Morning briefing Monday 12th January

0:00This episode of the Times Radio News Briefing is sponsored by PwCWC. Staying competitive means getting ahead, not just keeping up. So how do business leaders cut through the noise and focus on what really matters. PwC takes you further with tech, from optimising the systems that put your data to work, to scaling AI from proof of concept to competitive edge. PwC helps you meet tomorrow's tech demands, so you can compete at a speed that rewrites the rules. Discover more at pwc.co.uk This is a Times Morning Briefing on Monday 12th January. I'm Daryl Jackson. A U.S.-based human rights agency says more than 500 people have now been killed during protests in Iran.

0:45The country's leader says their enemies are behind the demonstrations across the country. Donald Trump says the U.S. stands ready to help those taking to the streets. Farnas Fasihi, United Nations bureau chief of the New York Times, told Times Radio that people in Iran are desperate for change. Iranians protesting have been incredibly brave night after night. They've come out in tens of thousands of people in huge numbers like we've never seen really in decades coming out and saying we want an end to the Islamic regime. Iran has summoned the UK ambassador to Tehran over a protest in Iran's London embassy.

1:24Demonstrations were held outside the embassy in London yesterday and on Saturday. Police say two arrests were made at Saturday's protest after a man climbed onto the building's balcony and replaced Iran's current flag with the country's former imperial flag. The Times is reporting that senior MPs are preparing to tell the Home Secretary to sack the chief constable of West Midlands Police. It's after they concluded that Craig Guildford misled Parliament over the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a football match in Birmingham. Daisy Eastlake is political reporter for The Times. Sources told me that it was evident that the force had retrospectively gathered evidence to suit their decision-making and concluded that although sacking the chief constable would be, as they said, nuclear, they didn't see any other option for the Home Secretary.

2:11This is over the decision taken last autumn by West Midlands police to ban Maccabee Tel Aviv supporters from attending a Europa League fixture against Aston Villa in Birmingham. A man will appear in court later after human remains were found inside a flat on Merseyside. 65-year-old George Gordon from St Helens has been charged with preventing lawful and decent burial of a dead body and obstructing a coroner. He was arrested at the scene after police discovered the remains, which have not been formally identified, late on Thursday. A 58-year-old man remains in custody after being arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.

2:45Nearly 100 ,000 people have visited StepChange's website since the start of the year. The charity says the first Monday of 2026 was the busiest day in more than a year. Some 800 people also went through Debt Advice, which is higher than any day last year. The charity also says that for some people, money worries intensified over Christmas, with nearly 4 ,000 people visiting StepChange's website on Christmas Day. And the Met Office is warning heavy rain and melting snow and ice could lead to flooding in the wake of Storm Goretti. It comes after the storm brought gusts of almost 100 miles per hour and a rare red warning for dangerous stormy winds in the southwest last week.

3:25As temperatures increase, snow melts and a rapid thaw across the north of the UK, combined with further rain, could lead to flooding concerns. And you can hear more on all of those stories throughout the day on Times Radio.

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