A relative of fallen Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad has become the first official linked to the regime to go on trial. Atef Najib, a cousin of the deposed leader, appeared emotionless as he was paraded in a cage wearing a striped prison uniform as he goes on trial accused of mass shootings and torturing children.Assad, who fled to Moscow as Islamist-led forces closed in on the capital, and his brother Maher will be tried in absentia.Najib, whose head is shaved, was seen perching on the corner of a wooden bench as…

This time it’s personal. I suppose I should not be so shocked and surprised. You’d have to be living under a boulder not to know that there have been more than 120 closures of private schools in the UK since Labour decided to put VAT on school fees.And, depending on your political point of view, you are either playing the world’s smallest violin at this news or, in the firm belief that, much like Jaffa Cakes, education should not be taxed, as livid as matron during a nits outbreak.And reading last week that the latest school…

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made what turned out to be an ominously accurate prediction before gunfire erupted at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday night.“It will be funny. It will be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room,” Leavitt told Fox News on the red carpet just moments before the dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel. “Everyone should tune in, it’s gonna be really great. I’m looking forward to hearing it.” AdvertisementPresident Donald…

In a town where the red dirt is littered with the detritus of broken dreams, Sabastian Sawe was just another face going nowhere.It was 2020, three years after Sawe had moved to the Kenyan running mecca of Iten, and he was drifting among a mass of aspiring runners destined never to make the grade. Sawe had long been good, but in the cut-throat world of Kenyan distance running, good is wildly insufficient.The idea that this was the man who would one day become the first person ever to legally run a marathon in under two hours…