10 things you need to know this Monday

Slept through the Today programme? Never read the Sunday papers? Missed Andrew Marr? Unclear just how much of a mess Tony Blair is in? The First Post's new Monday morning service, posted at 8am, is designed to help...

BLAIR KNEW WAR 'WAS ILLEGAL'
Former prime minister Tony Blair today denied that he had bullied his Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith into keeping to himself any doubts about the legality of war in Iraq. According to the Mail on Sunday, Goldsmith wrote to Blair in July 2002 saying an invasion to topple Saddam Hussein would be a serious breach of international law. Blair was reportedly furious and had Goldsmith barred from Cabinet meetings. He also kept Goldsmith's advice from his Cabinet colleagues, the paper claimed. More...

US COPS 'EXECUTED'
Four police officers, three men and one woman, were shot dead when a gunman opened fire on them in a coffee shop near the McChord Air Force base in Tacoma, Washington, 40 miles south of Seattle, on Sunday morning. A county sheriff's spokesman described it as an "execution" and a "flat out ambush". Police this morning searched a house in Seattle for the gunman, identified as Maurice Clemmons, but drew a blank. The manhunt continues. More...

TIGER WOODS DENIES 'DOMESTIC'
Golfer Tiger Woods issued a statement on Sunday denouncing the "many false, unfounded and malicious rumours" circulating in the media following the car crash outside his Florida home early on Friday morning. He said: "The only person responsible for the accident is me." Media reports say he fled his home after his wife, Elin Nordegren, "went ghetto" because of a National Enquirer claiming he was having an affair with a New York party hostess, Rachel Uchitel. Both Uchitel and Woods's agent have denied the Enquirer claim. More...

BIN LADEN: MISSED CHANCE
A US Senate report blames former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US Army chief Gen Tommy Franks for missing an opportunity to capture Osama Bin Laden three months after 9/11. The two men rejected requests for a massive contingent of troops to attack Bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan, allowing the al-Qaeda leader to escape into Pakistan where he has been hiding ever since. Meanwhile Gordon Brown has said Pakistan must do more to "break" al-Qaeda and find Bin Laden. Ahead of sending 500 more troops to Afghanistan, the PM told the BBC that questions needed to be asked about why nobody had been able "to spot or detain or get close to" the al-Qaeda leader and his number two, Ayman Zawahiri.

GRIFFIN TO COPENHAGEN
The MEP Nick Griffin, leader of the ultra right BNP, has been chosen as one of 15 representatives of the European parliament to attend the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, even though he is a climate change denier. He recently denounced as "cranks" those scientists who fear the consequences of climate change. "Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao," he said in a speech in the EU parliament.

BOYLE GOES TO NUMBER ONE
The Britain's Got Talent runner-up, Susan Boyle, has sold more than 400,000 copies of her first album, I Dreamed a Dream, making it the best-selling debut album in British chart history. The 48-year-old singer from West Lothian was nicknamed the "hairy angel". But the show's creator, Simon Cowell, said: "She opened her mouth and the world fell in love with her". Meanwhile, Lloyd Daniels is the latest to be voted off Cowell's other show, The X Factor.

IRAN'S NUCLEAR THREAT
A confrontation between the West and Tehran over Iran's nuclear ambitions looks more likely after the Iranian government ordered the building of 10 new uranium enrichment sites. The Foreign Office reacted by saying it was "clearly a matter of serious concern" adding that "it would be a deliberate breach of five UN security council resolutions". Tehran insists the only purpose is to produce peaceful nuclear power.

BIG HOPES FOR 'CYBER MONDAY'
Online retailers believe today could be their biggest ever day of trading as consumers prepare to start spending their final monthly pay cheque before Christmas. Visa reckons £300m could be spent in a day on Christmas presents. This follows the release on Sunday of better-than-expected figures for the past week from John Lewis, showing a 22 per cent increase in counter sales on the same week last year. The chain sold £90m worth of goods sold in a week - "astonishingly good" figures, according to analysts. More...

SWISS 'NO' TO MINARETS
In an embarrassing blow to the traditionally neutral Swiss government, the people of Switzerland have voted in a referendum to ban the construction of any new minarets. The country of 7m people is home to 300,000 Muslims mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey. The right-wing initiative to stop "further Islamisation" was not expected to succeed. But Sunday's result shows 57.5 per cent voted for the initiative and 42.5 against. In one province, Appenzell Innerrhoden, the anti-Muslim vote went as high as 71 per cent.

JORDAN'S DRESSAGE
Katie Price, aka glamour model Jordan, liked to dress her recent boyfriend Alex Reid in women's clothes before they had sex, the News of the World revealed yesterday. The paper claimed to have obtained "explosive out-takes" from I'm a Celebrity in which Jordan talked of her four-month fling with cage fighter Reid. The paper also had a word of warning for Spurs and England striker Jermain Defoe: fresh out of the jungle, Jordan has him in her sights as a potential new boyfriend.