Hey there from CNN. I'm David Rind with the five things you need to know for Monday, January 12th.

Protests in Iran have entered their third week and the death toll continues to rise.

Nearly all telecommunications and internet services have been cut, so it's hard to verify exactly what's going on.

But a U.S.-based rights group says more than 500

protesters have been killed in just over two weeks, with more than 10,000 people arrested.

President Donald Trump is currently weighing what he calls very strong options, including

potentially using the military.

Here's what he said yesterday.

The leaders of Iran call, they want a negation. I think they're tired of being beat up by the

United States. Iran's foreign minister has reiterated that the country is ready for negotiations

with the U.S., but added they are also, quote, completely prepared for war. CNN's Elena

Trine is at the White House.

There has been some concern among some top administration officials that they've been discussing

all of this about what military, specifically direct U.S. military action involvement inside

Iran could lead to.

Some are worried about the retaliation, of course, from Iran, which said that they would retaliate

against U.S.-based assets

abroad. But increasingly, from my conversations, the president is very much wanting to act and

make good on some of the threats against Iran.

We have more coming up, including a huge surge of federal agents in Minneapolis.

Stick around.

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