Tony Blair

Michael Sheen, who played talk show host David Frost both on stage and now in the upcoming screen version of "Frost/Nixon," knows that the transition can be scary. "The great joy and fear about working in front of a camera is that it picks up everything," said Sheen. He rejoined his stage costar Frank Langella for director Ron Howard's adaptation of Peter Morgan's acclaimed play about the 1977 interviews that revived Frost's career and humanized a disgraced Nixon. The film opens Friday.

Three terrorism suspects arrested in northern England this month were detained in connection with an Internet threat against Prime Minister Gordon Brown, British news media reported. The BBC said the three men were being held in connection with a posting signed Al Qaeda in Britain that threatened the life of Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair. The statement, posted on a radical website, demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the release of some Muslim prison inmates.

A cathedral is an odd place for a coming-out party. But not, as it turns out, if you're a former prime minister of Britain and you're preparing to tell the world that God was one of your senior advisors during your 10 years in power. Speaking one recent evening under the lofty Byzantine vaults of Westminster Cathedral, Tony Blair ended his self-imposed silence on the subject, declaring that his faith has formed the essential backdrop to much of his political life.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was hired as an advisor to JPMorgan Chase & Co. -- a part-time post that his spokeswoman said would not affect his role as a Mideast peace envoy. Blair will give JPMorgan's senior management team "strategic advice and provide insights on global issues," spokeswoman Ruti Winterstein said. Blair's compensation was not disclosed.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the Church of England and converted to Catholicism, the faith of his wife and children. Blair converted during a Mass on Friday night at the private London chapel of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the church said. "I'm very glad to welcome Tony Blair into the Catholic Church," Murphy-O'Connor said.

Just how fascinating do Americans find Tony Blair? Certainly he's getting more screen time lately than any of our own leaders. Last year, the now-former British prime minister coaxed Elizabeth II into a more modern relationship with her people in "The Queen." The film belonged, of course, to Helen Mirren, who won pretty much every award available for her portrayal of the monarch in the weeks following Princess Diana's death, but Michael Sheen collected kudos if not statuary for his Blair.

The memoirs of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the object of an international bidding war that went on for days, have been acquired by imprints of Random House Inc. in the United States and England. "I hope my memoirs will provide a serious and thoughtful, but also entertaining, reflection on my time as a member of Parliament and as prime minister," Blair said in a statement issued Thursday by publishers Hutchinson in England and Alfred A. Knopf in the United States.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to write a book, a Blair representative said Thursday. The representative, who would not speak on the record because a deal has not yet been made, said that the book, probably a memoir, hasn't been started and is at least a few years from publication. There have been no negotiations or serious discussions with publishers, the representative said.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair met Tuesday with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in Jerusalem and the West Bank but avoided Hamas officials on the second day of his initial visit as the new Middle East envoy. "I think there is a sense of possibility, but whether that sense of possibility can be translated into something, that is something that needs to be worked at and thought about over time," Blair told reporters.

Tony Blair, starting his first visit to the Middle East as an international envoy, met Monday with Israeli officials and heard them blame dysfunctional Palestinian leadership for blocking progress toward peace. "The Palestinian Authority has to get its act together," an Israeli spokesman quoted Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as telling Blair, stressing "the importance of building healthy Palestinian institutions as an integral part of the peace process."