pages.

  • Pub-goers ‘will be forced to wear masks in beer gardens’ by ‘overzealous’ councils

    Pub-goers will be forced to wear masks in beer gardens in some parts of England as further lockdown restrictions are eased. From April 12, outdoor restaurants, non-essential shops and pub gardens will be allowed to open to the public. The rule is being enforced by some “overzealous councils” who have set up enforcement teams to monitor beer gardens, the Telegraph reports.

  • Ukrainian, Turkish presidents hold talks amid Donbass tensions with Russia

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Saturday, amid tensions between Kyiv and Moscow over a long-running conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region. Kyiv has raised the alarm over a buildup of Russian forces near the border between Ukraine and Russia, and over a rise in violence along the line of contact separating Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in Donbass.

  • Wellwishers continue to leave flowers for duke despite Covid concerns

    At Buckingham Palace a steady stream of people arrived to lay bouquets at the front gates.

  • Exclusive: More than half of people in England living in areas with almost no new Covid cases

    Over half of people in England now live in an area in which new cases of Covid have all but vanished, with some places not reporting a case in public data for more than a month. Infections have been so low in areas with a total population of 34.5 million that Public Health England has redacted their latest weekly case tallies in order to protect the privacy of those – if any – who test positive. These 4,307 areas could have had at most two new cases but potentially zero in the seven days to April 4 – and 1,091, home to 8.2 million people, have had their data suppressed every week since the end of February. News that Covid infections are fading in parts of England comes in the week that Boris Johnson confirmed that the lifting of lockdown would continue as planned with the outdoor reopening of pubs and restaurants, as well as non-essential shops, on Monday. Underpinning the Government's green light are four tests which, apart from the continued success of the UK's vaccine drive, include infections remaining low enough to avoid a surge in hospitalisations that could overwhelm the NHS after unlocking.

  • How will the Queen – and the monarchy – cope with the loss of Prince Philip?

    Over the next few months and years, the Queen will – as she has already – come to rely increasingly on Prince Charles for advice and guidance about the future of The Firm

  • 'He Ran in Front of My Car': Police Release Footage of Cruiser Striking Autistic Teenager

    The Lexington Police Department on April 10 released footage showing a patrol car hitting a 19-year-old man in Garden Springs, Kentucky, last month.Police said they responded to a report on March 30 that the man, named as Liam Long, had threatened his case worker. Local reports said the autistic man was in the middle of a mental health crisis.Police said Long produced a knife when an officer made contact with him in a parking lot on Larkspur Drive. This footage shows a foot pursuit before Long is hit by the patrol car.Police said the patrol car was traveling about 40mph and had its emergency lights flashing, adding that the collision was unavoidable because the suspect ran onto the road.Local reports said Long suffered a brain bleed, a fractured nose and multiple lacerations after being hit by the cruiser. His family reportedly said he remains in hospital. Credit: Lexington Police Department via Storyful

  • Mum-of-three, 27, who filmed herself having sex with boy, 14, is jailed

    Sophie Hindmarch was exposed when the child told their father.

  • Belfast riots: Two men charged and police pelted with petrol bombs as Northern Ireland disorder continues

    Roads have been blocked and cars set on fire amid ongoing unrest in Northern Ireland

  • The Government's Media Blackout Is Cynical And Irresponsible

    Weaponising Prince Philip’s death to avoid scrutiny from the media and public typifies the cynical opportunism at the core of this government, writes Kimi Chaddah.

  • While world leaders looked dignified paying tribute to Prince Philip, Boris Johnson was a shabby embarrassment

    Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

  • Nancy Pelosi: House Speaker considered retirement in 2016 but stayed after Trump’s election

    New book claims California Democrat was ready to move on – once Hillary Clinton was elected

  • Derek Chauvin trial: Police restraint was more than George Floyd 'could take' given his condition, says medical examiner

    The police's restraint of George Floyd was more than he "could take" given the condition of his heart, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy of the 46-year-old said on Friday. Dr Andrew Baker was testifying in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who knelt on Mr Floyd for more than nine minutes during an arrest in Minneapolis last May. Dr Baker, who has served as the chief medical examiner of Hennepin County, Minnesota, since 2004, said the police officers' compression of Mr Floyd's neck and the restraint of his body were the primary causes of his death. Dr Baker was one of the most heavily anticipated witnesses to take to the stand in the closely-watched trial. His testimony added significant heft to the prosecution's case that Mr Chauvin killed Mr Floyd when he pinned the unarmed and handcuffed black man to the ground until he could no longer beg for air.

  • It's all in the telling: Why Europe's approach to the AstraZeneca jab differs from ours

    We humans like nothing better than storytelling - and the more familiar the book the better. It’s why the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet has been told a thousand times. Explaining things via common narrative is one of our many tricks for making sense of the world quickly. The oldest story of them all is the clash of nations and it’s through this prism the story of the AstraZeneca jab in Europe is oft told. How else to explain why the European Union began by limiting the vaccine's use in the old only to reverse ferret, prioritise the elderly and then restrict its use in the young? The truth, of course, is more complicated. The bumpy ride the AstraZeneca vaccine has had in Europe (and North America) has much more to do with the different ways in which regulators approach evidence and judge risk than politics. Differing circumstances have also played an important role. The initial decision of some countries, France and Germany included, to restrict the use of the vaccine to younger age groups stems from the fact the vaccine was not well tested among older cohorts in the original trials, where only 13 per cent of participants were age 65 and older. Add to this the fact that the tolerance and effectiveness of many vaccines falls away in older age groups and the argument for prudence becomes apparent - even though it was never clear cut. As The Telegraph reported at the time, the European Centre For Disease Control (ECDC) was making this point long before any vaccines had been licenced. In a paper published on October 26 it said: “Before pursuing this [age-based] approach, acceptable levels of vaccine safety and efficacy need to be demonstrated among older adults. At this stage, this information is not known”. Instead, the ECDC recommended an “adaptive” approach - one which would flex as more was learnt about the jabs. With a glut of AstraZeneca vaccine coming our way and a second wave of the virus brewing, the UK authorities emphasised the other side of the risk-reward equation. Yes, there was a lack of evidence for the vaccine in older groups, but there was plenty of data to show Covid-19 kills older people at a much higher rate. The risk of death from Covid for during a surge in the virus is 1-in-1,848 for a healthy 70 year old man, according to Oxford's QCovid calculator. This compares to 1-in-250,000 for a 30 healthy year old - a 135-fold difference. With hindsight, the UK authorities made the right call. The AstraZeneca jab and others have turned out to be extremely effective in older groups and the decision to prioritise them is estimated to have saved about 10,000 lives in the UK to date. Following its “adaptive” strategy, Europe has rightly followed suit. But what of the decision in parts of Europe and Canada to now restrict the vaccine to older groups - those above 55 or 60. How to make sense of that? The same culture of caution - shaped by differing circumstances - may again help explain it. Europe was hit disproportionately hard by scandal following the 2009 swine flu pandemic when the Pandemrix vaccine, widely distributed to health care workers, was linked with rare cases of narcolepsy. Some 1,300 people have been affected among the roughly 30 million vaccinated across Europe, but with only around 100 in the UK. Scientists in Germany and Scandinavia, in particular, have become black-belts in pharmacovigilance in the wake of the scandal; few if any are as good at analysing the thousands of adverse reaction reports that flow in when a new drug is launched. They are expert at sifting the early signals of a problem from the mountains of incoming chaff. It was Norwegian and German regulators who first spotted the rare blot clogging issue now linked to the AstraZeneca jab. The UK authorities last week said they have since identified 79 cases here, putting the estimated incidence risk at about 1-in-250,000. The reported rate “varies very much with how good the reporting system in a member state is and how good cases are being identified”, said a spokesman for the EMA last week. “In Germany, a lot of work has been done and I think there is a reporting rate of 1-in-100,000. “We know that in the UK the reporting rate is much lower, so that can have many many causes, but for the moment I think it's safe to assume that the reporting rate is around 1-in-100,000.” In the UK, we have now followed suit and offered a choice of vaccines to those under the age of 30. But in other countries the cut off is higher - 55 in Canada, for instance. It is important to note that these decisions are not (for the moment at least) driven by the incidence of clots being higher in the young. There is as yet no firm data to show the risk varies with age, or indeed sex. Instead, the decision to restrict the use of the vaccine in the young comes from the other side of the equation - the much lower Covid risk in younger cohorts. Why the difference in ages? Again that has more to do with circumstance than politics. In Europe, they currently have more of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine and so can offer more choice. In the UK, we are more reliant on AstraZeneca - for the moment at least. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

  • Russian space programme facing existential crisis as Elon Musk helps US relaunch Nasa ambitions

    It took four international crews and almost a year before anyone onboard the International Space Station could locate the air leak, untraceable by equipment at hand, which had been driving the cosmonauts insane. One evening last October, Russian cosmonaut Ivan Vagner in a desperate attempt to find that tiny hole sucking up precious air ripped up a tea bag inside one of the station’s segments, sending the tea leaves flying into weightlessness. A day later, he saw the tea leaves cluster around a tiny scratch that had been leaking air all along. Mr Vagner’s ingenuity won him plaudits back home but the incident at the 22-year-old core segment of the station has laid bare Russia’s withering space dream as the country is nearing the 60th anniversary of the first human space flight. By the end of February, the Russian space agency reported six scratches on the Zvezda module which were leaking air. Yuri Gagarin took off for his maiden flight 60 years ago on Monday - 12 April, 1961 - in a triumph of Soviet science in its rivalry with the United States. Now Russia’s landmark space programme is facing an existential crisis due to mismanagement and a lack of vision as the United States and China have left Russia far behind in the space race.

  • Who will be the 30 people attending Prince Philip’s funeral?

    Queen must take into account strict limit on numbers due to Covid crisis

  • Saudi Arabia announces the execution of three soldiers for 'high treason'

    Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed three soldiers for "high treason", the defence ministry said, in a rare public announcement that accused them of colluding with an unspecified enemy. The executions come as a Saudi-led military campaign intensifies in neighbouring Yemen and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler, consolidates his grip on power.The soldiers were convicted of "the crime of high treason in cooperation with the enemy" in a way that threatens the kingdom and its military interests, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.The statement named the three soldiers -- Mohammed bin Ahmed, Shaher bin Issa and Hamoud bin Ibrahim -- without identifying which enemy they were accused of aiding.Saudi Arabia, a Sunni powerhouse, views Shiite Iran as its main regional foe and identifies Yemen's Tehran-aligned Houthi rebels as a major security threat to the oil-rich kingdom.The statement makes a rare announcement of military executions in the kingdom, which is known to be highly secretive about its armed forces."The fact that the names of the decedents were publicised means the Saudis must consider their alleged misconduct to be exceptionally egregious and thus worthy of exemplary punishment," David Des Roches, from the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, told AFP.The defence ministry said the soldiers were executed in the military's Southern Command, based close to the border with Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is leading a six-year campaign against Houthi rebels.Riyadh led a military coalition into Yemen in March 2015 to prop up the internationally recognised government, but it has struggled to oust the Houthis.It has also faced a surge in missile and drone attacks against the kingdom.Fighting has intensified for the key Yemeni region of Marib, with 53 pro-government and Houthi rebel fighters dead in the past 24 hours, loyalist military officials said Saturday.The Houthis have been trying to seize oil-rich Marib, the government's last significant pocket of territory in the north, since February.Consolidating powerThe executions come as Prince Mohammed, the 35-year-old heir to the throne, tightens his control on power.Prince Mohammed -- the son of King Salman, the kingdom's ageing monarch -- is already viewed as the country's day-to-day ruler, controlling all the major levers of government, from defence to the economy.He holds the title of defence minister, while his younger brother Prince Khalid bin Salman is the deputy.Over the past three years, the crown prince has mounted a sweeping crackdown on critics and rivals, with the imprisonment of prominent royal family members, business tycoons, clerics and activists.In March last year, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a brother of King Salman, and former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef were detained, multiple sources said.Saudi authorities have not publicly commented on their ongoing detention, which analysts see as an attempt by Prince Mohammed to stamp out traces of internal dissent.The kingdom has long faced criticism for one of the world's highest rates of executions and what human rights campaigners call an opaque judicial system.But earlier this year, the government-backed Human Rights Commission (HRC) reported a sharp drop in executions in 2020, as the kingdom seeks to blunt international criticism of its human rights record.The HRC said it documented 27 executions in 2020, a decrease of 85 percent over the previous year, due in part to a moratorium on the death penalty for drug-related offences.Since the beginning of this year, Saudi Arabia has carried out the death penalty against 20 people, according to a tally based on official figures published by state media.(AFP)

  • The scandal that wasn’t: Republicans deflated as nation shrugs at Hunter Biden revelations

    The scandal that wasn’t: Republicans deflated as nation shrugs at Hunter Biden revelationsTrump and his allies foresaw a ticking timebomb centred on the president’s son – but it has not turned out that way Hunter Biden, middle, with his half-sister Ashley at Joe Biden’s inauguration in January. Photograph: Carolyn Kaster/AP

  • A&E ‘swamped’ with patients seeking help for mild Covid jab side-effects

    A&E ‘swamped’ with patients seeking help for mild Covid jab side-effects. Emergency departments report surge in cases of headaches linked to AstraZeneca jab amid concerns of blood clots