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A front page of The Guardian newspaper from January 12, 2026, featuring major geopolitical news coverage. The layout includes stories about Iran warning the US against intervention amid violent protests with rising death tolls, alongside lighter feature sections about friendship and health, TV reviews, and political commentary about criminal justice reform. Extracted text: TV review The ice-hockey romance that is all sex 😱 G2 The secret to good health? Friends G2 The Guardian Monday 12 January 2026 £3.20 | €3.70 From £2.30 for subscribers Iran warns US not to attack as protester death toll soars William Christou Beirut Deepa Parent and Lorenzo Tondo Jerusalem Iran warned the US not to attack over protests that have rocked the country since 16 September. Officials weighed the options for a response from Washington and the reported death toll from the demonstrations soared into the hundreds. At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the Iran Human Rights Activists News Agency (IHRANA), including 490 protesters. The group reported that more than 10,600 people had been arrested in Iran so far. Another rights monitor, the US-based Iran Human Rights group, said yesterday that at least 192 protesters had been killed. Casualty figures varied between rights groups as they struggled to access accurate information because of the information blackout. But all expected to be undercounts. The regime has not supplied its own figures and it was not possible to independently verify the toll. The big rise in the reported death toll came as the authorities intensified their crackdown on the protests, now in their second week. The violence has also raised the likelihood of a US intervention. The US said it would support the protesters if the Iranian government killed them, reiterated his threat to intervene on Saturday as the protests raged. "Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The US stands ready to... A Protests in Tehran, where more demonstrations were expected last night as the authorities' crackdown continued PHOTOGRAPH: MAHSA/MIDDLE EAST IMAGES/GETTY Mandelson declines to say sorry for Epstein friendship Former UK ambassador says he knew nothing of the disgraced financier's sex life: 'Maybe because I was gay, I was kept separate' Page 9 → Slashing jury trials could 'clear backlog in a decade' Exclusive David Lammy, deputy prime minister, urged Labour MPs yesterday to back judge-only trials in thousands of criminal cases Page 2 →