Evening briefing on Monday 23rd June

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0:19This is your Times Evening Briefing on Monday the 23rd of June. 63 British citizens are being flown home from Israel as the Foreign Secretary tells Tehran to dial this thing down. An RAF flight left Tel Aviv flying to Cyprus. From there, the British nationals will be brought back to Britain this evening. David Lammy urged British citizens to register with the Foreign Office and said further updates would be sent to them. He called on Iran to de-escalate tensions. The Prime Minister has spoken to President Trump. I have spoken to Marco Rubio and Israeli Foreign Minister Saar. We have both been in touch with European and Middle Eastern partners.

0:56And this was why I spoke again to Minister Arachi yesterday as well. My message for Tehran was clear. take the off-ramp, dial this thing down and negotiate with the United States seriously and immediately. There have been further exchanges of strikes with Israel claiming they've attacked Iranian government targets, including the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, while a rocket fired by Iran is reported to have landed in an area south of Tel Aviv. The Home Secretary says she'll be prescribing Palestine action as a terrorist organisation by the end of next week. Yvette Cooper cited the group graffitiing two planes at RAF Bryce Norton last week as an example of the protesters' threat to national security.

1:39Raj Chadha is a lawyer who has represented members of the group before. Let's look at the 81 other organisations that are banned. Not one of them are banned because of risks about criminal damage. There are groups like al-Qaeda, groups like ISIS, where there is serious violence, what you regard as terrorism. A national investigation into maternity services in England is being launched by the government. Health Secretary Wes Streeting says centres are failing up and down the country and that there's been too much passing the buck. He's been meeting with parents whose children have died or become injured at two NHS hospitals in Nottingham.

2:18Former Conservative MP Theo Clarke is the founder of the Global Birth Trauma Alliance and a former chair of the UK's Birth Trauma Inquiry. She says she's surprised it's taken the government so long to make any announcement on maternity. To be honest, I was expecting so much more. I think families that gave evidence to the Birth Trauma Inquiry in Parliament will be disheartened by today's news because really it is just a rehash of the reports that I chaired and many others such as Donna Ockenden and I haven't seen any major substantial new changes today on how they're going to improve maternity care in UK hospitals.

2:56A man's been charged with the murder of his partner and mother of their two children. 46-year-old Annabelle Rook was found stabbed following a gas explosion at a house in London. 44-year-old Clifton George appeared in court earlier. A British man has been arrested for attempting to stage a mock wedding with a nine-year-old girl at Disneyland Paris. The 22-year-old, who was to be the groom, told police it was for a social media video. And Wladimir Zelensky has had lunch with the King as part of his visit to the UK. He's also had talks with Sikia Starmer this afternoon. You can follow The Times News Briefing on Spotify and listen live to Times Radio Online.

3:32That's your Times Evening Briefing on Monday 23rd June.

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