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Brexit: Johnson to push for election if EU offers longer delay

It's quite confusing. Having won a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill - aimed at bringing into effect the Brexit deal he's reached with the EU - Boris Johnson lost a second vote on its timetable, as MPs rejected the idea of getting it through Parliament in three days. So the government "paused" the bill.

EU leaders are now considering whether to delay the Brexit deadline beyond 31 October, which the prime minister was forced under law to request in a letter at the weekend. But Mr Johnson and his colleagues don't want the date postponed as far ahead as the end of January. And if EU leaders offer this, the PM will call for a general election.

The problem is that he doesn't have enough MPs to trigger one and needs the support of other parties to make this happen. We explain the rules.

House of Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg called the situation "purgatory". So what could happen next? Here's BBC Europe editor Katya Adler's take on the EU's position.

And BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg writes that the Halloween deadline for Brexit is now unlikely to be met.

Plus, the BBC's Brexitcast reacts to the extraordinary events in Parliament on Tuesday.

Blood pressure pills 'work better at bedtime'

Experts believe the body's biological "clock" - or 24-hour rhythms - mean its response to medication varies by the time of day. With this in mind, a Spanish study suggests taking blood pressure pills shortly before bedtime to increase protection against heart attacks and strokes. Here are the findings.

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Paralympian ends her life through euthanasia

A Belgian Paralympian who won medals in wheelchair races at the 2012 and 2016 Games has ended her life through euthanasia at the age of 40. Marieke Vervoort had an incurable degenerative muscle disease, causing constant pain, seizures and paralysis in her legs. Read the full story.

Why prohibition failed so spectacularly

By Tim Harford

Economists have a bit of an image problem. People think we shamelessly massage statistics, overconfidently make terrible predictions, and are no fun at drinks parties.

Perhaps some of the blame for this lies with the man who, a century ago, was probably the most famous economist in the world - Irving Fisher. A fitness fanatic, he avoided meat, tea, coffee and chocolate.

He didn't drink alcohol either, and was an enthusiastic supporter of prohibition, America's ill-fated attempt to outlaw its manufacture and sale, which began in 1920.

It was a remarkable change - the country's fifth-largest industry was suddenly made illegal.

Read the full article

What the papers say

"Brexit is in purgatory" is the Daily Telegraph's headline, echoing Jacob Rees-Mogg's description, as the press comes to terms with the government's defeat on the timetabling of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. But, the Financial Times notes, it followed a vote in favour of the bill itself. Invoking the spirit of the Little Britain teenager Vicky Pollard, the Sun's headline is "Yeah but no but..." And the Daily Mail reports that MPs have turned "triumph into disaster". Elsewhere, the Times leads on a possible "turning point" in the treatment of Alzheimer's and the Daily Star says it has found a man claiming to have "kidnapped" a cardboard cut-out of singer Sir Cliff Richard from an airport.

Daily digest

Turkey Syria offensive Erdogan and Putin strike deal over Kurdish forces

Britons killed abroad UK support "patchy" for grieving families

Premature births Babies born at 22 weeks "can now survive"

Sex work The students turning to it to pay bills

If you see one thing today

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Why smart people do stupid things

If you listen to one thing today

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Esther Duflo and women in economics

If you read one thing today

Should children with type 2 diabetes get a gastric band?

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Lookahead

12:00 Prime Minister's Questions takes place in the House of Commons.

15:00 Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the US House Financial Services Committee.

On this day

1956 Tens of thousands of people take to the streets in Hungary to demand an end to Soviet rule.

From elsewhere

The lessons of a shootout in Sinaloa (Economist)

I've been pregnant nine times. I have one child (The Atlantic)

Why Helen Mirren's Catherine the Great is a sexual revolutionary (Guardian)

As homelessness surges in California, so does a backlash (New York Times)